http://www.mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-community/mahalo-fan-question-on-a-scale-any-scale-it-doesnt-really-matter-how-would-you-rate-your-fandom-of-mahalo-and-or-mahalo-answers

I was doing a bit of a testing and I was trying to see if the community would rally up and answer my question.  Well I guess not… since I only got one answer.

Either way, as some of you might know, I have been with Mahalo (as a member, not an employee) for quite sometime and I have seen it go through many versions (BTW, I love the new look), phases and people.  A select few have stuck it out; however, quite a few have left.

Trust me, I love Jason Calacanis, Tyler Crowley, Mark Jeffrey, Lon Harris, Mike Rhoads, Alex Miller and all of other Mahaloians… and I think they have a great idea and I think it will take them very far in this business.  I am just a bit put off but the lack of community they have given back to the world of the Inter(webs).  I know that TWiST, Mahalo Tutorials and the other "Tasks" are great and all; however, I think aren’t giving us (me) the love and attention that I thought Mahalo was designed to do (be).  I know that times change, people change, ideas change and the demand of a specific idea/product change.  I just thought Mahalo was  about community, helping people and giving back to the people at large.  All I see these days is… let’s drive more traffic to the site.  I understand that you have to make money and I understand that you have people watching your every move, but I thought Mahalo was about helping people answer their questions and giving them good quality content.  Don’t get me wrong, most of the content on Mahalo is very well presented and very well written, but I don’t get the feeling that the Mahaloian’s are out to help their fellow man/woman/child.  I get the feeling is that they are out to make the all mighty precious Mahalo dollar.  I hope I am wrong.

I know that I have not posted much on Mahalo and have not contributed much in a while.  The reason is due to the lack openness that I have not been able to do on the site (which I was able to do in the past).  Example, creating a topic page (SERP).  When I first started with Mahalo I was able to create them all of the time, now you have to go through an approval process.  Trust me, I am happy and sad about this “process”; however, I have been with the Mahalo long enough (in my opinion), that I don’t need approval to create a page… and since most of the information is now created automatically I don’t understand why we/they don’t just start creating pages all of the time.  Example, I tried to create a page a while ago Who is Charles L. Stanford.  That page has not been created “officially”; however, it does give back results (i.e. pulled results from Google).  Also, I know that there isn’t a page for Charles L. Stanford.  I also know there is a question for him: Who is Charles L. Stanford?… where people actually answered the question.  In my opinion, those pages should have been created automatically and populated like any new page (i.e. : http://www.mahalo.com/thenext)  I know that page doesn’t any hard core content; however, it does have the same content as Charles L. Stanford page (relatively speaking).  The reason why I am put off by this, is due to linking and contributing the Mahalo site(s).  Since the page is not “officially” created, no one can link to it or contribute to it.  Someone has to “own” it.  I understand that Mahalo is human curated and it is monitored closely by it staff and high ranking belts; however, I think if the community had some flexibility in how it was able to “give back” to the site, I think Mahalo would have it’s traffic and much more.  I have always said that we/they should pre-populate Mahalo with generic terms and popular topics.

Final word(s)… as I have indicated above, I think Mahalo and it’s staff are great and the site has tons of potential; however, I think they need to take a step back and focus on giving great content to every part of the site, not just bringing traffic to it. 

It is about the money/traffic or giving back to the community?  I really don’t know?

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.  If I have missed something or my “facts” are wrong, please call me out!

I have been doing a count show on my UStream.tv channel at: http://mahalo.connectedgeek.net/answers/
see below…

I have been mostly talking about Mahalo Answers.

Either way, I am very excited about going to TC50.

I am going to be in San Francisco on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at approx 2pm.

I  will be part of the volunteer team and will be helping out for all three days.

I plan on Streaming, BLOGing and Tweeting!  So, watch out!

Live video by Ustream

I found out about Jason Calacanis about 6 to 7 months ago from Leo Laporte’s TWiT.  I had never heard of this guy named Jason or even wanted to get know him.  I didn’t even consider myself an Entrepreneur (and I still kinda don’t).  But… there is/was something about Jason Calacanis that struck me ……. I can’t seem to find the word…. funny, odd, familiar, etc…

Anyway, Jason started up this company Mahalo – The Human Powered Search Engine (a wikipedia style website).  At first I thought it was incomplete and why would anyone come here.  I checked it out for a while and contributed a couple links and then moved on…. like most people did at first (until they get to know Jason and understand what Mahalo is all about).

So, time marched on and Jason was on TWiT again.  This time, he mentioned that he may give a new laptop to anyone that could contribute to Mahalo the most (i.e. most friends, most links recommended, most content written, etc…)   Well, I said… I can do that… and I did (RE: most recommended links). 

Well, he changed the rules and I didn’t get the laptop.  I was not happy that I didn’t get it; however, I finally realized what Jason was doing and if know him, you would understand why (watch the videos below).  Even though the laptop (or the lack there of) got me in the door at Mahalo (virtually), it is no longer my goal in dealing with Jason and Mahalo.  It has grown in to a whole new way of thinking and possibly a whole new future for me and my family.

Jason’s interpretation of business (as shown below), isn’t revolutionary, it’s just smart.  Our society/world have been brought up to just go with the flow and you will do well in life.  Well, I don’t want to think that way any more… thanks Jason! 

I want more from life… Obviously, I want a happy and healthy life for me and my family, first and foremost (and I already have it). 
I want satisfaction in my work life and I want to create something that I am proud enough to tell the whole world! 
I will obtain it!

http://www.calacanis.com/2008/05/28/entrepreneurial-insanity/

| View | Upload your own

Part 1

Entrepreneurial Insanity – Part 1

Part 2

Entrepreneurial Insanity – Part 2

Part 3

Entrepreneurial Insanity – Part 3

Part 4

Entrepreneurial Insanity – Part 4

Leah and Andrea have to make a viral video within 5 days of today… let’s hope they do a good job.  I can’t wait to see what they will do

• Leah D’Emilio
• Leah’s audition and post-audition interview
• Leah D’Emilio’s Mahalo Daily – Capoeira Besouro

• Andrea Rene
• Andreas’s audition and her pre-audition interview
• Andrea Rene’s Mahalo Daily – How to Shoot a Gun

Here is Episode 2:

MD131 – The Mapprentice, Episode 2

Even though Sarah Atwood and Lisa Brewster didn’t win, I am still very happy for Leah D’Emilio and Andrea Rene.  Best of luck to both of you…  Since I wasn’t voting for either one… I will have to see who does the best viral video.  Let the race begin!!!  Who ever does the best job get’s my vote!  Even though my vote probably doesn’t count… I will still comment and blog about it

I have much more to say about this topic and probably more than I need to   So, I will be doing a podcast this evening with pcnerd37 of http://unofficialmahalopodcast.com/ and http://globalgeeknews.com/ on http://www.talkshoe.com.  Stay tuned.  The actual podcast will be out Friday or Saturday.

BTW… Kristina Allison is AWESOME!!! Best of luck to you!!

Two things would like to talk (in short)…

1) Twitter, yes our beloved Twitter.  This weekend Michael Arrington did a post on TechCrunch called Twitter!  I will have to say…  I had a ton of fun with this blog post.  Reason: Loic Le Meur the creator Seesmic.  The only way to describe the post is… well, go check it out and see… it was fun, stupid, interesting and most of all a glimpse in to our future of communicating. Check it out: Twitter! 

2) A good friend of mine is doing a series on Personal Branding.  It is a interesting topic and I believe it will be an excellent read… Check out!

On a personal note… I would like to thank all of the people that have visited my site over the past month (during the Mahalo VLOG Idol).  I truly appreciate you taking the time to stop on by! 

You’ll come back ya hear!

Thanks!

Jason asked his followers to compare Powerset v. Google v. Google with a Wikipedia search set (i.e. Rubik’s Cube)

I choose “How to solve the rubik’s cube”

Powerset gave me some really good results; however, the screen was full of text and it was hard to figure out what the result was really giving me
Once you clicked on the result you got a pretty good article

Next, I went on to Google… the results were good, plus you got a screen shot of the video you would likely see if you clicked on the link

The last place I went was Google.com with a “site:wikipedia.com”
As you can see, the result was nothing at all

In my opinion, Powerset has a long way to go and since there are so many search engines out there, it needs to ramp up it’s results!

Approximately  24 days ago Mahalo (Jason Calacanis) started us on a journey that is almost done, and to be honest I am quite thankful that it is…

If you didn’t know, Veronica Belmont used to be the host of Mahalo Daily.  She was a great host and we enjoyed every episode she did   She moved on to Tekzilla with Patrick Norton.

So, the final days of Mahalo VLOGIdol are upon us and Veronica’s successor is on the horizon (as show below).  We have watched the MANY episodes of Mahalo VLOG Idols, Teasers and The Bachelon… and it will be done soon… oh but wait is it???  There’s more you ask???  well yes!! 
According to Jason Calacanis (as heard on a recent TWiT), each of the six finalists will be filming an individual episode to be judged. 
Sarah Atwood also said in her recent Tweet "so its down to the final 6. http://tinyurl.com/6odkqf stay tuned for my personally produced episode. YAH!"

Mahalo VLOGIdol Finalists

I have to admit, after watching these ladies for about a month now, I wasn’t so sure that anyone could fill Veronica’s shoe’s.  However, I saw one young lady that seemed to "get it" and had the spunk to pull it off… unfortunately for us all, she did not make it and I was not very happy about it!!  Her name is Lisa Brewster.  She did not have any VLOGing experience, but she did have a spark that Mahalo needs… even though she had spark, the judges were not looking for her

So, we have six left…who do you think we will win?? 
Since Lisa didn’t win, I vote for Kristina or Leah.  Who do you want to win?

I have updated my form below, please vote!!

I have been following Mahalo VLOG Idol from the beginning and it has been a very exciting race
All of them are very talented; however, only one will win… My Favorite is Lisa Brewster

Thank you Mahalo.com for giving us an opportunity to watch this process!!

Mahalo VLOGIdol Semi-Finalists

Mahalo VLOGIdol Finalists – at this moment there this only one

I think we need to vote… who do you want to win??
This poll is not official and is not affiliated with Mahalo.com

Here is the form:

Today, I was a little concerned on how UStream did or did not handle TWiT‘s live broadcast.  Leo Laporte had been broadcasting all morning/afternoon and he even reached 1000 plus users at one time.  However, as soon as he started TWiT the UStream died 3 minutes into the broadcast.  I know that Leo only has a DSL and his T1 won’t be "live" until next week… but, you would think that UStream would do everything they could to keep Leo Laporte!  and… Leo even embedded his UStream on to his new website: http://www.twitlive.tv (at first), but after the mess up he put http://www.stickam.com/leolaporte instead. Sad day for UStream

We all know that Chris Pirillo Live  gets about 500 to 1000 viewers daily and UStream works with him and iJustine – averages about 300 to 500 viewers daily too.  Why couldn’t UStream do the same for Leo Laporte (The Tech Guy)??

I will admit that during Mahalo VLOGIdol, UStream stepped up to the plate and did a fabulous job capturing the whole day at Mahalo headquarters. 
As see here: Mahalo Idol Live and here Jason "Nation" Calacanis (who averages 100 viewers daily)

I am just hope that UStream doesn’t drop the ball and lose one of the greatest Internet icons the world has ever seen!!

Leo Laporte is AWESOME!!

It is all in fun… so enjoy!!  Thanks!!

Wikipedia… Mr. Know It All