When I was at Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas, Mahalo.com founder Jason Calacanis gave the keynote speech. Calcanis spoke about his human powered search engine called Mahalo.
The keynote intrigued me enough that I went to my room, signed up for an account on Mahalo and recommended three sites, in three different categories for inclusion. Well it is 33 days later and my recommendations are still not accepted or denied. They are still in limbo. There has been no communication from the editors about the links. Why?
If Mahalo is to become a social search engine that people actually use, then this type of ball dropping needs to be fixed. I don’t mind waiting a week, if it means that someone is actually reviewing my recommendations. But to wait 33+ days is just ridiculous.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Jason 04.03.08 at 7:14 pm
We had a problem with our workflow previously that we’re fixing. Basically we do one of three things when a link came in:
1. ban it if it’s spam
2. accept it if it’s AMAZING and 20% better than the other links on the page
3. let it sit in the recommend links section for further review if it doesn’t fall into #1 or #2 above.
The problem is, of course, that folks don’t know that we’ve looked at it. We’re working on a “thanks for the link” response that just leaves it in the recommended link box, but also lets users know we looked at it.
all the best,
Jason
David Wilson 04.04.08 at 9:02 am
Thanx for both the quick response and also for explaining the Mahalo process.
David