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calacanis posts

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services

Get paid to Mahalo

mahalo greenhouseThe once fearless leader of Weblogs Inc has been working hard with his team to develop the Mahalo human based search engine. His team of professional surfers scowers the web searching for the best and most relevant information, without all of the spammy, or non important results.

It takes time to build out the pages, and his team has so far managed to build out an average of 500 pages per week. In an effort to increase the database of top level terms Mahalo supplies to the end user, they are asking for your help, and have started the Mahalo Greenhouse. The Greenhouse has been designed to be where part time talented guides can help to create results based on their specialties. It's open for anyone that wants to contribute, and yes, there is cash involved. (only for US residents however.) Submit an application and cross your fingers, this little part time gig will not only help people find the information they are searching for, but net people anywhere from $10-$15 per search result. Of course the search results submitted will be monitored and approved before it is added to the directory.

Filed under: Developer, Security, Blogging, Web services, Social Software

MyBlogLog cloaking, surf as any A-lister


MyBlogLog has been racked with security issues of late. John Chow uncovered the scandal of MyBlogLog users who are unscrupulously adding well known bloggers to their blogs list of co-authors. Perhaps a partial explanation of how the SEOs and bottom feeders of the world are pulling off these tricks comes from ShoeMoney, who explains how you can surf MyBlogLog sites as nearly anyone you wish. Imitation they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.

MyBlogLog seems to be in its uncomfortable and awkward teen-acne phase where nothing it does comes off quite as planned. The blogging community site has managed to gain amazing traction so far however, they'll need to do some serious security mea culpa cleansing ritual to wash off the stink they've acquired in recent weeks.

Update : The security hole which allowed this trick to work has been closed, and in fact was closed at the time of our first posting. Thanks to Eric from MyBlogLog for straightening us out!

Filed under: Business, Internet, News, Social Software

The debunking of BusinessWeek's 'Digg made $60m' story

The debunking of BusinessWeek's 'digg made $60m' storyBusinessWeek is running a story featuring Kevin Rose on the cover, with the headline: "How This Kid made $60 Million In 18 Months." That sounds like a heckuva success story, but not everyone believes the math. Our own CEO Jason Calacanis debunked it himself, but since he owns us and Netscape - a digg competitor - I figured y'all might want to hear it from others in the community too, including Jason Fried at 37signals and Scott Rosenberg - writer, editor and co-founder of Salon.

The debunking more or less centers around figuring out how BW came upon their numbers, since much of the talk in the article is of what Digg is estimated to be worth, and where the company is going to move next - not what Rose presently has in his pocket. Ultimately, it sounds like BW took Digg's $200m estimated worth and divided it by Kevin's roughly 30% ownership to snag that $60m phantom number. Decent math, but shoddy tactics. BW says they got the numbers from 'unnamed sources', but that doesn't get them out of the trouble of slapping it on their front cover.

Check out the debunkings I've linked for more in-depth details on the article and where BW went wrong, as well as some funny parodies that are already arising, including *surprise!* how 9rules has suddenly announced that they themselves have made billions in just 12 months!

Filed under: Audio, Business, Internet, Text, Podcasting, Blogging, Web services

Newsvine testing and interview

newsvineLast week Jason Calacanis did a little Newsvine testing. A very interesting read from someone who has played with a lot of web toys just like that one... I tried Newsvine, and found it to be a little lacking. Not in features necessarily (although not being able to link to your own post is wack), but in polish. The UI is a bit cumbersome. The buzzword for cumbersome, so you know, is "rich" or "deep." Mike D., from Newsvine, comments on Calacanis's blog the interface is designed to reveal more features over time. That's true of most software, which doesn't make it better. At any rate, another channel, Disinformation, has an interview with Calvin Tang, co-founder of Newsvine available as a podcast. They even talk about scuba diving. Anyone out there using Newsvine on a regular basis? Mine's superpixel.newsvine.com.

[Thanks to Willy for the link]

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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