Mahalo's Calacanis: Time To End The Content Farm Arms Race • Hacker News Board

Re: Mahalo's Calacanis: Time To End The Content Farm Arms Race

#61

Post by jasonmcalacanis » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 7:04 PM UTC

ohashi wrote: post #44

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…

We never made spam, we always used humans, but we made pages that were "light" in my opinion. They also lacked an EXPERT.

We solved this by hiring 55 video editors in the last six months and we now add an expert to every page.

So, if you definition of a content farm was "light" content written by non-experts then we we're a content farm.

Guilty as charged, but I confessed my sins and I'm now on the side of the righteous! Aaron Wall is now my biggest fan... he tells his clients to model their sits around my sites.

Re: Mahalo's Calacanis: Time To End The Content Farm Arms Race

#62

Post by ohashi » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 9:26 PM UTC

jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #61

ohashi wrote: post #44

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…

We never made spam, we always used humans, but we made pages that were "light" in my opinion. They also lacked an EXPERT. We solved this by hiring 55 video editors in the last six months and we now add an expert to every page. So, if you definition of a content farm was "light" content written by non-experts then we we're a content farm. Guilty as charged, but I confessed my sins and I'm now on the side of the righte…

Jason, I respect you, you've accomplished a lot and I can only hope to achieve as much success.

That being said, come on. You confessed and it's out of some altruistic epiphany?

Mahalo isn't competing for mindshare, it's competing for SEO share and you got beat. If you are switching to a high quality content producer, let the quality of your content speak for itself. Compete for consumer's mindshare as a destination for quality content. You've picked some battles I still respect like fighting against angels charging to be pitched. However, you don't have the same moral high ground on this one. You have no legitimacy as a crusader against content farms. Period. Stop it.

Create some awesome content and share it with us. Sites like this THRIVE on the high quality content. Or re-work your business model and SEO and compete again for that long tail xylophone playing monkies. Either way, stop treating us like idiots and be honest with us.

Re: Mahalo's Calacanis: Time To End The Content Farm Arms Race

#63

Post by groby_b » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 11:26 PM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #53

groby_b wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agree, but I fear we're not typical. (We're on this hyperliterate text-heavy HN site.) For many, reading and text-scanning is harder than watching/listening – hence the love of Qwiki, and the rush to video by all the content-farmers.

There are many issues for the content farmers, too:

* hard to search => less google juice * hard to cross-reference => less retention, harder to build link farms that aren't ferreted out quickly * slow to consume => higher bandwidth cost

Then again, I wouldn't exactly mind if content farmers went out of business :)

Re: Mahalo's Calacanis: Time To End The Content Farm Arms Race

#64

Post by rmc » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 12:25 AM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #31

japherwocky wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe he wants a truce because he's losing?

Yeah, text is what content farmers were growing last year. This year it's video. Apparently, youtube has gone unfarmed for far too long. The real answer to this question is that google doesn't have tech yet to defeat video farming. If you really think about it what one SHOULD do is create a content futures exchange. An electronic exchange that uses APIs to shop a piece of content around and with a futures market you…

Good idea. You should make that.

Re: Mahalo's Calacanis: Time To End The Content Farm Arms Race

#65

Post by ericd » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 7:02 AM UTC

wisty wrote: post #55

ericd wrote: post #47

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…

Sociopathic? Not necessarily. He's just being pragmatic. A sociopath is somebody who lie when he is expected to tell the truth. There's no real world for somebody who does the opposite (tells the truth even if he would be expected to lie), but most people are just pragmatic - they tell the truth to their friends and co-workers, and lie if they happen to be a CEO putting out a press release.

No, CEOs are not expected to lie - that's very bad business, generally. They can selectively focus on aspects of the business that make them look good, and dodge questions they don't want to answer, but flat out lying as a CEO is wrong, and destroys your company's and your credibility.