Valleywag is of course known for its dead-on accuracy, so our predictions for 2008 need no introduction. Inside, my 25 predictions (made without inside information) cover the futures of Facebook, Google, Digg, YouTube, Twitter, the Wall Street Journal, Apple, Yahoo, Gawker Media, AOL, Dell, LOLcats, the president, and more.
Google Knol may or may not ever come to fruition, but Hitwise was kind enough to put together this chart of its potential rivals in the market for websites which answer your questions. And yes, Jason Calacanis's Mahalo is on there. You have to squint. It's way, way, way down there at the bottom. That little sliver of green. No wonder Calacanis is always commenting here with a link to the site. Think he'll do it again on this post?
On his way back from Paris this morning, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis realized he had left his passport at his hotel. Savvy Web 3.0 guru that he is, Calacanis sent the above Twitter to the whole world. OMG! This whole thing is my fault for hassling him so much — over the phone, via IM — during what should have been a relaxing trip to Paris. Mr. Calacanis sir, here's the best I could do on short notice. Hope it helps!
The most popular pages on Jason Calacanis's Mahalo search engine concern videogames, videogame cheats, and D-list female celebrities. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We just suspect that Mahalo's venture-capital backers had ambitions higher than catering to immature male geeks obsessed with beating two things: Halo and off. This is the search engine that would compete with Google on quality, worth some $40 million in venture backing — a prettier version of GameFAQs.com? After the jump, Calacanis's greatest hits:
Funtrepreneur Jason Calacanis is turning to low-profile interviews to promote a new round of funding for Mahalo. But CIO Insight? Why is the well-connected friend to thousands turning to a niche publication aimed at IT executives? The always entertaining Calacanis should be able to get an interview with anyone he wants. And where's the usual bluster? "I think it's going to work, although it may take five years and $50 million to prove my point," says Calacanis. We're not sure what to make of this new, tentative Calacanis.
Jason Calacanis is seeking to raise an additional $20 million in funding for his startup Mahalo. Investors are being asked to value the human-powered search company at $175 million. This, less than six months after raising an initial $20 million at a valuation of around $100 million, which was to last the startup for five years. At the time, that valuation seemed based more on Calacanis's Brooklyn bluster than anything else. But this additional fundraising is even more of a headscratcher.
Jason Calacanis's human-powered search engine Mahalo is "fundamentally flawed," says videoblogger Andrew Baron. Well, we could have told you that: It's basically Yahoo's directory, 12 years too late. But Baron, best known for creating Rocketboom, trashed Calacanis's service not for its lack of originality, but for its lack of critical applause. "Mahalo is not a worthwhile product," Baron wrote, "I have never seen a single positive review of the site." What's got the guy so worked up?
How high is Jason Calacanis on his new videoblogger? "Veronica Belmont is a Rojas-level hire," he reportedly told groupies who showed up for a dim sum dinner in New York's Chinatown yesterday. That may sound like praise for Belmont, the videoblogger he hired away from CNET. But it's really more egotism. The thing you need to know about Jason Calacanis, the boy from Brooklyn who moved to Tinseltown, is that he fancies himself a new-age Hollywood mogul for the Web. Like a studio boss of old, he hopes to manufacture stars. Take, for example, his flashy hire of Peter Rojas away from Gizmodo (like Valleywag, a site published by Gawker Media) to run Engadget. Calacanis parlayed Engadget into a blog network, Weblogs Inc., which he then sold for $25 million to AOL. As an AOL executive, when Amanda Congdon left Rocketboom, he publicly offered her a videoblogging deal — which never panned out. Now, with Belmont, Mahalo's new videoblogger, Calacanis again wants to create a new star. He's fooling himself.
Attention, bottom-feeding Gothamites! Weblogs Inc. cofounder Jason Calacanis is eager to bore you to tears over dinner about how great his new venture Mahalo is. (The short version: Remember Yahoo's Web directory from 12 years ago? That's basically Mahalo.) The buntrepreneur is stuffing his bulldog-cute, apple-cheeked face full of dim sum — oops, back to fatblogging! — at the Golden Unicorn at 7:30 p.m. tonight, notes Silicon Alley Insider.
Calacanis realizes that if search isn't putting butts in Aeron seats, he can always try to boost geeky traffic with popular entertainment. He lays this strategy bare by orchestrating the amusing Belmont through an unamusing series of popular video show parodies: Ze Frank, Rocketboom, Ask a Ninja, Tay Zonday, Diggnation, and Lonelygirl15. The only problem? Calacanis's hamhanded directorial approach destroys Belmont's charm. (On the bright side, there is a bulldog!) The parade of references to one-hit wonders of online video past is telling. All of them had buzz that quickly sputtered. Fortunately, talent will out. Mahalo may end up a flash in the pan, but Belmont's star, we suspect, is only beginning to rise.
Sean Coon has written the definitive blog post on wantrepreneur Jason Calacanis's latest startup, "Mahalo Is Not Human-Powered Search; It's A Collaborative Link Blog." Could Mahalo be the next linkblog branded a dirty linkwhore by ad partner Google? And with Mahalo's traffic already so low, would we be able to tell if it happened? [dotmatrixproject]
Bulldog-cute entrepreneur Jason Calacanis dogs the Web 2.0 Summit's panel of search-engine optimization experts: "People are coming up to ask questions and the guy keeps saying, 'Well you have to do social work on Digg and Reddit, but it's complicated and we need to talk about it.' During the panel he said, 'It's complicated, we should talk about it after the panel.' I'm sure folks will come to his office and he'll say, 'It's complicated, sign this contract and we can start working on it.'"
Nothing sends me for my back button faster than another pitch for a new search engine. But wily reporter-turned-ringmaster Jason Calacanis has fooled me into giving his new human-powered search tool, Mahalo, a spin. How? Calacanis cleverly talks up Mahalo between photos of his impossibly adorable new puppies. Just as teenage boys find themselves reading the articles in Penthouse, I've been poring through Mahalo's impressively hand-compiled page of 55 links on — what else — bulldogs.
A Valleywag tipster whispers that a company that had made the initial cut of 20 companies for the Techcrunch40 conference — back when it was known as "TechCrunch20" — got bumped when conference organizers "doubled down" and expanded the list to 40 startups. The company's sin? Competing with a startup funded by one of TechCrunch40's four VC sponsors. The competitor got bumped, and room was made for a sponsor-backed startup. "Ah, the Valley mafia at its finest," the tipster concludes. Of course. Sand Hill Road was built on conflicts of interest.
You would think that relentless self-promoter Jason Calacanis would take advantage of the attention he's receiving for his TechCrunch40 startup conference and use the spotlight to further push his new project, people-powered search engine Mahalo. You'd be wrong. Mahalo's sole contribution to TC40 is a Mahalo-branded baseball hat in the conference schwag bag. Why? Because the sharer in Calacanis wants the attention on the actual participants... and because Mahalo needs no promotion. That's right. The mere suggestion that Calacanis would promote Mahalo or that Mahalo even needs promotion is "so silly." Calacanis says, "We're in 'put your head down and make the product great' mode and we will be for the next four years." Indeed, Jason. We agree that Mahalo needs no promotion. Now please stop pitching Mahalo in search engine presentations, conducting interviews about the company, and signing blog comments with "Mahalo" for the next four years. Sadly, we suspect his no-promotions promise is just as binding as a Robert Scoble blog break.
Silicon Alley Insider is trying to figure out how AOL's BloggingStocks has surpassed Seeking Alpha in the stock blogging market, and they've discovered the obvious: mentioning nude pics, particularly those of controversial pop figures, is a tried and true method of promoting your site through search engines. The top keywords people use to find BloggingStocks are "vanessa hudgens nude" and "amanda beard playboy," whereas top terms for the more serious and boring Seeking Alpha are "seeking alpha" and "visa ipo." Valleywag and BloggingStocks are not alone in appealing to the salacious side of the Web. Many sites know the search engine optimization, or SEO, value in mentioning the latest nude photographs of an attractive young pop star. Including, curiously, Mahalo.
