There were a lot of people, who, about a year ago made a lot of noises about how Jason Calacanis’s next project, wasn’t going to work (me included). Human edited directories will never ride in this day of automated algorithmic Google-ish-ness, and paying people to do be mechanical turk behind the scenes, grinding out said automation under the banner of a “social network” would be giant financial sinkhole.
Well, I was wrong.
I think.
According to Compete.com’s numbers, Mahalo has shown incredible growth since its inception, and has month after month continued to grow without difficulty. And this is without ads on-line, or off-line.
On the surface, it seems like natural growth, aided and abetted by Mahalo’s growing social network, Mahalo Social, as well as Mahalo Greenhouse, where people are paid based on the number of pages they help edit, not including of course, its daily video they produce, Mahalo Daily, with Veronica Belmont. Things like “socializing” Mahalo’s search by combining its social network *with* its greenhouse (your profile will improve with the amount of help you provide to editing edit and build its index) will probably help as well.
Or maybe Jason Calacanis is finally collecting his marker from Satan.
… I’m KIDDING of course (although I’m pretty sure many folks at the Affiliate Summit are not, in their very vocal vitriol).
Irrespective of the reason, Mahalo is growing like a weed and without acknowledging its success when you criticize its underlying philosophy … — well, that’s just being a tad dickish (btw, that’s “epitome”, not “impidimy”).
Congratulations, Jason. Its been almost a year, and Mahalo is doing just great. I’m eating crow, and I’m happy to do so.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:02 am | Permalink
We’re very happy with what we’ve accomplished in the first nine months. This month we had 30% growth again, so the Compete.com chart (which is accurate for US traffic only) is in line with our internal Google Analytics numbers.
Frankly, I appreciate all the skepticism the concept of human-powered search got at the start because it pushed us to finish the “social search” aspects of the site you mention. The social network is the largest percentage growth we have, and I think eventually it will be a large part of what we do and why we’re important.
At the end of the day it’s the role of bloggers to bang on things and give their opinion…. gosh knows I do it! I’m totally fine with folks bashing the idea and kicking the tires. All I really ask is that folks actually use the product. That was the most frustrating part for me so far: people actually attacked the site without using it.
If you want to test Mahalo turn on CNN or Fox News and type in a couple of searches that relate to what the top stories are. Or type in a one word product name and compare it to Yahoo, Live.com, or Ask. That’s when you can really see human’s shine.
In another year we’ll have 100-200k pages and the service will feel full… that’s when I think the public will be able to use it on a regular basis and get a reasonable chance of a result. That’s when this will get exciting.
Thanks for taking the time to use the site and post this. For bonus points find three people who are NOT Internet savvy and put them in front of Mahalo and ask them what they think… that’s when you can see the real magic. Normal folks need Mahalo, even if the WEb 2.0 elite don’t (right now).
best jason
February 28th, 2008 at 10:44 am | Permalink
[...] Tony from Deep Jive Interests notices that Mahalo has been doing great according to Compete’s com figures, surpassing, for example, upcoming search engines Quintura and Hakia with ease. [...]
March 1st, 2008 at 5:33 pm | Permalink
@Jason — well, I know we’ve had our differences in the past (you may or may not recall the whole thing about “blue collar bloggers” about a year ago … well, maybe not), but I try and recognize where people have done right.
And Mahalo’s doing all right. :)
Cheers
t @ dji