What Aardvark Can Do for Google

Yesterday brought the news that Google has officially purchased Aardvark, a small San-Francisco-based social search startup that happens to have been created by former Google employees. The timing, coming just two days after Google unveiled Buzz, can't be coincidental--but what can Aardvark do for Google? An awful lot, as it turns out.

Aardvark is a question-and-answer service more than a search engine. You ask a question via email or instant message, and it looks through your list of friends...