51–60 of 65 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jason Calacanis and Tim Ferris are the two most polarizing dudes here on HN as far as I can tell. But love 'em or hate 'em, they do both get lots of press.
It seems likely that "get lots of press" is dependent on "polarizing." Personally I'd vote for Calacanis having more substance then Ferris.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
VIDEO is our answer. We have been moving all of our content to a higher standard: 1. video 2. an EXPERT in the video with credentials 3. quality Q&A (with some paid folks answers questions... that we don't really promote) best jason
ExpertVillage, developed the content farm video strategy, like 6 years ago... Almost exactly as you describe. Guess who founded that: Byron Reese the brains behind Demand Media's entire content algo system. http://www.demandmedia.com/executive-leadership/byron-reese/ So unfortunately, this isn't some new idea Demand missed... it's one they've moved beyond.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
VIDEO is our answer. We have been moving all of our content to a higher standard: 1. video 2. an EXPERT in the video with credentials 3. quality Q&A (with some paid folks answers questions... that we don't really promote) best jason
Great idea - hard to search, hard to cross-reference, almost entirely linear, slow to consume, much higher production costs. Yup. We need more of that.
I just don't buy it. Aaron Wall called you out a while ago and if I recall correctly you denied and denied. This sudden change of heart doesn't read like a moral turn-around, it reads like surrender. You got out-competed by Demand, AOL, Associated Content and trying to re-frame the argument as 'we're all going to suffer if you don't cut back' is bullshit. If you really were turning around Mahalo and it wasn't going t…
The moral litmus test for Jason's about-face would be if he felt so bad about the content mill pages on Mahalo that he deleted them from the web and tested the (alleged) "quality" content as a business model.
IMHO this just one more example of Jason trying to put a thin veneer of polish over a turd.
I am stunned. Calacanis was just brazenly lying about his belief in the quality of his articles and that it was just a few isolated articles that were thin. Now he claims he couldn't sleep as well at night before due to Mahalo's mounds of crap content. And apparently he's completely unrepentant about having to lie on behalf of his company, now taking a holier than thou stance against his competitors. Unbelievable. Th…
I think wikipedia could kill this whole circus if they started a 'casualpedia' spinoff/superset that allowed people to contribute content beyond strictly encyclopaedic articles - and still without the advertising. In fact, maybe that's what they wanted all those donations for...
I think wikipedia could kill this whole circus if they started a 'casualpedia' spinoff/superset that allowed people to contribute content beyond strictly encyclopaedic articles - and still without the advertising. In fact, maybe that's what they wanted all those donations for...
I can see it now... "A business announcement from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: We have acquired Wookiepedia."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems likely that "get lots of press" is dependent on "polarizing." Personally I'd vote for Calacanis having more substance then Ferris.
"The 4 hour content farm", coming soon!
You shouldn’t put your ads next to sub-par content. We will not make content unless we have an expert. Demand Media will make content if someone will take $10 I don't relish paying people for what are essentially search clicks that in an ideal world I would have outranked them for, but the alternative is not paying and getting no sale. Case in point: I paid $100 for ads on eHow in January alone. (Of which something l…
VIDEO is our answer. We have been moving all of our content to a higher standard: 1. video 2. an EXPERT in the video with credentials 3. quality Q&A (with some paid folks answers questions... that we don't really promote) best jason
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, Jason, this is the only time I've found myself agreeing with you. Mahalo was a low SNR, spam-driven, visually abhorrent, search-result-polluting pile of useless self-referential scraped-off-wikipedia bullshit that I wanted to burn to the ground so badly that I wrote code to excise it from search results before its inchoate content managed to scream dimly from somewhere below two folds worth of weight loss a…
Thanks pal. Frankly, I think we got caught up in the races with content farms like Demand Media too much. You can't create thousands of articles a day and expect quality--it's impossible!!! So, we move to dozens to maybe 200 pages a day... but we do it with quality and hope for the best. The good news is we broken even last year and have a ton of money in the bank. We are going to ramp up our burn and try to make a L…
This would seem a lot more heartfelt if you hadn't gone into a strident attack/deny mode when the criticisms were raised.
As for your plan to change Mahalo into a deluxe content farm, color me still unimpressed. Maybe it's possible, but company culture comes from the top, and it's hard to see anybody who works for you caring about top quality.
You clearly don't care about quality. And you've clearly shown a willingness to flat-out lie about that, and attack people one year (then admit they were right the next).
As such, given that you're clearly just an asshole who wants to find some sort of profitable content, how can anybody have any passion? How can you really be the best in the world, when the CEO clearly doesn't give a fuck about the product?
Here's to hoping you become a better leader, a better CEO, and a better human being. Until then, I don't like your odds.