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.