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Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

thesethings.posterous.com

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Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#21

Post by RBr »

pclark wrote: post #9

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.

I wondered about this exact same thing and wrote in length about it this morning: http://robisit.com/mahalo-version-4/

"If you remove the video revenue sharing scheme from Mahalo 4, you’re left with a ballooning group of in-house staff members that are creating content. Mahalo version 1 started exactly the same way. Large groups of people were hired in-house to generate written articles and cull popular hyperlinks. Shortly thereafter, Mahalo 2 relied on offshore outsourcing and then inexpensive remote American labor to mill content.

When thought of in this light with a view of Mahalo’s history, it starts to become clear that Mahalo 4 is an iteration that has already occurred. Mahalo is iterating over itself. Partly due to the fact that they have enough money to do so, partly because the revolving door of staff members hasn’t experienced previous iterations and partly because online video is simply making money for content companies at the moment."

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#22

Post by rythie »

shareme wrote: post #19

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…

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.

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#23

Post by jasonmcalacanis »

pclark wrote: post #9

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.

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!

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#24

Post by jasonmcalacanis »

Maro wrote: post #14

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…

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!!

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#25

Post by jasonmcalacanis »

jonknee wrote: post #2

I think they see the "content mill penalty" writing on the wall and are pivoting to spamming YouTube in advance.

Well, we never made low-quality content like Demand Media, but you are right that making high-quality videos with EXPERTS in them keeps us out of trouble with search engines.

Google will solve the ehow/demand media problem this year--or consumers will by blocking specific sites.

When that happens Mahalo's traffic should actually go up, because there won't be people with 11-year old spamming domains standing between us and teh top 10 results!

good observation!

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#26

Post by jasonmcalacanis »

Maro wrote: post #14

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…

FACT CHECK!!! FACT CHECK!!! FACT CHECK!!!

BTW: The page you are looking at -- http://www.mahalo.com/search/?q=fraction -- is a page we haven't built yet.

When we don't have a page built we show you Google/Bing search results.

These pages are NOT indexed in Google.

So, they can't be google spam. :-)

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#27

Post by [deleted] »

MikeCapone wrote: post #15
Maro wrote: post #14

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…

I was going to ask the same question because the only times I ever hear about Mahalo is from people who complain about how they are spamming. Haven't heard from a single user of the service yet.

[deleted]

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#28

Post by jasonmcalacanis »

jonknee wrote: post #6
thesethings wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hadn't considered that. Can you expand a bit? I'm really into YouTube and would love to hear your theories. I think it is a little harder to spam YouTube (with content) than the web. On the web, you can just parse feeds/spin text. On Youtube, you have to upload things. According to the presentation, they built out studios and are recording videos at a fast pace (and they do have thousands of videos on their channel,…

Instead of low-quality articles meant to get search traffic and AdSense revenue, these are low-quality videos meant to get search traffic and AdSense revenues. YouTube is the second largest search engine and also has a lot of space in Google SERPs. It's also almost identical to Videojug, if you want to see how something like this plays out.

Our videos cost hundreds of dollars to make, are hosted by experts, shot in 1080p HD in a studio, have perfect audio and are on super clean white backgrounds (typically).

They are 10-50x better than most of the videos on YT in terms of quality and production value.

Most videos on YT don't have an expert and are shot on flipcams or iPhones with an open microphone, no lighting and background noise.

Our goal is to make HIGH-QUALITY videos that help people learn. If we do that we will be one of the top 25 sites in the US..... inside of three years.

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#29

Post by jasonmcalacanis »

tessro wrote: post #20

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.)

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.

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