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Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

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Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#41

Post by Maro »

jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #24
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 reas…

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.

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#42

Post by Maro »

jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #26
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. :-)

I didn't say it is FOR GOOGLE. I said that the page contains numerous boxes which are search results from {Google, Bing, Twitter}, which IMO don't add much value to the topic.

For example:

  http://sp.life123.com/bm.pix/fractions2.s600x600.jpg
or:

"@wyrdgirl_aj gurl ima call u after this 930 class... We learnin how to convert fractions to % -_- #bored from @QueenofKings16"

Best of luck with the new mahalo.com.

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#43

Post by 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.

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#44

Post by vnchr »

jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #24
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 reas…

You're referring, of course, to the Mahalumnati?

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#45

Post by gspyrou »

jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #35
sharescribe wrote: post #3

Looking forward to Mahalo 5.0 and their next pivot.

cynical

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...

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#46

Post by rudasn »

pclark wrote: post #37
jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ag…

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

Well, if commenting is your job then perhaps you should. That is the point being made here I believe.

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#47

Post by jasonmcalacanis »

RBr wrote: post #21
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. S…

Incorrect, but I wouldn't expect you to understand the complexity of the business without being inside it.

1. We had inhouse people, people at home and people working in Manila (on data, like fast facts--not full- on writing) of articles and that worked well. In fact, you can almost make the at home and in the office model work if you keep the costs down to $10 an hour/$10 a page. To have folks in the office you would have to do it as $400-500 a week and no benefits and no chef (which kind of sucks), so work from home wins this model (as it did on Demand Media, Weblogs Inc, etc).

2. Mahalo is 40 months old now, which means we have better SEO, better ability to move folks around the site and a better ability to know which pages make money and don't. So, we can make 3x as much now per page as we did back then (or more). So, we've learned a lot.

3. Video is VERY different than writing articles. I won't get into the metrics, but you can't compare it to articles. also, the traffic to each is very different.

So, Mahalo will continue to grow and folks will continue to misunderstand how it works... and that's just fine. We're not here to explain how to run a business to folks who don't know how to. We're here to build an amazing place where people can "learn anything" and to get a return for our investors.

We are the 160th largest site in the USA now.... and if you counted our video traffic to our domain traffic we would be in the top 100 (maybe #75). Quantcast doesn't do this (grrrrr).

Next year we will be in the top 100, then top 50 and then in the top 25.

at that point you'll write a long post and explain to me how i don't know what I'm doing, and i will write a long post back to you explaining how business works..... again! :-)

Re: Mahalo 4.0: All about learning

#48

Post by jessedhillon »

pclark wrote: post #37
jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ag…

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

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.

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