Mahalo Greenhouse Launches

Two weeks ago we launched the human-powered "search service" Mahalo.com in alpha at the WSJ's D conference in California. The tag line of Mahalo is "we're here to help," and after 15 days of tremendous feedback we've learned one thing: you want to help too!

We hear ya, we hear ya. We really, really, really hear ya!

Today I'm thrilled to announce the Mahalo Greenhouse, a place where the public can build search results that-if accepted by our Guides-will be included in the Mahalo search index.

Oh yeah, if we accept your search result we will pay you $10 to $15 per search result page (the range is based on how many search result pages you've completed: more here).

Now, if you're a disciple of Yochai and you absolutely will not work on a web-based project for money, we've got an amazing proposition for you: make the web better by writing spam-free search results and we'll donate your fees to the Wikimedia Foundation. So, you can make the world better 2x: first by making clean, spam- free search results and second by helping keep the Wikipedia running (those server bills ain't cheap!).

We've earmarked up to $250,000 in donations to the Wikipedia this year.

Now, we can't accept everyone all at once. We're gonna start taking applications today and adding a handful of folks to the Greenhouse based on merit. What we're looking for in part-time Guides:

a) a desire to help people–a lot!
b) the ability to surf the web
c) previous work experience at DMOZ, Wikipedia, a well-known blog (i.e. Engadget, LifeHacker, etc), a social news site (Reddit, Netscape, or digg), or a social bookmarking site (delicious, stumbleupon).

Extra consideration will be giving to folks who have an online following on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, MySpace, a personal blog, or the like (i.e. folks who can help us spread the word).

Mahalo for your consideration and we look forward to working with you!

Jun 13th 2007 5:36AM
Permalink
Email this
Linking Blogs
Comments [10]

Reader Comments

(Page 1 of 1)

1. There's a space in the Mahalo Greenhouse link which makes it break. Server not found!

Posted at 6:43AM on Jun 13th 2007 by Adrian

2. Hi Jason

I'm a sports writer and photographer and would be really keen to contribute, especially as Wikipedia is pretty patchy in my subject area.

I have a lot of content I'd like to bring together to make my life easier, and even, if there's some parallel incentive, make my archives (such as photos of athletes on Flickr and pdfd of my print magazine) online and searchable.

But I see payment is for US based writers only. Though I would wish in an ideal world to contribute to Wikipedia and I understand the need to prioritise - this is disappointing as I'd really like to get my teeth into this!

So I hope there's an opportunity for expansion.

Best wishes,

Tim

Posted at 7:19AM on Jun 13th 2007 by Tim Watt

3. Jason,
Congrats again on this launch and thanks for the comment on my post.

Cheers,
Will

Posted at 9:49AM on Jun 13th 2007 by Will

4. I am interested in this project and will accept payment for research work.

Here's one for ya: try finding good search results on any mission critical life skill. (I almost blurted out one particular niche, but I calm now. I calm now.)

Thus: take extremely vital topics, areas of deep and urgent concern for companies, individuals, families, entrepreneurs, bloggers, Web 2.0 start-ups, and digital media operations, and build SERPs for them first.

Enable users to Order by Date, so as to view the freshest, most recent info.

Posted at 10:17AM on Jun 13th 2007 by vaspers the grate

5. As I read this quickly, I thought you said $10 per SERP, but you said per SER. That's insane. Too generous, friend. W00t!

I'm a gonna be rich, Aunt Nelly!

Posted at 10:50AM on Jun 13th 2007 by vaspers the grate

6. This was the smart move for sure. With the impossible task of creating an in-house team to keep results fresh and to keep results different than rebranded Google results, paying "expert" users for content is the right solution to this problem. Hopefully, those paid submissions are QA'd/QC'd in some manner ...

Posted at 10:55AM on Jun 13th 2007 by Hagrin

7. Hi there. Love the idea of Mahalo. Collaborative searching. Impressive and good luck with it.

Just wanting to flag up that I was really disappointed to discover that I couldn't register and hence share my favourite links. I'm blind, I use a screenreader (JAWS) and the captcha graphic you use as part of the registration process prevents me from joining in.

It is possible to create audio captchas too, please can you consider adding this to your site as an alternative for those who can't see the graphics and so can't type the security code into the box beneath.

I'm finding that more and more and more websites are excluding me. I've been on annual leave this week and almost every web service I've tried to subscribe to in my time off has stopped me from doing so. As you've proven, the web should be about everyone, a proper web, interlinked people and minds, colllaboration. etc.

Happy to help or advise if at all useful. But please do consider this. Will probably email you too. I've realised that if I don't keep banging on about this, the very accessible web I've come to love over the last ten or fifteen years may disappear.

Captchas are so destructive and divisive. There has to be a better way. Discuss?

Thanks n'stuff

...Damon (London, England)

Posted at 4:20AM on Jun 14th 2007 by Damon

8. PayPerMahalo is launched!

Posted at 10:41AM on Jun 14th 2007 by Pete

9. Extremely depressed (okay, hyperbole) I wasn't selected.

Posted at 11:44PM on Jun 14th 2007 by David Mackey

10. How much time do you think it will take to write one search result?

Posted at 4:53AM on Jun 16th 2007 by johnrob

Mahalo Greenhouse Launches

Recent Posts

Reader Comments

Daily Reads

Most Commented On (7 days)

Recent Comments

RSS NEWSFEEDS