I’ve been checking out Mahalo more frequently lately, and I have to say, it’s pretty darn useful. I’ll share ten reasons why you should Mahalo various search terms to find relevant results, as well as some feedback to make it better.
Mahalo is the current startup that Jason Calacanis was working on post-Netscape. Since then, he’s received a lot of feedback from users and has done a pretty decent job accomodating everyone’s needs.
In a nutshell, Mahalo is a human-powered search engine/reference source that rejects spammy Web sites and links users to relevant content.
Mahalo aims to provide content that is superior to Google, Yahoo or Live because there is no algorithm to exploit. As long as you have a page that offers value for an article, an editor will post it on an article after vetting it for junk.
Here are 10 reasons why you should ‘Mahalo’ your next search:
- Spam-Free Results. All pages on Mahalo link you to content that is interesting and useful like videos, blogs and news articles.
- Minimal Advertising. Because there are editors on staff who are probably compensated… they must pay for the work. The ads are relvate and targeted to the content to via a reputable vendor, Amazon.
- Easy to Use. Just search and click, that’s all there is to it. It’s also easy to submit links for review.
- Spammers hate Mahalo. This is why you should use it instead of landing on spam-blogs (splogs).
- Relevant like Wikipedia, but Not as Boring. The relevancy of articles to links is equivalent to that of Wikipedia, but the composition and display of well-formed articles looks way better.
- Dynamic. The Mahalo homepage changes frequently linking you to hot topics that people are discussing.
- Not too Geeky. The variety of content that Mahalo hosts is diverse allowing anyone with virtually any interest find useful content. That is, from Paris Hilton to Tasers — Mahalo has you covered.
- Mahalo Connects Your Social Networks Together. When you submit content to Mahalo, you have the opportunity to share submissions with your friends and contacts on other social networks that you’re connected with.
- Stop Searching! Mahalo doesn’t force you to dig for relevant results. You just get them.
- Mahalo is Interesting, Useful and Accessible. I say Mahalo is interesting because I can find content for stuff I like but didn’t know existed; I say it’s useful because I can save time and find answers when I’m in a hurry; I say accessible because it doesn’t read as an encyclopedia.
Of course, those are just my opinions.
You may have other reasons why you might like it, so check it out. The only thing that Mahalo lacks is speed. I imagine as users access it more and submit content, Mahalo will scale their Greenhouse to more people so articles get updates more frequently. I trust that as Mahalo nears for their GM stage, it should be the authoritative, human-powered search engine firing on all eight cylinders.
