Disqus - Latest Comments for Jason

Re: I need a conference home (Scripting News)

Jason — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:20:44 -0000

I've always enjoyed watching you speak.... although I enjoy it more when you're on stage. :-)

Re: Get Them Blogging!

Jason — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:27:56 -0000

Getting a product to review is fine provided you send it back after you've used it for the review. The New York Times, NPR, WSJ, all have ethics policies for this kind of thing and we follow them.

Now, if you're a user you could take this stuff and keep it and maintain a lower level of ethics, but still be ethical if you were 100% up front that you kept the product. For example, if you got a free trip to Paris and were 100% up front with it that would let the reader make the decision to trust your blog posts about it.

this is all about honesty... if people are very upfront and honest--AKA transparent--it's all good.

no one wants to be deceived--do you?

Re: A Note to Netscape

Jason — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 20:17:56 -0000

Everyone needs to make a living, trust me I understand that. I grew up living month to month, heck week to week, for most of my life.

The problem I have with PayPerPost is that they will not take a stand against deception. No one wants to be tricked--do you!??!

However, I would implore you to be 100% transparent about you blog posts that are really advertisements. You should put in the first sentence a clear statement:

"I am being paid by PayPerPost and INSERT-ADVERTISER-NAME-HERE to write this post."

If you do that I can live with it... however, I'm not happy about it because I think you're selling yourself short. It takes more time to build an audience and advertising base without covert marketing, but you'll have much more respect from your readers.

If you want that lens so much write more blog posts about photography and put google adsense up. Google adsense makes a lot of money from photography clicks!

best,

Jason

Re: The Inquisitr at 6 months

Jason — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:25:37 -0000

Keep going! It takes two years to turn a blog into a business and you are 25% of the way there.

Re: More From Jason Calacanis

Jason — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:05:00 -0000

Please remove my copyrighted material from your site.

Thanks Jason

Re: Frank Barnako doesn’t like Jason Calacanis

Jason — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 05:04:04 -0000

Hey man... I love the fact that he came up with that massive plan. Truth is even I don't think stuff out that far! :-)

Re: Catfight….catfight….J-Cal v Denton!

Jason — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 15:31:16 -0000

well... I don't think Nick wanted to do as many titles as we did to be honest. He said he wanted to do 20 I think..... if he didn't have tech problems with MT constantly he prob. would have launched his ~15 quicker and/or gotten to 20-25 blogs i'm sure.

Re: The Disingenuous Robert Scoble: one mans snark is another mans valid criticism

Jason — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:21:52 -0000

>> but a bit like Calacanis and AOL, there has
>> to be some restraint in such a position,
>> and even if its not vocal or written
>> itâ€™s something that will naturally occur

After four months at AOL I have to say that my blogging hasn't changed at all.

The only restraint I use is that if I'm writing about another group at AOL that I'm not involved with I make sure to state on my blog if I know them or not, if I've discussed the topic with them or not, etc.

Basically, I have to do a little more disclosure to be fair to my readers.

Re: Looking past the hype of Web 2.0

Jason — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:19:52 -0000

As I've said it's frothy... I'm not trying to keep anyone from starting a company, but I was at eTech last week and it was joke. Everyone was running around with VC money, or about to get VC money, and they were talking about all these cool mashups and AJAX features--but no one was talking about revenue/business.

When folks get obsessed with the tech and forget the business side things tend to end badly. We are in that zone now, and if people don't calm down this will turn into a full-blown bubble.

There simply isn't enough of a market for 7 Web 2.0 calendar companies, 12 web 2.0 mapping companies, and 18 versions of Weblogs, Inc. That is one of the things I always look at when starting a business: how many people are going after the same prize. Right now you were first going after podcasting, now there are like ten podcast networks that have some level of funding. There can't be 10, there can be three or four... and those three will be Yahoo, AOL, and one or two indie ones.

That means 70-90% of the podcast comapnies are toast. TPN will make it I'm sure. :-)

Re: You’re Not the Boss of Me

Jason — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:28:29 -0000

Exactly! people are taking the jokes and making them into serious lines!!! talk about intellectually dishonest.

i specifically said i don't think Affiliate marketing is BS... i think the people doing it are brilliant and that a small group of folks are pissing the well and making it hard for everyone.

anyway, if you do something as honest as we did you're going to get folks who are threatened by it (i.e. blackhats).

thanks for including me... it was fun, and the discussion going on now is even more fun!

Re: You’re Not the Boss of Me

Jason — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:03:02 -0000

Just catching up on all the blog posts and message board threads about the keynote.... ummm.... wow! :-)

Let me make a couple of things clear here:

1. Thank you for having me.

2. I've learned an awful lot since the keynote, and that was exactly why I took the two days out of my schedule to come to the event: to learn.

3. My goal wasn't to create drama, but to create discussion. Of course, the most intense the discussion the great chance of drama. :-)

4. I have nothing against any of the people in affiliate marketing, I have someething against certain behaviors in the affiliate marketing and SEO worlds. Thinks like deceptive marketing, pollution of the web with low quality sites, and the wasting of resources.

5. While I can understand that some folks don't agree with what I had to say, I'm kind of shocked that folks are choosing to leave out the parts of my talk where I said "I'm painting with a wide brush here and we all know there is a range of affiliate marketers from honest to blackhat" and "affiliate marketers are some of the most intelligent and hardest working people i know." Some folks are really taking the talk out of context... but I guess if your one of the folks polluting the web you would do this to try and negate the parts of the talk that threaten your existence.

Anyway, at the end of the day I have nothing at stake in the affiliate space. If anything, the more black hat behavior that occurs the more valuable my current product becomes to users. If the web is filled with more and more crap, curated services are going to become more and more important.

all the best,

Jason
http://www.mahalo.com/member/jasoncalacanis

Re: Jason Calacanis and Affiliate Spam

Jason — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:16:50 -0000

Andrew: I don't really need to resort to being a demagogue in order to make a point about Affiliate Links and SEO/Index Spam.

We all know that search results and Squidoo are filled with undisclosed advertisements and spam pages. That is why in my talk I cited specific examples of searches on Technorati and google, as well as pages on Squidoo that were stolen content/spam/malware/etc.

I think the black hat SEO contingent wants to make me into some sort wack job, but the fact is I stand for something very simple: treat users well.

That's something blackhats do not do.

Re: “Are you an affiliate marketer? You suck!” ~ Calacanis

Jason — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:57:18 -0000

fyi: i was very clear to say it was not all affiliates who were creating bad sites/spam sites.

also, the affiliate marketing is bullsh@#$t comment was joke that everyone laughed at and got. you read it out of context.

best j

Re: Mahalo now officially a blog

Jason — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:37:04 -0000

Actually, this is just a layer on top of the core service which are the guide pages. We're still going to keep building out the thousands of pages a month. We're just listening to the 4.6m folks who come to the site each month and giving them more of what they want.

Not sure I would call all of Mahalo a blog, as we don't really use a blog format. You are correct that the front page is blog like (obviously).

The freshness is a constant challenge, but we're figuring it out. We should have a nice solution for the lined up in 2009.

Step by step my friend!

Note: has nothing to do with a non-compete. Interesting speculation, but my non-compete with AOL ran out long ago and it was for a blog network with over 50 blogs... which Mahalo clearly is not. Thanks for the theory however! :-)

all the best, j

Re: BAILOUT!

Jason — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:43:28 -0000

Actually, we agree that value is built in the down market. There is less competition for talent, customers and market share in down markets, so it is the ideal time to start. However, many of the A/B round Web 2.0 companies are going to run out of cash before they get to the promised land, and my email newsletter was a to try and help those folks who are struggling.

best j

Re: Do You Take Workcations?

Jason — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:31:57 -0000

Actually, I'm a big fan of folks taking a real vacation and turning off the laptop.... i find folks come back 10x more focused and energized when they take time off.

work hard/play hard is actually my position on it.

best j

Re: Free advice in the blogosphere

Jason — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:47:08 -0000

I'm shocked that when I make joke on my blog it can be spun so far off into left field...

first, I was joking about the dinner... if you read the post I think that is clear.

second, I've been putting out more information about a) how much we make, b) how we are making it, and c) how you can make it then any other person in the Adsense program that I know about.

third, I'm asking people to post into my comments (or email me if they don't want to be there)... if they do email me I wind up putting the information out there!

So, Paul who wrote the slight slam was totally off-base... I'm one of the most open guys in the business and I share information with the bloggers making $50 a month as well as the ones making $5,000 a month...

a rising tide lifts all boats!

best jason

Re: Random Blog of the Week #5

Jason — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:53:04 -0000

Thanks for the kudos... www.tuaw.com is great.

what don't you like about Blogsmith, our blog software?

best jason

Re: Is it journalism or is it something else?

Jason — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 22:52:11 -0000

We have been doing some interesting coverage today... check out our coverage of the AOL customer service hell call:

http://news.beta.netscape.com/story/2006/06/15/...

Now that is meta-journalism.

Question: sould we call it social journalism or meta-journalism?

Re: More from Andrew Baron of Rocketboom

Jason — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 21:26:33 -0000

Looks like thevideo was taken down.

Re: Is Jason Calacanis a troll?

Jason — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 15:43:19 -0000

1. Blogging is about expressing how you feel.

2. I don't need the traffic

3. I honestly feel that the climate the Discovery channel has created and is causing these deaths--and there isn't just one.

People are putting themselves in more and more dangerous positions in order to get ratings on Discovery. In fact, I was going to blog about this trend *before* Steve was killed. This past shark week they had an idiot skin diving (that is without a cage) with great white and bull sharks! They had the same idiot taunt wild lions (oh yeah, said idiot was attacked by a lion a couple of years back).

Steve Irwin was very entertaining, but I don't think the guy would take as many risks if the Discovery Channel were not promoting him all day long. The guy was clearly addicted to risk, to the point at which he dangled a dead chicken in one hand and his infant son in the other!

Now, the title is clearly not intended to be literal... the Discovery Channel didn't get out of bed and kill Steve Irwin. If you read past the title--which some folks don't seem to do--you'll see I make a very clear case for the Discovery channel being out of control.

best,

Jason

Re: Diggers will find a way to get paid

Jason — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:24:47 -0000

I think the point you miss is that the top diggers and Netscape Navigators are doing social bookmarking for *HOURS* a day.

This is not a simple hobby for them... it's work. Now, they are passionate about the work for sure, but passion doesn't pay the bills.

Kevin Rose is a very bright and talented young man, but when it comes to this issue he is a) wrong and b) he will change his position. It is so obvious that the top social bookmarkers are skilled individuals who deserve to be paid. Why shouldn't they get paid for going out and finding great stories to share with the community? That is what editors at magazines and newspapers do!

In fact, that is what the Netscape Navigators remind me of: GREAT EDITORS! They have the sense of what is hot or interesting, and they know how to package it.

Kevin will change his mind in 2007 and digg will come up with a way to compensate these users. It might be with Google Adsense on their profile pages, it might be with a reward system (think, a free iPod for every 50 stories on the home page--hey, that's a good idea!).

If Kevin doesn't pay them digg will a) lose their top users to Netscape and other services willing to pay people for their hard work and b) digg will have the forces of evil come in and bribe the top digg users--like they are doing now.

I've had multiple people come to me and tell me that they are paying top digg users, but that this didn't work with Netscape users because we are paying them already and those users know that Netscape would fire them if they did take a bribe.

That being said, it is possible (if not probable) that someone will bribe (or has bribed) a Netscape Navigator. Fraud happens. However, the second we (I mean they... I don't work there anymore!) find out about it they will fire the person for breaking the code of ethics.

Re: PayPerPost: a Web 2.0 witch-hunt

Jason — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 22:15:20 -0000

what you're hearing is that many folks put years into building the blogosphere and its credibility, and now these folks are faced with a slime coming into the city and taking a piss in the middle of the town square.

blogs are supposed to be about honesty and transparency and payperpost is STILL about deception. You don't have to disclose on every post (you can bury it with an icon on the side of your page), and they still allows folks to be forced into writing only positive reviews. the whole thing is just icky for folks who came to blogging to get away from the bought and paid for media players.

That's why you hear such a vocal response to payperpost.

as for the reality show... it's just sad and odd. these guys have done nothing and they are documenting themselves as if they were the google or youtube founders--hello!?!?!?

Re: PayPerPost: a Web 2.0 witch-hunt

Jason — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 22:52:26 -0000

From my understanding you have to have a disclosure policy, but you don't have to have it at the top of the post.

Everyone knows that 95-99.999% of folks will never see the a disclosure icon or policy on the right hand side of the page.

Disclosure should occur in the first sentence of the post and if it doesn't than it's deception because the majority of folks will not know.

This is why advertorials are clearly labeled on the top and bottom of pages in magazines.

So, until PayPerPost has full disclosure they are on my axis of evil list.

Re: Scoble and PayPerPost: Disclosure Is Healthy

Jason — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:46:55 -0000

I don't have a vendetta against Payperpost, as much as I have a vendetta against folks doing deceptive marketing with blogs. We're spent years building up trust in blogs and to have PPP come and piss in our well is just wrong.

If PayPerPost required disclosure in the first sentence of each post I would probably never write about them again.

In terms of Scoble getting paid to give a keynote at their event who really cares.

Re: Days of Our Lives, the blogosphere edition

Jason — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 19:23:42 -0000

I know I've made this comments over on my personal blog already, but I just want to say again:

1. I was invited to Gnomedex to talk about what I'm working.
2. My presentation was designed to be three equal parts: talking about internet pollution, talking about my solution to part of the problem, and a spirited Q&A. The second I said the word "Mahalo" Dave berated me.... I mean, common courtesy might be to wait until the Q&A, or as former friends to maybe talk to me 1-on-1 post my talk?
3. If the conference was a "don't talk about your projects" conference I would HAVE NEVER said two words about my current project. I could have spent another 10 minutes on other people's solutions to spam/pollution and went right to Q&A. I was never told not to talk about my project, and 10+ other folks talked about their projects.

I'm really sorry if I broke some Gnomedex rule, but I've been to three Gs in four years and I've never seen this kind of behavior. Of course, now I'm getting many, many respected folks emailing me about Dave having a pattern of berating people at conferences.

As I said, I'm sorry if I broke some rule, but it's a rule I was unaware of. I've been speaking for 12 years at conference and I've never had someone berate me in mid-sentence. I' m all for spirited debate during the Q&A, but again common courtesy would argue that you let a person state their case before ripping them apart.

That being said, Dave might have good points about us having an API... which we're working on. I don't know that I agree with his benchmark that a project needs to be a platform that he can make money from to be valuable or interesting. That me be his personally benchmark, but it is certainly not the benchmark of success in the real world.

all the best,

Jason

Re: Every Product Is A Platform

Jason — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:48:48 -0000

Thanks for the post Fred. I've decided to not engage the spat, but instead focus all my energy on the core issue you bring up here.

We've always planned an API and we have always considered syndication of our content to be important. At the time of my demo at Gnomedex were 90 days old and didn't have it ready--that simple. My point in the statement above is that I *think* you have to have a product that people love in order to have the subsequent platform.

For example:

1. Would YouTube be a powerful platform if not for their very powerful product (a simple clean interface, free Flash hosting, and easy to use syndication tools) first?
2. Would Twitter be a powerful platform if not for creating their very powerful product (the first simple to use SMS group messaging system... UPOC might have been first, but it certainly wasn't as simple and was head of its time) first?

In other words, from what I can tell you build a core product with a base audience and then open up your platform. If you don't get the core product and audience correct I'm not certain your API is going to help you (or help you that much). People would not be developing for the Twitter and YouTube APIs if they didn't have the traffic--would they? (I'm not sure, that is a real question).

Also, Pownce has launched with 10x BETTER features than Twitter. So, the truth might be that TWITTER is waiting for developers while POWNCE is eating their lunch. POWNCE is a MUCH, MUCH better product than TWITTER right now. Like, it's not even competition. Pownce has like file transfer, real link handling, it's faster, it has threaded messages, and it handles videos inline. Now, I love the TWITTER team and i use both equally today. However, I'm finding that POWNCE's pace of development is so much faster than TWITTERs that the race is starting to look like its already over. As an investor in Twitter I would tell them to stop waiting for the community to build the features POWNCE has native and hire five more developers and catch up!

An API and developer community is great unless your competitor is lapping you.... perhaps then it's time to spend some money and hire some more developers? Of course, maybe if BIZ and EV focus on the developer community they will rocket past POWNCE as their free-developer pool springs into action.... right? I really don't know, but I do know as a user I like POWNCE much better right now.... and I love TWITTER, so that says something.

For Mahalo we wanted to have a product built out first (i.e. 25,000 search terms) and then bring out the API. The correct point from Gnomedex was that we need to build a win-win between developers and our company, but I believe there is another WIN missing there: the win for the users. So, it's really a WIN-WIN-WIN you need to build: a win for audience, developer, and your company.

Our API is well underway with amazing companies (some which you know) using it. The API group is here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mahalo-development

And some folks are playing here:
http://www.codingrobots.com/mahalo/
http://www.socialham.com/2007/08/05/mahalo-badg...
http://www.slakinski.com/
http://www.slakinski.com/2007/08/grazr-meets-ma...

Mahalo has gotten way too much attention for such a young company frankly. I wanted to build this one a little slower and under the radar , but I guess that was folly on my part. The concept is too big and I'm to bombastic to fly under the radar any more....so, all I can do is be transparent at this point: we're working on the API as fast as we can, we're working to get to 25,000 pages as fast as we can, and we don't know EXACTLY what this product will look like in years two, three, four and five. However, I can tell you we've shown about 10% of the plan to date.... so, there is a lot more in the lab right now so please look at us as a very public beta (we dropped the alpha when we passed 10,000 pages last month! :-).

all the best and thanks for the post,

Jason

Re: Every Product Is A Platform

Jason — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:15:04 -0000

Yes, I understand you were not dissing Mahalo (I would hope not since you're an investor in our two rounds!), and I agree 100% that having both great standalone product with an API is the Holy Grail today.

RE: Pownce vs. Twitter:

a) you're kidding right? you find pownce hard to use?!!??!?! It's got to be one of the cleanest interfaces on the web...
b) you sound like MySpace talking about Facebook when quoting Twitter's numbers vs. Pownce. Pownce is closed beta and very young.... comparing the traffic isn't the point right now.

My core point with Twitter is that I think one could make the argument that they have relied TOO MUCH on the outside developers and not enough on the inhouse folks. It sounds really groovy to have all these free developers out their making cool things for your platform, sure. However, when you get a serious competitor like Kevin Rose into the mix who a) knows how to execute and b) isn't waiting on outside developers for his product development that whole "groovy API" model goes right out the window.

Competition changes everything and I think Twitter has a six month window right now.... if they don't lock down feature development and catch up to Pownce they might get caught in Friendster-ville.

That being said, I think Ev and Biz are two hard-core entrepreneurs wit mad skillz. I'm sure they are going to step up and drop some serious hotness over the next six months. Especially now that they have you as their PR person having open discussions about their product and production process on your blog! :-)

Some interesting board meetings coming up I'm sure.... :-)

best j

Re: Every Product Is A Platform

Jason — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 03:24:38 -0000

Terry: I think to date the profit in having an API has come in the form of:

a) distribution/marketing (i.e. every syndicated YouTube video was an advertisement for YouTube as well)

b) traffic to the mothership (i.e. everyone who uses a delicious or Twitter tool must, at the very least, have a Twitter account).

c) free developer resources and product testing (i.e. if 100 features are created for Twitter over the next year and five of them "pop" Twitter will obviously add them to their product. For example, people created Twitter search services because Twitter didn't have them).

d) revenue (i.e. I understand, but don't have confirmation or details of the fact, that Answers.com pays Wikipedia a fee to have a dedicated resource to serve them Wikipedia pages for syndication).

e) publicity (i.e. Google Maps probably got half their press from people doing mashups of Google Maps + INSERT DATASET here).

Of course, what do I know... I'm not a developer, I'm a journalist/media/blogger/community guy. :-)

best j

Re: Every Product Is A Platform

Jason — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 03:27:34 -0000

CC: I agree... it shouldn't be about me. It should be about the product, and the product is doing extremely well so far and I do feel bad that the whole "spat" occurred. That is why I've said nothing since the event about it. I'm letting it go and focusing on the product. For the record, it's working. I've had my head down for a month and we're getting a lot done and traffic and production are picking up.

all the best,

J

Re: Every Product Is A Platform

Jason — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 18:36:59 -0000

That's a very good point David. The platform companies get built off free--and willing--labor pools and those are becoming very limited. For every Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter there are dozens of ghost towns.

At some point the top 5% of each of these markets emerge and that's the opportunity I see... skim the cream of the most talented members of the public and get them paid for their amazing work.

Re: SquidWho - When A Product Becomes A Platform

Jason — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 18:44:08 -0000

I just went to SquidWho and typed in Steve Jobs and it gave me a bunch of syndicated content from:

a) wikipedia
b) flickr
c) amazon
d) youtube
etc.

Confused... what's the platform part? Am I missing something? This feels like a polished blog scraper tool to be honest.

If you type in the name of someone you don't know it autobuilds a page based on these syndicated sources. This kind of stuff has been around for a while I think, what's the platform piece of it?

Is there a way for folks to tap into some original content on Squidoo and use it/play with it?

best j

Re: Web 3.0 Nonsense

Jason — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:43:03 -0000

Thanks for the unauthorized feedback on the official definition Fred.

You are correct in that I'm building a business around what I think the future is: human and machine excellence woven into one fabric. Now, I know that it's a crazy concept to some to align your personal beliefs with your business efforts, but having watched your investment strategy over the past 12 years I think you can feel me. Hold on, someones at the door.... I just got a pint of ice cream delivered at half-price, delivered in 20 minutes.... OK, I'm back (zing! pow!).

Now, on to your unauthorized points.

1. "The official definition" in my headline should have tipped you off to this being tongue in check, but as your response was unauthorized you're clearly not playing by the rules. All responses to blog posts originating off of your blog in Web 3.0 must require a token pre-approving them by both parties. It's double-opt in rebuttal technology that I've patented... it's in the new version of Wordpress and an open source ping server (mayIinterjectOMATIC.org is being setup now).

Moving on...

2. The social web has been here for, what, five years? It's 90% complete and it still hasn't found a business model beyond "sell the traffic to Google or Microsoft for three years" and deal with our own bottom line later.

3. The semantic web is hype term--something I'd never participate in clearl--obsessed on by VCs scouring the eTech conference for a hype word to sell to their LPs for the continuation of database tyranny. It's easier for VCs to think the world is designed into buckets that can be manipulated into hockey stick performance that can in turn be sold for a hockeystick return. The truth is that art plus the commoditized technological will prevail in the next era.

Programmable and semantic web.... ohhhh!!! so such big terms. I'm so intimidated by them I just want to give up and open a sushi bar on the LES! Semantic web=structured data and that's been around forever. The web is just catching up to what banks and airlines have been doing for decades. Will it be powerful? Certainly it will be nice to be able to pull down Yelp! reviews and format them for your phone better, but that's a VCARD and VCAL standard-level improvement on live. Good, but not great.

In the (Web 3.0) future please remember to have your blog posts cleared through the central Flameoff authorization center. Filters showed 18% hostility toward the subject in this post--a full 4% higher than the national and 2% higher than your local/zipcode average.

Re: Calacanis: Web 3.0 is whatever I say it is

Jason — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:07:56 -0000

Note: The semantic web definition was unauthorized and as such invalid. Additionally, your blog post was not pre-approved for double-opt in rebuttal, and as such will be downgraded in the index.

For more information please check the official, pre-approved response to your unauthorized comments.

best,

J

Re: How To Get On Techmeme

Jason — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:45:15 -0000

isn't it amazing... add the word "official" and it's the top story of the day. Leave that word out and no one cares.

Re: My favorite part of the Mahalo “how to get a good night’s sleep” guide

Jason — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:02:59 -0000

ha!

Re: Is StumbleUpon better than Google?

Jason — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:27:22 -0000

StumbleUpon is very, very cool... unfortunately, when it comes to search most users are not going to install toolbars or use features like this (at least not today). Same with delicious... very cool for folks in the top 1-3% of the audience, but not very useful for the masses. I think semantic search has the same challenge: folks don't want to fill out a form to get their results. They want to type one or two words into a box and get a big reward.... with Mahalo they get that.

That being said, folks building Mahalo pages use delicious and stumble upon all the time to find interesting links to include on our pages. I think social bookmarking and editorial search do overlap in terms of themes, but just not for end users.

best j

Re: Dembot - Why Mahalo is Fundamentally Flawed

Jason — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:35:50 -0000

well, in the face of lies and absurdity you don't really have many options. It's either ignore or amuse yourself. :-)

Re: Dembot - Why Mahalo is Fundamentally Flawed

Jason — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:45:15 -0000

Give it time Ed... we're still in beta an only have 22,000 pages that represent ~200k searches. We're adding 1,000 pages a week so it should get better an better over time.

Re: Calacanis Comment Love?

Jason — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:09:16 -0000

I turn them on once and a while... don't tell anyone! :-)

Re: How Personal Brand Can Launch Products

Jason — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:58:50 -0000

Personal brand gets you a couple of mentions, but after that it's the product that matters. In fact, the whole "internet rockstar" thing is way overblown in my opinion. No one is going to use a product over the longterm because they like the CEO/founder. Even Steve Jobs can't save a bad product. If iPhones started crashing three times a day or dropping calls people would hate it, and they might still love their MacBooks and ipods.

I'm thankful that we get a little extra attention, but frankly you also get a lot of bad attention too... I'd love to have launched Mahalo without people knowing it was my product. In fact, I thought about doing a very soft launch and not telling anyone. That would have been interesting huh?! :-)

Re: Calacanis: You have to be a “player”

Jason — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:40:13 -0000

That title is not fair and you know it very well Mathew... however, I applaud your link-baiting skills. :-p

To be totally clear, I was on the other side of the fence a couple of years ago. Before Weblogs, Inc. I had to build a business based on making money TODAY, not three to five years from now.

Today? Yes, I'm part of the group that can get a project funded. That's just reality and I'm certainly grateful for it. I also would never apologize for it... if Ev and Marc Andreessen can raise tons of money to build out Twitter and NING over a five year plan that's great... they earned that right.

If someone new to the game (like me back in the 90s) has to prove themselves so be it!

You don't have to be a "player" to make it happen, but if you want to take the "build for three years before thinking about revenue" model you better have a track record or a lot of money in your pocket!

Happy new year,

Jason

Re: Would you please make up your mind Jason

Jason — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:45:25 -0000

sorry if that wasn't clear....

1. If you have access to capital build until you reach critical mass because focusing on revenue too early keeps you from getting to critical mass.

2. If you don't have access to capital then build revenue streams early and often.

best j

Re: Out on the UGC limb (Scripting News)

Jason — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:17:14 -0000

Actually, I've said many times from the start of Mahalo that it is 1/3rd Wikipedia, 1./3rd search, and 1/3rd other.

In terms of rehashing the event I simply think it was rude of you to yell at me in the middle of my presentation. If you had waited until the Q&A like a, well, normal person it would have been fine by me. That's just how people behave--it's common courtesy.

I love debate and you know that. We've debated 100's of times and I've never had a problem with that. No one is afraid of taking me on--that's a joke. People write blog posts all the time challenging what I say. So, let's not pretend this is some kind issue with me silencing people. People can attack me as often as they like. Screaming from the back row? Well, that's just rude as I've said. I've spoken at events for over a decade and only one person in that time has ever yelled at me: you.

I accepted your apology... move on dude! Life is short..

Best Jason

Re: Bad Form: Companies Still Send Passwords via Email

Jason — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:46:15 -0000

Frankly, I *hate* services that send me a new password when I forget it and I LOVe services that just send me my password.

If someone has hacked into your email aren't you already compromised big time?!

obviously the new password/password reset function is safer, but it's also a pain in the neck. I understand for a bank, but for a bookmarking/social network like Mahalo or StumbleUpon?! Is that overkill?

Like you said, many services send you a reminder email... is that really so wrong?!

best j

Re: Journabloggers Should Do Their Work Too

Jason — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:52:05 -0000

Adding to the complexity of this is the fact that services like Alexa are so easy to game it's laughable. At the early stages of a startup there is no way for Alexa, comscore, quantcast, etc. to really track the companies accurately.

Of course, if you're a solid entrepreneur you disregard the press and focus on the product. That is what ThisNext has done (i'm on the board of ThisNext), and that nice growth curve shows *real* startup growth. A spike like the Like.com one screams of buying traffic to me.... especially after a dip during the holiday when they should have been growing. It wold be interesting to see where their traffic is coming from... if it's organic great, but I wouldn't be surprised if they bought that spike.

Re: Startup Advice Weekend

Jason — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:33:45 -0000

to take two very personal examples:

Fred's Kozmo.com was a great company that ran out of money. it is working today in many cities in various forms. :-)
My Silicon Alley Reporter was a great company that ran out of money. It's working today at AlleyInsider. :-)
SixDegrees was a great company that ranout of money. You could say too early I guess, but too early is another way of saying not enough money to go the distance.
There were a ton of video hosting companies that got tanked like iClips before YouTube. not sure more cash would have saved any because they didn't have the DMCA rules back than.
best j

Re: Twitter is not a chatroom (Scripting News)

Jason — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:17:00 -0000

Except at Gnomedex you lead the mob. :-)

Re: Last Question For Jason Calacanis: Whose Urine Is More Pure?

Jason — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 02:13:56 -0000

I'm not a fan of paid reviews sites. It feel artificial to pay someone to review a product.

Of course, sometime people pay focus groups so I'm sure the review folks are saying "we're no different than focus groups!"

If there is disclosure in the *FIRST* and *LAST* sentence of the review that it is paid for I think I'm ok with it... and if the links have no follow!

j

Re: Bloomberg For President

Jason — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:45:22 -0000

couldn't agree more. The country is facing very hard times, and mike is the most qualified. Run Mike Run! It's not too late!

Re: Gaming Mahalo

Jason — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:27:03 -0000

In theory you are correct, but in practice probably not. The fact is the value of paying off a guide might be a couple of dollars or a couple of hundred dollars. The value of a guide to work at Mahalo is thousands, tens of thousands, or more dollars. Also, the Guides have pride and integrity--we hire based on that--so money is not going to motivate them in 99.9999% of cases me thinks.

all the best,

Jason

Re: Disqus and Seesmic Pair Up For Video Comments

Jason — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:40:22 -0000

OK, i have to just say this is very frackin cool.

that's it.

Re: Convenience Beats Quality

Jason — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:46:24 -0000

Wikipedia would be the biggest example of this in fact. They are not the highest quality, but they do have a page on almost everything.

Re: Facebook, why should I only have 5000 friends?

Jason — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:26:31 -0000

I actually have 2,000 folks waiting to be added... I save my last 100 spots for real friends months ago. :-)

Re: Mahalo Note or Why I’m Uninstalling the Mahalo Firefox Toolbar

Jason — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:34:18 -0000

gosh that looks ugly.... the feature is still being finished and it's supposed to look a lot cleaner.

Re: TEN Reasons Digg Not Getting Acquired…Nope, Just One!

Jason — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:13:46 -0000

Howard Lindzon: "Digg is truly the most useless of the big Web 2.0 sites."

Reality: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/digg.com+walls...

Calacanis insight: Yes, 25m folks a month *in the US ALONE* according to Compete.com--which under reports--is the definition of a "useless" business.

------

Howard Lidzon: "it can’t make money."

Reality: digg is making at least 12-15M a year right now. It would make that with or without the Microsoft deal.

Calacanis insight: Lidzon is such a nobody, who has done so little in the internet space, that his only shot at getting any kind of attention is to write really weak link-bait. Henry: really, you understand the metrics of this industry so well, why give a platform to someone with such a weak, inaccurate analysis. It makes it look like either a) you were forced to post this because he's an LP in your investors company (which is obviously not the case) or b) that you're going for the cheap page views like you're Nick Denton (which you're not). Suggest you go for the long-term brand building strategy and leave the "digg sucks because i couldn't build something 1/10,000th as important" for the comments on Valleywag.