Inside//Out: Mahalo

As the sheer amount of information explodes on the web, there is opportunity for new companies to capitalize on the filtering and organization of data. Mahalo is just such a venture. Started by Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc. and Netscape fame, Mahalo is a people filtered/built search engine.

This has interesting implications for marketers. Where traditionally SEO and SEM practives have mattered, they're made irrelevant on Mahalo. Mahalo's guides choose the best content from the web no matter if they're Google rank is high or not. The guides create search engine result pages (SERPs) which act as landing pages for each search term. The SERPs are flexible and can adapt to their subject.

[Note I had some lag on this video (my fault), but the audio is perfectly clear so enjoy.]

[Feed readers please click through to the post for the video]

While Mahalo is not the first people filtered search engine (Yahoo did this first), the SERPs are new, however, and they may well be the first to create this feature (although it looks a lot like About.com result pages to me). Nevertheless, with Calacanis behind the project pushing it forward and getting press, it may well take off. Some people want guides to filter their information for them and this is a great service for those people.

Personally I would love to see hooks into networks like del.icio.us or Digg to pull in related items since those are people filtered as well. I'd expect to see more and more engines like this that are powered by people in the future. It surely makes people doing SEO/SEM to look at the quality of their content vs. quality of their optimization.

[Update] Jason Calacanis found this video and links to it from a post here. I've also received emails from other members of their team. Kudos to them for being very actively engaged in the conversation.

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Technorati Tags:
marketing, Search, SEM, Google, trends, social media, Techno//Marketer, Matt Dickman, Mahalo, Jason Calacanis, Inside//Out

Comments

[Paul McEnany]

Matt- You should actually apply to be a part-time guide (go to greenhouse.mahalo.com). It's pretty interesting to see it from that point of view.

My real concern with the whole people powered search thing is that we may actually be getting it backwards. It seems like it can work pretty well for a general information search, but where google is really difficult is when you're trying to search for something extremely specific. Someone needs to start spending more time building tools that allow the user to better enunciate what he or she wants as the end result.

I'm sure Mahalo can get there, but they need to focus on attacking the problem at both ends.

I don't know...we'll see. It's still in Alpha, so it's hard to say what the big picture plans are.

[Paul McEnany]

Ok, well, you already know the Greenhouse URL. Sorry, hadn't gotten there in the video yet. ;)

[Matt Dickman]

Paul -- That's a very insightful comment. Thank you. I agree that there are multiple ways to attack the search problem. While I think Mahalo beats Google for most broad items, it will never compete on the niche/hyper-micro level. Spiders do a much better job at that.

So can there be a happy medium? Could Mahalo integrate the two to make it easier on people? Could an engine pre-build SERPs for them based on searches and then have guides do the advanced filtering? Seems plausible, but maybe not in their plans.

What you talk about in helping people figure out what then *really* want to find is the killer search app. I've looked at search terms that sites collect and it's amazing how people think. It's going to take a lot of brainpower to be more contextual and pre-thinking.

What do you think?

[Matt Dickman]

Paul -- I will apply to the Greenhouse program and do a future post on my experience there. Thank you!

[Paul McEnany]

I think you hit it on the head. It will just have to be a combination of the two on some level. It'll probably also take a whole new nomenclature of some kind, as well.

It's just hard to envision because of the amount of variables that would need to be adjusted. How much can a spider really do? How much more intelligent can we make out computers? How much information can people physically go through and place, and at that point, does the bias skew the result, anyway?

And, at the other side, can people really describe exactly what they're looking for? I need to answer the question, "What is the best way to skin a potato?", but the answer could be within the result for the search "best practices for skinning a potato." Okay, that's a ridiculous example, but you get the point. Search results are based on actual words, not the intent of the words, and the same for the other way around.

No engine yet gets us nearly that far, but whoever does will make a ton of money! And it may be necessary, just based on the sheer volume of information constantly being added...

[Alex]

I think that sites like Mahalo, ChaCha, InfoCream and Wikia will evolve well and bring surprising results. You said, "Personally I would love to see hooks into networks like del.icio.us or Digg to pull in related items since those are people filtered as well." Yes. Would be nice to see this in the big three engines too.

[Matt Dickman]

Hey Alex -- Thank you for commenting! I think you're right. We're just at the very tip of the iceberg on this to be sure. I think it's going to take an engine which aggregates the best from all of the networks.

For example, how much better would Google be with del.icio.us and Flickr info? I think it would be phenomenal, but Yahoo owns both of those so it'll never happen. Mahalo and the like are on the periphery and can attack that weakness.

[Matt Dickman]

Paul -- There is certainly an exciting time ahead in the search field. I think it'll advance a little faster with all of the capital behind the companies competing for the top spot. Whatever happens it's going to be a very costly venture to get closer to true artificial intelligence for searching.

The semantics of language is the biggest challenge and your example is right on the money. I often find myself having to try 3-4 searches to get exactly what I was looking for. The fact that there are two sets of meaning being applied on a) the creation side and b) the searcher side makes it extremely difficult to bring the two together.

Like you said the volume of information is only increasing and people alone won't be able to catch up. I'm sure there is a happy medium in there someplace.

[sean percival]

Great video, and yes the first comment is right. If you have some time join the greenhouse and get an even better idea about what mahalo is all about.

[Matt Dickman]

Sean -- Thank you for the comment. Welcome! I am definitely planning on joining the Greenhouse. I may even record another video with my thoughts on that program. Very exciting I think.