NP: Yeasayer, Odd Blood

I'm starting to get the sense that Laurie Sullivan isn't fond of social media and real-time search. I linked to some of the comments about real-time search before, and yesterday she starts off with this:

The Internet has become a cesspool of information without a funnel to siphon the garbage. It makes finding answers to questions that much more difficult. But what if you could enter a question in a search box and direct that traffic to experts who can answer the question, whether on a PC or mobile phone?

Aardvark has the technology. And Google acquired it, confirms Damon Horowitz, Aardvark's co-founder and chief technology officer.

I can't really say I disagree. The signal-to-noise ratio seems to be in danger of degrading across the board with this move towards immediacy and the volume of user-generated content social media affords. But I wonder if something like Aardvark -- which doesn't really strike me as "social search" as much as it is a one-to--many/many-to-one communications tool -- really cuts through the clutter as much as it establishes a pathway entirely separate to that clutter. It might, but I'm not convinced at first blush.