After railing on his site enough, I promised Jason Calacanis I’d take a fair look at his latest startup (Mahalo.com) and say something nice about it, well… once I was actually about to find something. So here’s the first video of my experience hunting around Mahalo.com for a “positive” and not just looking at it as polluting the internet with more spam.
As you can see, the hunt will continue for yet another day. By the end of the week, I’m determined to at least find something.
P.S. This is my first experience using Viddler and wow… Much nicer than YouTube. YouTube certainly has its purpose on the internet and I think there is room for both.
Thanks for taking the time to do this! This is a great format… I’m holding my breath watching.
Some real time feedback:
1. Yes, mix between search engine, wikipedia, and DMOZ.
2. Just because something hasn’t worked in the past (DMOZ/Yahoo) doesn’t mean it won’t work in the future.
3. Google did not say we were spam–SEO book made a deceptive headline to stir the post obviously. Also, as you mention the best computer speakers was a test type page… it’s not representative of the entire site.
4. Yes, Mahalo works best for short searches. Kind of the opposite of Google/Yahoo where the more you type in the better the result. our goal is not to do long-term searches.
5. Yes, the tabbed search is amazing!
6. We actually have 40,000+ pages so far…. we’re adding 1,000+ per week.
7. Keep in mind that we do need to have the basic wikipedia page, official page on our SERP even if you don’t need it. some folks coming to that page might not know the obvious sites. So, as you say the UOK could be useful for a general surfer, not an expert right now.
8. Keep in mind that many of these pages like University of Kansas are probably 50-70% complete right now… they will take 1-3 years each to get to 80-90% completed. It’s a similar process to Wikipedia.
9. The Web Development page is a “user generated stub” which means the users are building it out right now. Very cool that you found it! What you see is a collection of links like Delicious or StumbleUpon. When this page grows to 20-30 links we will build it out. So, you found an in progress page… which has some solid links which is encouraging.
10. Good feedback for Scoble on how to format his videos… he should start with an overview of the site. send that to Robert.
11. Regarding Jason Calacanis News & Gossip vs. Jason Calacanis it’s actually one page with sections. if you type in a section it will jump to that section.
12. Recent tweets is a GREAT idea! Thanks for that.
Couple of things to check out:
a) How to articles… type “how to” and look at the drop down. great stuff.
b) Click on all the category pages and you’ll find great stuff
c) click on the headlines of the top of the page. we do a really good job on breaking news stories right now. in fact, just type in any person of note in the news today (Barack, HIllary, Spitzer, etc).
Thanks again for this…. I wish more folks who are critical would actually take the time to look at the site! Really great job on the video. The entire team is watching the video and taking notes.
If you keep this up I’m gonna owe you one heck of a steak dinner!
best j
Trying to understand the barriers to entry and why this is special? Aren’t there tons of human edited directory’s? My understanding is the issue isn’t first time inclusion of a few thousand sites (or few hundred thousand if you have a big team) – it’s reaching critical mass and ensuring the quality of already included sites (which suddenly change from an amazing help site to a casino / adult site?)
Derek,
As Jason already said we really appreciate when anyone takes the time to create something like this. In response we have made a few updates based on your feedback.
1. iSight http://www.mahalo.com/ISight
Working to improve this page and include links for related software. Additionally we have tasked out Greenhouse (our remote workers) to create a page for “Webcam Software” in general. You can see that page being built at http://greenhouse.mahalo.com/Webcam_Software. This will be in the Mahalo index by the end of today.
2. Kansas State Basketball
This page appeared to have a redirect issue which has now been corrected.
3. University of Kansas State http://www.mahalo.com/University_of_Kansas
We are working on this page now to improve it’s content for future visitors.
4. Web Development and Jason Calacanis Recent Tweets
Both of these pages are UGS (user generated stubs) which is why they were both light on content. Web development is a great term which is going to get built out right now. Please check http://www.mahalo.com/Web_Development again later today.
Thanks again for the great feedback, look forward to seeing part 2.
Sean Percival
I just wanted to add that I viewed your video and appreciate when someone will take the time to really check out what they write about in their blog. So often a blogger will take a quick glance and write on that brief impression. I work for Mahalo and work very hard to build pages full of relevant links, and to find those rare “diamonds in the rough” links that the normal surfer would miss. That is the ultimate thrill. They are out there, though rare!
It’s okay that you don’t think we’re the best thing since sliced bread because Mahalo isn’t really targeted at you or other techno-savvy young people. However, I can see school kids of all ages, even college age, using Mahalo as a great place to gather info on papers etc. Check out our literature section. I think it’s particularily good.
Now, if I were to critique your site, I would not be able to say much good because you don’t write about the things that I need to find online. My son is a computer nerd. I need to ask him to review your site.
There are a lot of people out there and a lot of sites on the net. There is a niche where most sites fit. The trick is to determine your niche and speak to it and not get caught up in trying to speak to everyone. It can’t be done!!
Again, I do like your post about Mahalo and look forward to the rest of them. Keep up the good work you do for your readers.
Mary1440
http://www.revealedreflections.com
Reverse disclaimer (claimer?): I have no connection to Mahalo. I’m not even a fanboy. I’m just warming up to the site’s philosophy, thanks partly to Calacanis’s “social media” tour.
A few notes. Just because.
What I kind of like about Mahalo (resounding endorsement):
* vetted (getting tired of misleading and commercial results elsewhere)
* “all-in-one” (see basic info as well as links)
* Mahalo Follow (link submission tool)
* incremental search everywhere
* directory approach but tagging/folksonomy (what Yahoo! was missing in ’95)
* team’s responsiveness
* simple visuals for featured results
What I think could be added:
* info about page’s “maturity”/completeness
* link differentiation through visuals (for official, user-submitted…)
* allow users to save copies of pages (Plum-like)
* thesaurus-like massaging search (like alternative spelling in
Google, “did you mean”)
* basic homepage customization (not portal-like, just toned down)
Some ideas to discuss:
* search+directory+encyclopedia yes, but also guide (about.com)
* and social bookmarking (Plum, Ma.gnolia, Spurl…)
* what is the real difference between content and links?
Derek, I came across your blog from Jason’s blog. Im sorry to say that after watching your video you really just come off as a hater. Mahalo isn’t for everyone and apparently not for you. I don’t use it personally, but my grandmother has been able to find all the info she has ever wanted on it.
Mahalo is not meant to replace google which you give the impression your expecting it to do. You complain of links, links, links…well what do you think google is? Mahalo is afterall a SEARCH ENGINE, not an encyclopedia.
I think the biggest problem with Mahalo is that it feels like a ‘Mashup’. It’s not one thing, rather it has elements of social network, directory, meta search, wikipedia, about.com, yahoo answers, live news, iptv ??? etc… But it doesn’t really nail any of these areas.
I think Jason is really just throwing every piece of web 1.0/2.0 he can think of against the wall and trying to get one piece to stick. It is hard to criticise because if you say it’s a bad search engine someone else will say no it’s a directory. If you say it’s a bad ‘how to’ guide they will say it’s a search engine !
One bit of Mahalo that is interesting is the ‘how-to’ guides:
http://www.mahalo.com/Category:How_To
If Mahalo was the ‘how to’ search engine that would go somewhere. Google, wikipedia, yahoo answers, about.com : nothing really serves this area well.
This is where professionally written pages would be well received. People want content, not just a list of links !
Slightly off topic: but what software did you use to make the screencast?
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@Eric: I think that is the question everyone has. Why is this special, and why does it deserve the hype it is getting? If it truly were a brand new method of searching the internet, then sure. But, it isn’t as far as I can tell.
@Chris: If I were a “hater”, I would just sit here and complain about the site instead of spending hours trying to figure out where it has holes (if any). I’m a web developer full time and a consultant part time. Figuring out problems like this, sadly, is fun.
@Sam: iShowU. It’s a very cool and simple program. I think the movement of the screen and following the mouse help out considerably in making screencasts like this watchable.
@AC Dead on. Your post along with Chris’s really expose the issue with Mahalo. What the hell is it?
Great comments so far everyone!
Hi Derek, what did you use to capture the video, seems to work really well – much better than anything else I’ve come across?
@Ewan Yeah, I love iShowU. The fact that it doesn’t capture the entire screen (if you choose so) really gives you a sense of where a users eyes are looking. Check it out here.