To me the critical question around this move is this: Will the Aardvark acquisition be a Dodgeball, or will it be a Applied Semantics? With Dodgeball, Google bought a promising startup in a strategically important space, but instead of integrating the technology and committing, it let it languish (the founders left and started Foursquare). Google later determined it must play in the space, and rolled out any number of features inside its mobile, map, and even Gmail products that mimic Dodgeball's early features.

With Applied Semantics, Google again bought a promising startup in a strategically important space, but this time it successfully integrated the company's technology and team, driving a crucial new business - AdSense - to become a critical and game changing business for the company.

So which is Aardvark? I'm not sure anyone at either company is sure, but Google is spending a reported $50 million to make sure no one else can find out. I do know enough to say that the goal would be to see Aardvark integrated into the main search interface, such that when you ask Google a question, it would give you the option of "asking a human" through the 'vark service.

If the goal of Vark is to find the right person to answer your question, then I imagine it could also be used to find the right person(s) to buy your products. I am wondering if Google bought Vark for no other reason than to enhance their Adsense. If this is the case, then Aardvark is going to dig deeper (into our wallets)!

With this Google might be thinking to grow in the question and answer network or something for its own answers service.