
Mahalo 4.0: All about learning - thesethings
http://thesethings.posterous.com/mahalo-40-all-about-learning
======
jonknee
I think they see the "content mill penalty" writing on the wall and are
pivoting to spamming YouTube in advance.

~~~
robryan
The ads seem to be way down, maybe they are trying not to look like a content
mill while there is a heap of Google attention on the issue.

~~~
thesethings
You are totally right about the ads being down. That's why it's so
unfortunate/confusing that the how-to pages still feel cluttered. Visual
clutter on sites like this are often just to make places for ads that "blend"
in with content. But the new Mahalo has few ads.

As I wrote in my post: there are multiple sections of interesting
information... presented in a disorienting manner.

I feel like the new learning mission is sincere, but am waiting for more
tweaking.

------
pclark
If Mahalo has been such a loved product with versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 why are
they basically scrapping _all of it_ and releasing a new product?

It must be hilarious being an investor and seeing entrepreneurs pitch so
confidently with ideas and then the next week see them something almost
entirely different and totally confident in that.

Oh right if you _pivot_ it's okay.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
You are a cynical one pclark!

keep in mind that Flickr, Groupon, Nintendo and Nokia are all pivots. Your
first idea is rarely your best, and pivoting is what great entrepreneurs do
while B-level entrepreneurs run their companies into the ground.

Now, factually you're a little off... so please let me get you up to speed:

1\. We've been doing articles and Q&A for 3 and 2 years--so that's not being
scrapped. 2\. A year ago we stopped pursuing human-powered search since it
wasn't growing 3\. We examined what was working and it was helping people
learn--so we branded the company today "learn anything." This is a great big
mission and it will make us a top 50 site in the next 2-3 years.

We currently have 105 team members and are adding 100--and we hit
profitability in 2010. We are the 160th largest site in the United States not
counting our YouTube traffic (1M+ views per day). If you added that together
we would be top 100 today in fact.

In fact, I just left a meeting with one of our investors and they are thrilled
with the fact that they invested in Mahalo and that we tried hard to make
human-powered search work. They love the fact that we iterated on our idea. So
much so they asked if we would take _MORE_ of their money.

You must be a young entrepreneur, because success in life is not about
confidence--it's about humility and the ability to try things.

Good luck to you!

~~~
pclark
Thanks for the clarification I'll be sure to pivot my comment to reflect what
the audience wants!

~~~
jessedhillon
If anyone has ever paid you to be correct or insightful with your comments,
then perhaps you _should_ consider it.

Thanks to Jason for dealing so well with such snark.

------
replicatorblog
I think it's a really smart idea. How-to content is huge. Amateur videos of
esoteric hobbies can get a quarter million page views in a couple months. I
think the biggest risk they are running is trying to produce in super high
volumes. I think this will lead to less compelling content. At first they can
make it up in volume, but if they have success it will be relatively easy for
domain experts to copy their approach and produce relatively fewer videos,
tailored to the field, which will lead to higher CPMs.

The other big opportunity is using video as a gateway to ecommerce. QVC is the
2nd highest grossing tv station. There is definitely an opportunity to take
this model to the web.

------
Maro
Does anybody here use Mahalo? What are some use-cases where it makes sense?

EDIT:

So I checked out the new Mahalo's advertised feature, "How to Convert
Fractions":

<http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-convert-fractions/>

They have a video which is pretty good. (I wonder if creating hi-quality
videos scales to satisfy investors?) Then they have the steps in the video in
text format with words such as "Fraction" hyperlinked to a spammy Mahalo page:

<http://mahalo.com/fraction>

Below this content they have "Related" stuff like "How to convert fractions -
XXX" where XXX = {Videos, Images, Newsfeed, Twitter}. These are {Google, Bing,
Twitter, etc} auto-generated spam/noise and contain no useful information.
(You can't auto-generate a sensible feed about converting fractions.)

Overall I'd rate the new mahalo.com as spammy. The videos + transcribed text
may be good, but there's too much surrounding crap.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
The spamming claim on HN is one done by a secret kabbel of SEO's who I've
pissed off over the years.

These guys basically obsesses over everything I do and follow me around the
social web. They vote my stuff down, flame me and generally try to bust my
chops.

They are known as "jayters" because they hate on Jason. I love my jayters,
because they make me appreciate how lucky I've been in this life. They have
every reason to hate on me: I drive a tesla, I have not one but TWO bulldogs
and I get more press they anyone deserves.

Hate on!!

~~~
Maro
Hi. I've never seen mahalo.com before nor have I commented on it. What I wrote
down was my first impression as a user.

Also note that I pointed out the positive: "They have a video which is pretty
good." But all the auto-generated stuff surrounding it is noise to me.

Best of luck with mahalo.com.

------
alexophile
A fun side-story: There was a question on Quora recently - "Why did Duck Duck
Go Block Mahalo.com?" and Jason Calacanis, of course, felt it necessary to
weigh in. I had to read this response twice, assuming there was some intended
irony:

 _"if they did that is a big mistake... we are not close to spam and a we have
the best articles on many things like how to play guitar, speak french, etc."_

<http://www.quora.com/Why-did-DuckDuckGo-block-Mahalo-com>

------
prosa
I know the HN community has mixed feelings (at best) about Mahalo, but
definitely watch the video!

When I saw Mahalo in the title I almost skipped the article completely, but
Jason provides a solid dissection of his company's evolution and the strategic
mistakes they've made so far. (Plus it's pretty short.)

(Skip the Mahalo promo at the end.)

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
Thank you for actually listening. :-)

I would like to offer you a complimentary ticket to the LAUNCH Conference as a
thank you. Feb. 23/24th in San Francisco. Ping me at jason@launch.is and i
will arrange.

------
blackysky
I was ready to say mahalo was the biggest spam website on the internet last
week after the whole google search debate but now I think mahalo may have a
killer product. right now it's like wikipedia 2.0 .... so far I like the 4.0
version ...maybe I'm wrong but I like this pivot

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
Thanks for a considered response.

May I offer you a complimentary ticket to the LAUNCH Conference as a thank
you? Feb. 23/24th in San Francisco. Ping me at jason@launch.is and i will
arrange.

it's going to be a killer event (see www.launch.is for details... 40 companies
launching killer products over two days!).

~~~
ungerik
Mahalo 4.0 is great! Please send my ticket to ... ;-)

------
pointillistic
4.0 as in four steps ahead of Google in the art of spam.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
lame.

cynical.

------
sharescribe
Looking forward to Mahalo 5.0 and their next pivot.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
cynical

~~~
gspyrou
Since you are focused mainly on video you could check Impossible Software ,
their demo in DLD 2011 was quite impressive . [http://www.dld-
conference.com/articles/article/dld11-live_ai...](http://www.dld-
conference.com/articles/article/dld11-live_aid_2186.html)

------
staunch
Instead of How To Pages they're going to concentrate on How To Videos. Not all
that much of a pivot IMHO.

Pros:

\+ It should be more popular than user-generated content of the same type
(overall).

\+ Very few other companies would be willing to invest as much time and money
into competing. How To pages are much much cheaper.

\+ High CPMs if they can build a trusted brand with quality viewership.

\+ There's less competition for video content than text content, and it's
harder to steal (no synonym substitutions, etc).

Cons:

\+ Hugely expensive. Low profit margins.

\+ Very slow to generate.

\+ Far less video views than page views (less ad impressions). Many on YouTube
itself.

\+ Hard to manage and keep quality at large scale.

\+ Very small buyer market for high CPM video ads. Low click through.

------
infocaptor
I guess this is in direct response to Matt Cutts openly pointing Mahalo on HN.
We should make the Aaron Wall the real SEO police. Just read the seobook blog
and you will see all the sneaky things sites like Mahalo and ehow does.

~~~
ebaysucks
Could you please list a few things they do?

------
shareme
The problem with all these pivots is that Jason never addresses the real
problem looking for a solution:

The Problem: How do you couple an ad based funding model to user generated
content without having that content model destroyed by ads displayed not in
content of content and ads and ad frequency not fitting with user generated
content.

Thee is the problem Jason and you still have not solved go back to the drawing
board!

And to be fair I do not know if there is solution to the problem with a non-
volunteer human infrastructure...maybe there is not one.

~~~
rythie
Make lessons 1-10 free (20-30mins each), charge for lessons 11 onwards. Most
people that make it to lesson 11 would be willing to pay going forward, after
seeing the quality of lessons 1-10.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
Thank you for a great insight.

Would love to have your intelligence at the @LAUNCH conference. please ping me
jason@launch.is and i will arrange.

