Jason Calacanis is pretty much the definition of entrepreneur. The guy has run company after project after company with energy and gusto. Producing more content everyday than most “legitimate new media experts” can produce in a month while some how managing to build an audience for his brand of self.
His latest start up Mahalo is a human-powered search engine. Many start ups would love to be human powered but just can’t get anyone to produce content for free. Jason brings a unique value proposition to any 2.0 startup by having an audience that wants to be involved and engaged. Mahalo does it’s best to cover the top 50,000 or so searches providing human-edited results. They rely on both expert labour and a mechanical turk like greenhouse to produce their timely results. The site itself keeps it’s loyal user base active by having a well produced podcast starring internet star Veronica Belmont and having Jason do the rounds online. By understanding the audience who will build the community that supports the site produce content, Mahalo succeeds and all fronts.
In the search landscape, they are the new school grassroots… reminiscent of the early days of the Yahoo directory. Check them out and thanks for the free stuff.
