Vark might reduce the noise and clutter on social networks

Vark (now owned by Google) is an interesting company that aims to help build up the hive mind by sharing questions you have with the people in your extended social network (friends of friends) most likely able to answer the question.  This may solve one of the most pesky problems of trying to get advice on facebook, twitter, and other social networks -- you're often asking, say, 400 people a question that perhaps 5 actually know the answer.  Most people will just ask all 400 if they don't know which 5 will have the knowledge, which means that 395 people will be reading something irrelevant.

Vark claims that it will find the right people in your extended network to ask the question.  I asked one question about information scrap management, and the answers that came back were decently good.

The service is free and provides no financial incentive for answering questions -- it simply plays off the innate desire of people to share knowledge and help strangers, which is the all-powerful force that built Wikipedia.

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I will admit that certain kinds of broad question (eg what kind of car should I get given my constraints of blahblahblah) tend to create big long discussions that become a lot of fun for all participants, and those questions are better served on social networks where they become hot discussion topics.

Sign up, give it a try.  Let me know what you think.