Monkey on Wordpress

Let’s start right off the bat with me saying all that I heard of Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo made me not like it the least bit. Why? I just got a vibe, but I have been pleasantly wrong in the past so no reason this can’t be one of those instances, right? It seemed to me to be yet another search engine and really, creating a search engine now is suicide no matter how good you are. Does anyone use Clusty? Chances are most people use Google or MSN or Yahoo! and not much more beside a Wikipedia search from time to time.

Web 2.0 tested, Hippie approved.

So, this is what I get Mahalo to be: a people powered search engine. This should be wonderful. Let’s take a look at the start page.

Now, let’s take a look at Spock. What is Spock? Obvious planetary jokes aside, it’s a tag-based people search.

Looking at the start pages, they both give off the “I wan to be Google but cooler” vibe and it’s a toss up, I call it a tie, 1 point each.

Let’s get to the meat and potatoes here: the search. First up, Robert Scoble:

The page on Mahalo gave me links to the Mahalo top 10 which is…a feature. It’s not really that useful a feature, almost like they take the top Google results for the term and put it in there.

Below there is a professional profile. This must be where the actual human power comes in and boy must this be accurate. Mahalo intends to keep the top 10, 000 terms done by humans and I just think this will not get very far but let’s save criticism for later.

To be quite honest, maybe you can see where I am coming from with this when you go to the page, but this just doesn’t seem to be useful - it’s a page of links that are supposed to be in some helpful order but it doesn’t do it well. I can see that the people in charge of these pages do a search on Wikipedia and blogs as well as on services such as Technorati or Twitter and throw the links in under some classification. It seems to be a big, jumbled mess from a user standpoint.

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Spock actually seems better off. We’re presented with a bunch of tags that are useful. Why? Because I can click on one tag that is associated with Robert and find other people. I did this with “technical evangelist” and found Dave Winer and Chris Messina among others. In using it I’ve also realized it’s a good, quick way to find out who people are. Sure, I’ve always heard about this Dave Winer guy, but I never really cared to know anything about why I was always hearing about him, I assumed he and Scoble were camping buddies or something.

A really nice thing is the mini profile on the side of the page. Sure it is basically Yanked from Wikipedia but it’s useful because I may just need basic information on people and don’t want to sift through various wikis.

Spock also has a feature for a bunch of links called “On The Web” and I think Mahalo has the upper hand considering the fact that they at least attempt to divide their information.

Are you keeping track of the points? My head hurts too much to keep giving it out, all points have been revoked.

It’s obvious that Robert Scoble will have a well done profile, after all, he is who he is, so I decided to go for someone who might be less well known by these techies.

I decided to look for Rihanna on Mahalo and Spock.

The profile on Spock was great, had tags for the person as well as Wikipedia info as I showed you with Scoble. I can see the use of Spock being when you need to find out basically who people are. You may not want to read an entire wiki to get the informatio when Spock does it efficiently enough, I guess.

The Mahalo page…is a bunch of links. I suppose if they had the profile container like Spock the page would look more appealing to me, but it doesn’t and you know this fickle Web 2.0 crowd - one look at your page and they’re out. Oh, silly me, what was I saying, there is a profile-ish thing on the page up in the top right-hand corner.

Thanks for the guide note! I can tell a lot of time went into it. Also, the spelling error adds a more personal touch. Or is it just that the site is really cool with the gamer/forum lingo so they use “teh” throughout?

It’s safe to say Spock does this way better than Mahalo and Mahalo is essentially shooting themselves in the foot by using these people.

A Word On Usability

Spock is easy to use, really. It is using tags in a way to help people and I honestly think that it’s something that Google could even benefit from, the same goes for Wikipedia. In fact, either one of these entities could probably utilize Spock as some sort of “alternative”, so maybe an acquisition will occur, that or a blatant rip-off. As for Mahalo…it’s a website but why do I need a legend now for this site? I don’t care about this, don’t tell me which links are the best, just put the best links or don’t say anything. Make the user experience as painless as possible, I do not need a learning curve for a search engine.

In all honesty, I can see people using Spock occasionally but Wikipedia seems to be the best way to go. I remember Jason Calacanis saying how simple it would be to get people to moderate Wikipedia since the debate about Wikipedia’s accuracy was popping up. It seems this is what Jason is intending to do is just that.

Spock has me thinking, I can do a search for “inventor” then get a list of inventors. Suppose I am doing a project and need to find an inventor, a Google search doesn’t give you a list of people who are inventors Spock does. I can search on Spock then get detailed information on Wikipedia. Nice. Maybe I don’t “get” Mahalo and I’d love to give it another go if it is I haven’t been using.

Just a note, I have 2 invites to Spock, leave a comment and they’re yours.