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.

This was actually going to be a longer post. I could care less now.

On february 1st, Kevin Rose announced on the Digg Blog that they would be removing the top users list for digg.com WHAT? Remove the top users list? But now what will the digg community have to show who is better than who? Nothing, that’s what and it’s great. When people start competing against each other, quality will dwindle and that’s a fact. What the digg community should be looking into doing is making the site the best, better than any competitors, even if they are just shameless clones.

The reason for this is clear, people in the top users list have the e-belly to get stories to the top. Even users who aren’t in the top 100 are being spammed with emails to digg stories for financial compensation. (I’m ranked in the second hundred and received such an email even though I think it was automatically generated.) The power of digg is great and people with products to peddle know this and will do anything to get their site to the front page. It’s gotten as far as organized sites, such as spikethevote. The removal of the list is just one of the measures to take place. I’ve spoken with Jay Adelson, digg’s CEO on this before and he explained to me that they just can’t game the system effectively, if at all. It’s not as simple as who gets the most stories to the front page. It’s a whole lot more complicated and we’ll leave it at that.

But the digg community is smart, or should we say, the competitors are. It appears that with the help of digg’s API, a new top users list rose from the ashes of the old one, thanks to Netscape. Okay, let’s back up a bit. While the man responsible for the list, Christopher Fink says that he made the new list of his own volition, even though he’s employed with Netscape. Conflict of interest? To an extent. I understand that people can more than work on projects on their own. Google employees do it, in fact, it’s part of their job. But even if he did it on his own, knowing who he works for, can you blame the backlash it’s causing?

The mere fact that Netscape exists in it’s current state is something people still seem to be displeased about. The “new” Netscape looks a lot like digg. That’s a fact. Jason Calacanis, as per usual, has his say on the issue, chiming in with:

Most of the top users I’ve talked to over the years are very, very driven by that top list. They want to climb higher, they talk about strategies to climb the rankings, they build tools to get to stories first, and they lament their inability to sustain their position when they fall.

Interesting. I recall reading in some comment on the issue where someone said they liked to think of digg as a game, using the list as a way to gauge your strength, not unlike a Role Playing Game. That’s all fine and dandy, but as stated before, this is not where the digg community needs to focus right now, but rather on the competition. I like to think of this issue not unlike post counts in forums. After time, the post counts seem to run the forum, with users of forums seeing persons with high post counts as more important. Do away with the post counts and suddenly, nobody cares, they focus on the quality of messages posted rather than the quantity.

In short, mister Fink should really just accept the backlash for what he did, not to say he did anything that anyone else may not have done.

Well, isn’t this great? We’re familiar with the amount of time and effort taken by the U.S media to report on the frivolous happenings in the lives of celebrities. I’m creeped out and could care less about Angelina Jolie’s fascination with blood. No, I don’t care about Star Jones*, I don’t want to know who’s responsible for all the wars in the world. One of my favourite shows on Television is The Soup. Why? Because they know just how idiotic it is that this stuff is going on and how much more idiotic it is that the media continues to feed us this drivel. What’s ironic is that it’s on E!, whose bread and butter is doing just this.

A common practice is to give one name to a celebrity couple, because it’s cool, apparently. It’s safe to say this all started to get popular when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez became known as Bennifer. The Soup, being the trendsetters they are, decided to have a segment on their show called the “The Celebrity Hookup Nickname Generator” which is, coincidentally, the name of the machine that does what the name implies. The latest buzz is around musician John Mayer and Jessica Simpson (she’s blond). Their name: “messica”. The Soup was spot on with this segment, showing just how dumb this thing is, but Web 2.0, not to be outdone, has joined the fray.

Imagine how odd I felt having to read Michael Arrington’s usage of GooTube. We have so jumped the shark and I don’t think there’s any going back. This isn’t an isolated case by any means, it’s spreading. We need to do something. Alas, my blog doesn’t get to charge $10, 000 for 125×125 pixel ads, therefore, I am but a mere nobody. Since I can’t do anything, I can only contribute. But how? By getting in on the action before others take notice, that’s how. So, from now on:

Robert Scoble and Mariam Scoble = Scobiam

Chris Pirillo and Ponzi (real name Latthanapon Indharasophang) = Ponzillo

Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington are doing conferences together, which is close enough to being married, please meet Calacangton.

Be sure to fight the good fight, and help make Web 2.0 greater by consolidating names. It makes you cool.

*until she returns my calls, I will just stop caring.

I find it amazing how hypocritical Jason Calacanis can be. He’s obviously aware at what he’s doing and refuses to fess up to anything. First, Nick Denton, owner and proprietor of Gawker Media points this out, where Jason deleted comments from his blog some time ago. Fair enough, but I was victim to such a thing myself.

In his thoughtful “open latter” to Robert Scoble, Jason gives his unwarranted opinion of his “friend” Robert who was a bit angry that larger blogs, such as AOL’s Engadget weren’t linking to content which was first and exclusive and essential to reporting a story. I decided to do a little commenting myself, you know, just to throw in the fact that Jason doesn’t own Weblogs, Inc. anymore and that he had no place in Robert’s tirade. I also pointed out that Robert had a point considering Engadget has been found to have less than favourable blogging practices, providing links to prove what I was saying. But no, my comment was deleted. Jason has claimed he only deletes offensive and inappropriate comments. Who knew the truth can also be considered foul language?