2 years ago, I would have given my left testicle for a 17″ MacBook Pro, but I always exercised restraint and stayed a PC user. The cost of the hardware was always my excuse for not drinking the Apple juice. “I could buy 3 PCs for the price of one MacBook Pro” was my reasoning. I never did go Mac, and now I’m kind of happy with my decision to remain a PC user.

Jason Calacanis published a post to his email list and blog recently that got my attention and made me more aware of Apple’s busines practices and how they treat their customers. Jason has spent a considerable amount of money and exercised a lot of loyalty to Apple products over the past few years, but he’s no longer happy with showing his support to the brand, or the man behind it.

My big takeaways from Jason’s post are:

1. Apple sells expensive (but quality so you’d expect to pay more) hardware, whether it be iPods, computers or phones, and then makes it impossible (and even illegal) for their customers to have a choice in how they use that hardware.

2. Apple seems to have such a blind following of rabidly loyal customers that they can’t see their choice is being limited solely for the benefit of the company.

3. If another company employed the same ultra-rigid and anti-competitive business practices, they’d have government regulatory bodies leaning on them so hard they’d be finished, or at least be forced to submit and become more open.

4. (And this is my own personal observation) The most rabid Apple fans and devout evangilists remind me of a religious cult – touting Apple and their supreme leader, Steve Jobs, as being superior in every way, while ignoring Apple’s negative points and downtrodding all other products and the people who use them. They have an agenda.

All of the above for me are a huge turnoff.

A computer is a tool for me. That tool must perform a task for it to have value and as long as that task is done correctly and efficiently, whether the tool cost $500 or $3,500 it’s still accomplished the same thing. Just because the $3,500 would make you appear to look or feel better performing that task, does that add any real value?

Enough about price. I’m a tinkerer. I love modding stuff to suit my needs so I want to be able to flip my computer upside down, take a screwdriver and pop in extra RAM or a bigger hard drive without having to bring it in to some kid at a genius bar who’s going to take my old hardware. I want to have the freedom to install whatever software I like. Like, youknow, some obscure flavor of Linux.

I’d love to be able to buy OS X for a couple hundred bucks and install it on my Toshiba laptop. Problem is, I’m not allowed. I can buy the disc, but I’d have to buy an Apple computer to install the software on.

There are just too many things I’m not allowed to do with an Apple product. Why, then, would I go out and buy one?

I’ve spent the first part of this post being negative towards Apple products, so let’s look at some positives.

Apple products are design materpieces when it comes to look, feel and the image they portray. No doubt about that.

Apple has spent their entire existance refining, optimizing and streamlining both their hardware and software and how they co-exist and perform together. They’ve built an ‘Operating System’ that comes with a collection of productivity and entertainment software built for the hardware and OS, so it’s more stable, slicker, “it just works”.

Whereas Microsoft has built more of a ‘Platform’ than an Operating System – a platform that has to run 10’s of 1,000’s of applications and programs because of their open system, so there are disadvantages.

Am I a Microsoft fan? NO. I’m a Microsoft software user. There’s a big difference.

I’m a fan of hardware and software that’s more open and tinkerable.

When I was a kid I liked Lego more than jigsaw puzzles. I could do almost anything I wanted with Lego and it was a different experience every time. A jigsaw puzzle ends up being one thing once it’s built.

So now that I’ve straddled the fence while leaning towards the PC garden, I’d only buy an Apple laptop, or Mac mini, if I was buying it from a person who was replacing their’s with a PC because they’re crossing the floor to the more open side. So…

P.S. Jason, I’ll be in SFO in a few weeks if you wanna unload one of those Laptops for a good price

Related posts:

1. Vestalife Takes a Bite out of Apple!
2. Apple fail: Leopard 10.5.7 causes freezing, overheating issues
3. iPods Get Huge Price Cuts As Apple Kicks Off “It’s Only Rock And Roll” Event

The “Suggested Users” list, which is displayed to new Twitter members after they create their account, can deliver 5,000 to 10,000 new followers a day, Calacanis says — leading him to call the placement the “next Super Bowl ad.” So how does Twitter actually determine who gets on the list? Twitter’s Biz Stone is opening up about the process.

The ‘Suggested Users’ Process

In a new blog posting, Stone describes the “Suggested Users” list as being “a bit like your local book store’s staff picks,” only with a twist: The selection process is partially automated. A custom program scans active accounts for some “key ingredients,” Stone says, which include how complete of a profile it has, how interesting it appears to other users, and a few other unspecified “signals.”

From the short list generated by that system, Stone and other Twitter execs start evaluating and looking for the right match. Their considerations, as Stone explains them:

“Is the account a good introduction to Twittering for a new user? Does the person or organization running the account have a fairly wide or mainstream appeal? If they are a celebrity or business, have we confirmed it’s really them?”

If someone is still on the list after those questions, the Twitter team does a “gut check internally with a couple folks.” Pass the gut check, and you’re in. At least, in theory.

An Evolving Entity

Stone says the list does continually evolve and expand, even though only 20 users are displayed at any given time. Interestingly, he explicitly states that Twitter isn’t paid to include anyone — suggesting that, perhaps, Mr. Calacanis’s offer may not go far. Still, the door hasn’t been closed.

“That’s how we’re doing the list today,” Stone says. “We may very well change the way we populate this list or stop using it altogether if there is some other way to get the job done.”

Related posts:

1. Twitter to officially support retweeting. Millions of users learn that they don’t already
2. Twitter users get a dose of the old days as Twitter API fails
3. “Hi, this you on here?” Twitter Phishing Scam Hooks Unsuspecting Users

The following is reprinted with permission from Jason Calacanis.

Last Monday we launched a new product called Mahalo Answers
(http://www.mahalo.com/answers/ ).

It got a very warm reception from the press, users and the industry (investors, partners, etc). This was the most seamless and well-executed launch I’ve ever been involved in, so I thought I would share what I’ve learned about launching new products while it’s fresh in my mind.

In this email I discuss coming up with the idea or building the product–that’s almost a book’s worth of information (hint, hint , but I will discuss the moment from when the product is completed, through the beta test, generating buzz, the press tour and launch.

Background

Mahalo Answers is a knowledge exchange with a virtual currency that can be exchanged for real dollars. In other words, it’s a question and answer site like Yahoo! Answers (which was based on the Korean knowledge services by Naver.com or Daum.net), that you can make money from. Users offer a tip that can be rescinded, but rescinded tips are tracked to warn researchers of possible dead beats.

There is no risk to offering a tip as it’s refundable and because multiple users will answer your question and you only have to give a tip to one person. You don’t have to offer a tip,, mind you, but it helps: in the first week questions with a tip were answered in half the amount of time as those without (approximately 30 minutes compared to 64).

For context, this is the third of Mahalo’s five pillars. The first two pillars were our human-selected search results and our Wikipedia-style “Guide Notes.” The other two pillars will launch in 2009. In other words, after almost two years of work we’ve build 60% of what Mahalo will eventually become. So, in three years we will have launched all five products–in some ways companies–in order to reach our goal of building the world’s first “human-powered search engine.”

Now, on to the process.

Creating Buzz: the Beta

In order to create buzz I like to start telling folks about my work schedule about a month out from the launch. On the past couple of trips I started telling folks that I was crushed (true!) trying to finish up “Project A.” At various cocktail parties, meetings and speaking gigs I talked about Project A. When folks asked what it was I told them it was a new product launching on December 15th. We showed some investment bankers and investors, knowing they like to chatter about who’s working on interesting things. Additionally, I started twittering Project A’s impending arrival both in this newsletter and on Twitter.

Many of you played along, responding back to me on Twitter and email and for that, I thank you.

(editors note: apologies about the formatting from this point)

The Beta

A couple weeks before the project’s launch we put up a simple Google
Spreadsheet with a bunch of questions. Some of the questions were
important (like what topics do you like), others were red herrings
(like what games do you like to play). In a week about 3,000 signed up
for the beta. We put an NDA at the top of the beta and we started
letting in a handful of people after *personal* emails from me asking
them not to disclose what we were doing and that they were under
official “FrienDA.” People *might* break an NDA if it’s simply text on
a webpage, but I don’t see them doing that if a friend invites them
in.

Additionally, I asked my staff to put their parents and spouses on the
system provided they were NOT in the industry. This is a great way to
get feedback from normal folks, and it’s great for me to get bonus
points with my staff’s parents (”oh… that CEO boss of yours is such
a nice gentleman for letting us see that new product.” — say that
like an overprotective mother for extra effect .

In the beta we discussed the type of community we wanted to have and
we put a thin line across the top of the page that instructed users to
simply email feedback at mahalo.com with their feedback. No stupid forms
to fill out–just click and send. I had the feedback email forwarded
to *every* single employee. Why? If there are problems everyone needs
to know about them and get flooded with them over and over again. The
feedback at mahalo.com email is punishment for when we suck–it’s our
penance. Want to get less email? Fix the problems in the beta!

Side note: I’ve told every member of our team at Mahalo that you MUST,
as a requirement of your job, have a phone with email. If you’re going
to be at a startup you need to be seeing the “Mahalo Weather Report”
on your BlackBerry or iPhone 24×7 like I do. It’s like being a police
officer–you need to carry a piece with you even if you’re off duty in
case sh@#$t goes down. It’s just part of the job.

For the folks who we didn’t get into the beta we sent them a coupon
for five Mahalo dollars to spend in the system. It’s good to do
something nice to the folks who signup but you can’t accommodate if
you do, in fact, have too many beta testers. Many of you took me up on
that offer.

Slamming the System

It is absolutly essential that you try to break your system before
users come in. I do a lot of simple things like throw bad characters
into web forms or load up 300 web pages at once in Opera and see what
happens. Of course, the tech team can do so much more with the tools
they have. You have to make twice as much time for testing load and
attacks as you think. We got some hacker friends to try and break a
demo copy of the site during the beta, we ran huge attacks against the
system and we maxed out all our infrastructure…

… and still it wasn’t enough!

We had to put another dozen servers online during the launch and we’ve
been up 99% of the time it seems–more than I could ask for for week
one.

The Media Tour (in six acts)

We do 10 media tours a year–at least. These occur under two
circumstances: we are launching a new product or we are doing a
speaking gig in another city. When we were in Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul,
London and Athens this past year we did a blogger dinner and a press
tour. These are invaluable for Mahalo as we’ve actually seen traffic
increases in those countries we visit. If you want to court early
adopters on a global basis do a press tour when you travel. It doubles
the value of your speaking gigs.

[[ If you want to skip to the bottom of the email you can see the
press clippings. ]]

Step One: Selecting who to brief.

Before launching a new product I like to show the product to select
bloggers and journalists. We keep a list in a Google Spreadsheet of
all of our contacts from around the world and when we do a press tour
we look to see which of these folks did a fair job reporting on our
last product. If they really took some time to understand the product
and write an accurate report on it we send them a short note asking
them if they would like to be briefed. We keep it very simple: “We’re
launching a new product and we would love to show it to you over the
phone in the next couple of days. If you’re interested and you could
give me a couple of available times on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday
we’ll set something up.”

Simple. One or two sentences and done. If they don’t respond we might
send one follow-up, but we don’t call and we don’t spam the person
over and over. That looks really desperate and it is not very
gracious. If they’re interested they will let you know, if they don’t
get back to you they are not. Don’t call them over and over to
“confirm they got the email.”

Step Two: Have your hardware and phone perfect.

We set up two computers for every demo. One with Adobe Connect as the
host and one connected as a user. Both computers are right next to
each other on the desk. This allows me, as the person giving the demo,
to actually see what they’re seeing. If the desktop sharing software
is slow or has a problem, I know. I can also pace my discussion to
match what they are seeing. We use a professional headset and phone
system–not a mobile phone. We have the journalists’ phone numbers and
we call them so we know we are getting a great, clean phone line.

Step Three: What to put in your demo.

Before we talk to a journalist we check to see what they’ve written
about Mahalo so we know where we should start the demo. If they’ve
done four stories we don’t need to explain that it’s a human-powered
search engine. This is our job to find out what they’ve covered, not
their job. If they have not covered Mahalo I start by asking folks how
much they know about Mahalo and if they would like me to give them a
brief 10,000-foot view. If they say yes I explain to them: why we
started Mahalo, what we’ve accomplished and what we’ve learned–the
good and bad. I give them specific facts including when we launched,
when we raised capital and how many monthly uniques we have according
to what source (i.e. Quantcast quantified or ComScore’s B.S. numbers
that no one should trust). Give these facts simply and don’t spin
them: fact, fact, fact. Journalists need facts in order to write
stories and in order to form opinions and follow-up questions. It’s
not your job to give them conclusions, it’s your job to give them
facts.

After establishing a baseline about the company I explain what we’re
launching in one sentence and why we’re launching it. In the case of
Mahalo Answers I said: “We’re launching a knowledge exchange similar
to Yahoo! Answers, Naver or Daum.net, that has a couple of very unique
features. This is a new feature we’ve added to Mahalo’s search pages
to make them more comprehensive and helpful–we are NOT changing
direction. We’re still a search engine.” At this point the journalist
will probably ask, “how is it different,” at which point you say
“we’ll let’s take a look.”

We then go into the major points that we want to get across. In the
case of Mahalo Answers we had four:

1. Mahalo’s search results contain three items: curated links (like
Google), content (like Wikipedia or About.com), and Q&A (like Naver
Knowledge In or Yahoo! Answers). We believe the future of search is
having these three things on one page.

2. Mahalo Answers has a virtual currency that allows you to “tip” a
user if they give a good answer. Tips are refundable, can be funded
for as little as $1 and users can convert Mahalo Dollars to US
dollars, less a 25% fee. That 25% fee along with advertising is how we
make money.

3. Users can ask other users direct questions with a tip or without.

4. Answers can include rich media like a YouTube video, an mp3 file or
a Flickr photo. These are added by simply putting in the URL of the
object–not the embed code.

Step Four: Letting the journalist ask questions.

I leave it up to the journalist as to when they want to ask questions.
After every point I ask “did you have any questions about [[insert
point here]], or would you like me to keep going?” They will ask you a
question or say “keep going.” It’s up to them how they want to ask a
question, not you. Keep moving if they don’t have questions. Some
journalists like to take it all in, or they might be eating a sandwich
at their desk and have you on mute. Either way, give them the option.

Step Five: Wrapping up.

At the end I like to recap the basic points, let them know that we’re
excited about the launch and let them know we have a couple of new
features coming. If they are a smart journalist they will try to
extract one of these new features. If they guess it right I tell them,
if they don’t I don’t tell them. It’s a little game I like to play at
the end which is: if you ask good questions you get rewarded with
better nuggets for your story. At the end I thank them for taking the
time and tell them my email address in case they have any questions or
suggestions at any time. I don’t tell them to talk to a PR person or
contact marketing. If they have a question email me immediately and
I’m available to them. Why? Because when you’re on f@#$%ing deadline
it’s a real pain in the ass to have to talk to a @!#$% PR person to
get a simple question answered. Sorry, I was just remembering my days
as a journalist where I REFUSED to go through PR people and told them
if they wanted INK in Silicon Alley Reporter their CEO needed to talk
to me on email. This made PR people crazy, but it made Silicon Alley
Reporter great.

Step Six: Leave them alone.

Do NOT call the journalist to ask them how their story is going or ask
to see the piece in advance. That looks desperate and insulting. If
they take the time to do a piece great, if not at least you know they
are aware of your product for the next time. 90% of the reason folks
hate PR people is because they always act so desperate and act so
annoying. NEVER call a journalist. Period. Just send them short emails
and leave them alone.

Opening the Floodgates

We set an embargo of 1 a.m. PST for Mahalo Answers and we opened up
the product at around 1:30 a.m. We tried to get it to open at 12:55
a.m. but there were–as there always are–some technical issues. We
had a bunch of little problems throughout the night, but had them
worked out when the sun came up.

The entire tech team came in Sunday night as well as half the
editorial team (the other half slept so they could work the next day
obviously). We got a couple of boxes of Stan’s Donuts from Westwood
(peanut butter and chocolate… wha-what?!) and caffeined up for the
night. It was an amazing bonding experience and it was super exciting.
At around 4 a.m. we did a little toast with some sparkling apple
cider, and later that week I packed the team on a big old bus and took
them to Disneyland. One of the gossip blogs took me to task for taking
everyone to Disneyland after having layoffs, but I believe you gotta
work hard and play hard. A day out at Disneyland is a simple reward
for six weeks of non-stop work.

The first day we put three folks on the “sheriff tools” with
instructions to delete any stupid questions or answers, and obviously
spam. We wanted to set a tone in the first week that unhelpful
answers, joking, or obnoxious behavior were NOT the point of Mahalo
Answers. At one point someone sent me (probably one of you!) a long
email trying to figure out why the quality of the answers was so high.
I responded “because we delete the bad ones.”

Membership in an online community is a privilege, not a right. If you
run an online community I suggest removing people who act obnoxious or
stupid–especially early on. Obnoxious folks drive away considered
folks–which is exactly why I left blogging. There simply were too
many obnoxious folks who make their living pissing on the legs of the
folks trying to do something intelligent. Sure, if you piss on a
brilliant person’s leg everyone at the party will notice you, but they
will do so for all the wrong reasons. Anyway, let’s not get into the
de-evolution of the blogosphere or you’ll have to read–and I’ll have
to write–another 3,000 words.

Setting the Tone

Back to setting the tone. It’s absolutely important that when you have
a beta that your entire company take part in it and “eat your own dog
food” as they say. In Mahalo Answers we wanted answers that were more
intelligent than “why don’t you google it?” or “here’s the wikipedia
page.” So, we had our entire team spend days asking interesting
questions and answering them with considerable care and details. When
the users came in for the first time they were confronted with, as our
CTO Mark Jeffrey put it, a library-like environment. It was a serious
place and as such no one started screaming or acting like an idiot. If
they did we deleted their nonsense. Nothing is more effective in
getting rid of a troll than ignoring them and removing their garbage.
You should have no problem removing the bad actors from your system
because one bad actor can cost you, over their lifetime, thousands of
good actors.

In summary

This is how I like to launch a product and it’s not based on anything
I’ve read or been told to do. It’s simply one person’s process learned
from a decade of launching products. I’m sure there are many more
interesting ideas and I would love for you to send them to me so I can
learn from you. That really is the deal that you and I have with this
email experiment we’re doing: I tell you everything I know and I’ve
learned and you hit reply and tell me. We then create a relationship
based on trusting each other, sharing knowledge and support.

I look forward to hearing your tips… just hit reply and you should
see jason at calacanis.com in your “To:” field. I read 100% of emails
sent to me and I respond to at least 50%.

If I don’t speak to before the New York, all the best and let’s kick
some ass in the New year!

jason at calacanis.com

Related posts:

1. Mahalo adds Twitter support to Answers service
2. Mahalo Answers: a Yahoo Answers slayer?
3. Calacanis told to quit stealing content

Fast forward to 2005 and Weblogs Inc became the biggest acquisition of a blog network, being acquired by AOL for a reported $25 million. Weblogs Inc’s success was an inspiration to many of us in the blogging space, and although we never directly competed, Weblogs Inc’s success (pre acquisition) was deep in our minds when I founded b5media with Darren Rowse and Jeremy Wright in May of the same year.

The third anniversary of AOL’s acquisition of Weblogs Inc is today, and I had the opportunity to speak with Marty Moe, the current head of operations at Weblogs Inc prior to the third anniversary, and the figures he shared with me are nothing short of staggering. Here’s a walk through on the presentation he sent me, and my notes from it.

Weblogs Inc Circa October 2005

The key figures: 1.7 million unique visitors on 6.5 million page views. 4 employees.

Weblogs Inc Circa October 2008

The numbers speak for themselves. 19 million unique visitors, 13 million in the United States vs 2 million at acquisition. Page views up from 6 million to 81 million in the US, 106 million globally.

Weblogs Inc has also started a shift away from the low cost freelance model that Calacanis championed, to full time employees. The number has gone from 4 to 26. I specifically asked Moe the exact makeup of the full time employees, and where they reside. His response is that most of them are editorial/ writers for the Weblogs Inc blogs. He noted that AOL believe it is important that key staff work primarily on Weblogs Inc blogs, and not as a hobby. He clarified this in saying that freelance bloggers will always be an important part of the mix, but they believed that their key bloggers should be full time employees dedicated to their sites alone. He also said that AOL would be looking to increase the number of full time employees.

I asked whether the full time employees had to report to an office in a central location, and Moe was quick to jump on this. Most of the full time employees in Weblogs Inc work from their own location; Moe said that it would allow them to employee someone from New Zealand as an example, who couldn’t check in to a central office.

The flagship: Engadget

As it was in its pre-AOL owned days, Engadget remains the flagship of the Weblogs Inc network. Interestingly the site now gets significantly more international traffic than US traffic. The Engadget sites outside Engadget itself have grown strongly.

I asked Moe about branding: in particular, the occasionally confusing branding statements out of AOL that included Engadget. At one stage, Engadget was the AOL Tech Channel, but now it seems to be a brand in it’s own right.

Moe admitted to some experimentation in the past, not all of it successful. He claims that the days of confused branding are behind the network, and that AOL now fully understood the benefits of brands within the network.

Broader network

There were a number of other slides I won’t share, mostly because they deliver the same positive message. The notable parts: The Joystiq network is doing numbers that are close to the Engadget network. WowInsider in now nearly as big as Joystiq itself. The Autoblog network is seen as a huge growth opportunity for AOL. The existing network is pumping 14 million page views a month, and Autoblog will offer country sites for the UK, France and Germany before the end of the year.

What is impressive is the influence of the blogging culture over AOL as a whole

The Blogsmith blogging platform in the center of this push. The slide says 700 blogs, but this includes closed blogs (but sill live) and internal blogs, so the total number of actual blogs being updated publicly today is less than half that figure.

But the mix of sites is telling. TMZ, which isn’t usually lumped in with Weblogs Inc is actually part of the network, and is doing huge numbers. There’s a range of other sites, some obviously blogs, some not so much, that are being powered by Blogsmith.

I asked Moe whether the Blogsmith platform may one day be offered outside of AOL, given rumors in that direction over several years. He said that it had been discussed previously, but no decision had been made.

The biggest and the best

This slide speaks for itself.

Conclusion

I have been harsh of AOL’s treatment of Weblogs Inc in the past, but I have since corrected the record. AOL is using the Weblogs Inc setup as a consumer play, and it is delivering in traffic for them. I asked Moe whether the network might one day go niche again (particularly in tech), and he didn’t rule it out, but confirmed that their strength was in consumer sites, and that’s their current direction.

The growth numbers are staggering in terms of the broader blog network scene, and credit where it is due, AOL has done an amazing job with the company they purchased.

As a last aside, I asked Moe about the economic crisis, and Weblogs Inc’s exposure to it. Moe told me that they intend on increasing their investment in blogs during this time to make sure they remain on top in terms of traffic and reach. Advertising may decline, but sites with growing traffic are better able to counter the decline.

Related posts:

1. AOL launches new blogs. PS: I was wrong on Weblogs Inc
2. AOL to close services, Weblogs Inc blogs affected
3. AOL cuts 700, including Weblogs Inc lifestyle blogs

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis blogged (ironically given that he publicly quit blogging) that the decision was due to the economic crisis and the expected reduction in online advertising growth.

The main job cuts have come from Mahalo’s editorial department, with Calacanis noting the switch towards “freelance positions over in-house editors.” Other savings will be made through reducing office space through renting desks; apparently Mahalo currently has 6 offices in Santa Monica.

Mahalo’s editorial staff were the backbone of the search side of Mahalo, so it’s no great surprise that their numbers have been cut, economic issues or not, given the switch of Mahalo to primarily a blog content play. If the switch to freelancers sounds familiar it should be: it’s how Calacanis grew Weblogs Inc, driving the establishment of “blogging jobs” back in the days where such positions rarely existed.

His bizarre I’m not blogging anymore PR stunt aside, Calacanis knows blogging and knows how to get the most from bloggers at low rates of pay compared to full time employees, so although others may be skeptical about Mahalo’s chances, I’m not one of those people. The cuts make sense, even if we feel bad for those who are out of a job today.

Related posts:

1. Mahalo now officially a blog
2. Buzz Media cuts 20% of workforce
3. Mahalo adds Twitter support to Answers service

The new Mahalo adopts the magazine style layout currently popular in the blogosophere, aggregating news stories in a layout that is part Google News. There’s even a “live blog” right of screen, which is updated with links to breaking news outside of Mahalo by members of the Mahalo team.

When Ask.com relaunched last week and we discussed the similarities to Mahalo, the biggest difference I noted then was that Mahalo offered stale, out of date links, vs Ask.com offering the latest content. This hasn’t really been addressed by these changes, at least with the search results. Our example before was the Mahalo page for Angelina Jolie being woefully out of date with news links, and that is still the case today. Instead Mahalo has switched to a blog content first model that creates new entries (really blog posts) for big stories, rich with keywords, then uses the original search pages for contextual links within each post.

Mahalo has been slowly moving toward becoming a blog now for some time, having already abandoned its focus on quality search results, instead offering comment and content with those results. That the site has seemingly abandoned its search starting point may speak poorly of the model to start with, but Calacanis is the sort of guy who is’nt afraid to change direction if things aren’t working, and he wealth of experiencing in blogging that will help Mahalo establish itself as a leading blog. Certainly numbers from Compete and Alexa show Mahalo flat-lining (Quantcast shows growth to the end of August…and then a drop), so kudos to Jason for taking the plunge and trying something new.

(in part via Cnet)

Related posts:

1. Ask.com revamp smells like Mahalo
2. Mahalo cuts 10% of workforce
3. Mahalo Answers: a Yahoo Answers slayer?

Lets start on the positives. TechCrunch40 last year rocked, and I’m willing to bet that TechCrunch50 this year will be better again. In some ways I’m sad I won’t be attending. It’s a top notch event that highlights some great startups, and offers a wealth of networking opportunities. The TechCrunch staff also work their backsides off in the lead up to the event, so it has the heart and soul Arrington feels the need to share in his post. Indeed, I still don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of people work as hard as the TechCrunch team for last years conference, and that includes everyone for the extremely talented Heather Harde, through to the ever reliable interns.

But here’s my issue, and this is what I told Stone when I was asked: if this is really all about startups, and doing the best for startups, they wouldn’t be running it the same time as DEMO, and they wouldn’t be trying to “kill” DEMO as Jason Calacanis so nicely puts it. If they were serious about putting startups first, they would be focused only on creating more opportunities for startups to be discovered, and they’d allow their event to stand on its own merits without the need to constantly trash talk the opposition. Are we not better off as a web community having both DEMO and TechCrunch50?

Then there’s the profit. Stone says its $3.5 million. How charitable that in helping startups the profit could be as high as $3.5 million (I’d think it’s closer to $2 million, but it’s still 7 figures). I don’t begrudge them a profit, and indeed good on them for being able to turn a million each for both Arrington and Calacanis in the split. But here’s the thing: if it’s not about Payola and all about the greater good, isn’t it grossly disingenuous to be playing the charity/ anti-Payola line when all TechCrunch50 does is slightly shift the goalposts on the money coming in. Demo pit attendees pay…they pay half, but if they want two on the stand they pay the $3k. There’s 100 of those. Then there’s the sponsors. Arrington tells Stone that the sponsors get no special access to the startups, but does anyone seriously think the sponsors pay to get their logo on a screen? I haven’t checked the speakers rostrum/ judges panel, but if there wasn’t some cross over I’d be surprised. They must get something from paying up, VC’s are in the business of making money, not handing it over for no return to line Jason’s and Arrington’s pockets. Maximizing access to startups? $2995 a ticket if you want to watch, and there’s 1000+ attendees. Allow for some of them to be free press passes, but still, access remains the domain of the wealthy few, not necessarily the best people to pitch to.

Prize Money: a paltry $50,000. Embarrassingly low given the profit the event delivers.

If they were really doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, if they really believed that the DEMO model is fatally flawed, and if they really wanted to put on the BEST show for startups, they’d run the event at break even. They’d run the DEMO pit for free, they cut the cost of the tickets, or better still they’d hand pick the audience so as to maximize the best possible group for the presenting companies to pitch to, after all, isn’t charging $2995 for a ticket audience payola?

Of course, they’ll never do any of that, but as long as they run around playing the destroy DEMO/ best for startups marketing pitch, they do themselves a grave disservice. Every time DEMO is trash talked, it appears to most sane people to be more of an insecurity from those doing the trash talk, than any real reflection on the model. Put on a great event, but STFU with the DEMO hating and let your actions in the delivery of the event speak for itself.

Related posts:

1. TC50: Payola or a dodgy site from Ashton Kutcher, I know which I’d pick
2. TC50 v DEMO: The startups are the losers
3. Winning ideas for TechCrunch50 2009

Of the services being cut, most would be unfamiliar names to most reading this, perhaps for some with the exception of the online storage service Xdrive, acquired by AOL in August 2005. This lack of consumer awareness for all four products is the exact reason behind their closure.

The changes at Weblogs Inc include the closure of DIY Life, and content cuts among a number of blogs including The Unofficial Apple Weblog and DownloadSquad.

DIY Life will be put on “hiatus” starting August 1, although noted internally that it may be resurrected in the future. DIY Life launched in July 31st, 2007, and was billed as “Covering the spectrum of DIY, the blog provides a steady stream of DIY projects, how-to’s, ideas, tips, reviews, even safety recalls.”

The content cuts across other Weblogs Inc blog will have more impact. Writers have been told to cease posting to blogs within the network until August 1, with some exceptions. The memo refers to all “DLS” bloggers within Weblogs Inc, but it’s not clear from my research exactly which blogs are covered in this definition. The L could represent lifestyle, so blogs not being updated may include Gadling, Green Daily, Luxist, ParentDish, Slashfood, Styledash and That’s Fit. S for sports blogs, but the D is a mystery, as Weblogs Inc labels its tech blogs under technology and gaming. PaidContent names Download Squad and The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), suggesting that blogs in the technology and gaming streams may be broadly affected. TUAW is named as an exception, with a limited number of app reviews able to be posted during this time. There is no mention on Engadget, although it is unlikely that AOL would shut down posting on the networks leading blog, and as of the time of writing Engadget had fresh material on the site.

It’s a risky move by AOL. Ceasing production on a range of blogs, even for a week, will result in readers looking elsewhere for content, and although many may return, the longer the blogs remain idle, the less likely that will happen.

The question that also should be asked is how AOL has turned a company that was seemingly thriving under Jason Calacanis into a growing burial ground for blogs. These cuts are far from the first in the Weblogs Inc stable, and they won’t be the last. Were they too ambitious in trying to grow the network, subsequently failing to master verticals as they went along, or is it simply poor management? We may never know.

Related posts:

1. AOL cuts 700, including Weblogs Inc lifestyle blogs
2. AOL launches new blogs. PS: I was wrong on Weblogs Inc
3. 3 year later, AOL Weblogs Inc is thriving with brilliant numbers

Jason switched to email and he’s sent out his first entry. We won’t publish every email, but the first below for those who aren’t signed up to his email list but were wondering what the content will be like. Those interested can sign up here.

Team Jason,

Wow, it’s been an amazing 24 hours since I officially announced my retirement from blogging ( http://tinyurl.com/jasonretires ). As you’ve probably seen there has been some of coverage of my retirement, most of it wondering if I’m joking or not (links at the bottom). To
those who know me better than a couple of Valleywag headlines, am I
ever not joking??!? I mean, Clark Kent asked a question in the faux
Q&A session, I posted a photo of Michael Jordan’s retirement, and I
spoke about spending more time with my family (as in my wife and two
bulldogs).

Clearly I was joking in the post, but I’m dead serious about the
retirement from blogging.

Most folks have no tolerance for ambiguity, and when faced with it are
extremely uncomfortable. This lack of comfort makes them think, and my
goal with the blog was always to challenge people’s thinking–most of
all my own. Confusion is attention of the best kind–I long to be
confused. I’ve become addicted to playing poker because your
constantly faced with confusion, and winning is trying to make sense
out of nonsense.

Is blogging dead?
————————-
Yes, it is. Officially.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about this question and while blogging is
clearly booming, there has been a deep qualitative change in the
nature of the ’sphere. There are so many folks involved in blogging to
today, and it’s moving at a much quicker pace thanks to “social
accelerants” like TechMeme, digg, Friendfeed and Twitter. Folks are so
desperate to be heard–and we all want to be heard that’s why we
blog–that the effort put into being heard has eclipsed the actual
hearing.

Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts
than they do on the posts themselves. In the early days of blogging
Peter Rojas, who was my blog professor, told me what was required to
win at blogging: “show up every day.” In 2003 and 2004 that was the
case. Today? What’s required is a team of social marketers to get your
message out there, and a second one to manage the fall-out from
whatever you’ve said.

Think: Nick Denton has reworked the bloggers pay at Gawker Media to
reflect not the quality of the words but the number of page views
those blog posts get. He doesn’t pay by word count, he pays by page
views. He’s closed the loop between editorial and advertising, turning
the Chinese wall into a block party. It’s the publishing promised land
while simultaneously being the death of publishing. Gawker is growing
page views while simultaneously destroying it’s brand equity. This
will either result in an implosion, or the perfect id-driven magazine
where our core desires are synchronized in relation to their
marketability. It will be fun to watch, but I wouldn’t want to be one
of those bloggers in the cage, running on the Denton’s wheel.

Excelling in blogging today is about link-baiting, the act of writing
something inflammatory in order to get a link. Many folks say I’m
responsible for link-baiting–these people are absolute idiots. I’ve
never tried to get any of these insecure, lonely freaks to link to
something I’ve said.

Truth be told, I’ve always written the way I talk–honestly and
without a filter. John Brockman explained to me at one time that some
of the most interesting folks he’s met have, over time, become less
vocal. He explained, that there was a inverse correlation between your
success and your ability to tell the truth. When I met John I was
nobody and I promised myself I would never, ever censor myself if I
become successful. My friend, and one of the few folks I’d consider a
mentor, Mark Cuban laid a path for me to follow in this regard. I wish
I could say I’ve succeeded, the best I can say is I’ve tried.

My good friend Xeni Jardin, who I had the pleasure of working/playing
with for a couple of years in another life, faced massive assault from
the audience she herself built at Boingboing.net. These folks were not
attacking her because of what she did (she deleted some old posts for
personal reasons), they were attacking her because they could. They
were attacking her because open-media (i.e. blogging) has turned into
an excuse for bad behavior. It’s outrageous to think that an audience
would turn on the author they love and built up for years over
something so trivial as deleting some posts.

Then again, they booed Dylan when he went electric in Newport and all
along his tour of Europe. They called him Judas, but he didn’t believe
them. I hope Xeni doesn’t believe them–they’re liars.

Why email?
——————–
In a word, intimacy. This message will go from my inbox to your inbox,
perhaps from my Blackberry to your iPhone. From my sleepy garden
office in Brentwood to your laptop perched on a desk in some high-rise
hotel in Shanghai or your crummy little studio on the LES. I’m
stopping my day to write it, and you’ll stop your day to read
it–perhaps. Maybe you’ll save this, or forward it to some friends
with certain sections in bold. There is zero tolerance for waste in
personal communication, so if you don’t find value in this email
you’ll delete it and maybe remove yourself from the list. You would do
the same if someone started boring you at a cocktail party, no? Find a
graceful way to get the hell out of there, and in email it’s one
click.

This platform puts a level playing field between us that is so
different than me posting to my blog which gets swept up in the Google
and Yahoo machine, sending thousands of visitors who haven’t made the
email commitment.

Also, there is an immediacy to this. At any point you can hit the
reply key (or forward) and send your thoughts directly to me at
. This is much different than you posting to my
comments section and subjecting yourself to the trolls and haters who
have taken up residency there.

Why should we all build our homes and give residence to the trolls
under them? Comments on blogs inevitably implode, and we all accept it
under the belief that “open is better!” Open is not better. Running a
blog is like letting a virtuoso play for 90 minutes are Carnegie Hall,
and then seconds after their performance you run to the back Alley and
grab the most inebriated homeless person drag them on stage and ask
them what they think of the performance they overheard in the Alley.
They then take a piss on the stage and say “F-you” to the people who
just had a wonderful experience for 90 or 92 minutes. That’s openness
for you… my how far we’ve come! We’ve put the wisdom of the deranged
on the same level as the wisdom of the wise.

You and I now have a direct relationship, and I’m cutting the mailing
list off today so it stays at ~1,000 folks. I’ll add selectively to
the list, but for now I’m more interested in a deep relationship with
the few of you have chosen to make a commitment with me. Perhaps some
of you will become deep, considered colleagues and friends–something
that doesn’t happen for me in the blogosphere any more.

Much of my inspiration for doing this comes from what I’ve seen with
John Brockman’s Edge.org email newsletter. When it enters my inbox I’m
inspired and focused. I print it, and I don’t print anything. The
people that surround him are epic, and that’s my inspiration–to be
surrounded by exceptional people.

The Feedback
———————-
Ted Leonsis, another mentor to me over the years, thinks I’m pulling a
Brett Favre. Perhaps. Background: Ted is responsible for Weblogs, Inc.
being bought by AOL, and he spoke at the *first* event I ever did
called “Meet the Alley” in 1997. The event took place at Pseudo.com
and the air conditioner broke. It was August, and it was 100 degrees.
Ted went on and gave an amazing talk. When Ted spoke about content on
the Internet back in 94-96 time frame I was 23 years old and I knew
what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to be Ted. Weblogs, Inc.
was version of his AOL Greenhouse, and Mahalo is a souped up version
of AOL. http://www.tedstake.com/?p=2504

Sarah Lacy says blogging is at a cross-roads and she gets where I’m
coming from. I’ve known Sarah for a couple of years now, and she’s
become a personality on the Web 2.0 circuit thanks to her book “Once
You’re Lucky, Twice Your Good,” a book in which I get very few
mentions (not that I’m counting them.. 384, really? . She too has
felt the harsh mob mentality, also known as “the wisdom of the
crowds.” For the record, crowds are really frackin’ stupid and to put
your stock in crowds is about as bright as putting your faith in a
dictator–they’ll love you for as long as they feel like it, then
they’ll ripe you apart without mercy. Also, has anyone else noticed
that women like Sarah and Xeni get treated 10x as harsh as men do in
the blogosphere? Another reason to opt out.
http://tinyurl.com/6fz4qd

SarahinTampa.com says: “It’s like he hit the nail on the head of
everything that’s wrong with blogging today…at least for me.”
http://tinyurl.com/56f3f6

A bunch of other folks have commented on the story, and you can see
their reactions on TechMeme:
http://www.techmeme.com/080712/p14#a080712p14

Jim Kukal says it’s the death of the A-list:
http://www.jimkukral.com/the-death-of-the-a-list/

Scoble says it’s a farce:
http://tinyurl.com/62n649

All the best,

Jason

Update: more discussion on FriendFeed here + Allen Stern has a hilarious video take on the email list here.

No related posts.

Image via Wikipedia

There is a small bonfire burning at the moment in blog and SEO circles around “syndicated content.” Syndicated content is the syndication of existing content on your blog or site. The debate mostly centers around duplicate content and search engines, with two negative points: using duplicate content may have a negative effect on your search rankings or alternatively have no positive benefit for your site with those search engines. Darren Rowse even went so far as to say “The long and short of it is that as a blogger you’re doing yourself and your readers a disservice by using ‘free articles’.”

I sympathize with the SEO debate, as ultimately you don’t want to damage your Google position, but the emphasis is wrong: think of your users first, not SEO.

Yes, that sounds like Jason Calacanis and ultimately his regular arguments in this case are right. If you are looking at syndicating content (be if free articles, news, whatever) will it be valuable for your readers or not?

Syndication and article duplication is not hurting the thousands of news site that syndicate news from companies such as AP, Reuters or even AAP. Check for duplicate content on any major news story and you’ll see hundreds, even thousands of legitimate mainstream media sites running the exact same stories. Why? because they believe running those stories benefits their readers in creating a more appealing news package as a whole.

Have said this, syndicating external content only doesn’t make for a great business plan. Original content is still the key. Only syndicate content where you believe that the content is complimentary to your existing, original content.

And for the record, I’ve looked at syndicating content here at The Inquisitr, and I won’t rule out syndicating content in the future, but only where it adds to the site.

Related posts:

1. Free Ads Australia: Worst Press Release Ever
2. Google Sued Over News Content
3. Introducing The Inquisitr Job Board