USA Today

14 Oct 2009

Advice Search Engines Use Your Friends To Provide Better Results

Jon Swartz 

Search isn't just for Google, Microsoft and Yahoo anymore.

Despite their market dominance, there are pockets of opportunity as more consumers search results for breaking news and obscure trivia. That has put a premium on help search services that provide answers in real-time on topics ranging from recipes and car repairs to movie and restaurant recommendations.

Aardvark is a good example. Today, it unveiled a redesigned site (design credit Method, www.method.com) and repositioned itself as a "social search engine." The site can be accessed via Facebook Connect, Twitter, iPhone and instant messages.

Aardvark is one of several advice searches, but its results depend on the expertise of one's social-networking friends, friends-of-friends, classmates and co-workers. Other services, like kgb and ChaCha, are similar but with trained "guides." Yahoo Answers is one of the biggest players in the space.

"Consider Aardvark your very own brain trust of experts who are ready to help within minutes," says Damon Horowitz, Aardvark's co-founder and chief technology officer. "It searches for people's knowledge and experience that they may not have written, but is in their head."

Method

Method crafts brand experiences that help businesses harness the competitive advantage of design. Your brand should tell a consistent, inspiring story at every consumer touchpoint. For that, you need a new approach. A new logic. A new Method.

PSFK

11 Aug 2010

The Power of Immediate Feedback

Kyle Studstill

Adam Dole
The success of any new product or service relies on more than just new features and functions, bells and whistles, or a creative campaign. Successful games are known for their addictive levels of engagement. How can businesses leverage game-like design principles to create greater value for products and services over time?
Gaming for Behavior Change

Place, Space, and the Mobile Interface

Claudia Bernett
For brands and consumers, what are the implications of hyper-connectivity?

The Customer Journey and Repair/Return Policies

Jade Dalton

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In thinking about service design, perhaps the most forgotten and un-sexy aspect is a company's repair/return policy.