Mahalo, the human-powered search engine, unveiled its human- and incentive-powered Mahalo Answers this week, which highlights the importance of questions and answers on the Internet and shows how far the model is from being finished.
Yahoo! Answers has been the company’s greatest success, though it has received little buzz and recognition. According to Quantcast, the site lures about 24 million U.S. online users each month.
The advantage Yahoo! has is its huge community of users to draw from and siphon towards its Yahoo! Answers site. It has done an admirable job in leveraging its strength for this section, though it has yet to really benefit from its success.
Mahalo is attempting to jump into the same pool as Yahoo! Answers, Answers.com and WikiAnswers, among other such sites. Its model is unique and laudable: while users are able to ask questions for free, they can reward or tip the user who offers the best answer to a question.
There are a few conditions, of course. For one, Mahalo takes 25 percent of every bounty placed on a question and rewarded to one of its users. Also, just because a reward is put up for a question, the “Mahalo dollars” do not necessarily have to be paid out. If a user is unsatisfied with the answer(s) received, the reward can be rescinded.
There is a check against abusing this option, however. If a user rescinds too many offers, it appears on their profile, making their questions less appealing for users to answer.
Answerers can’t cash out their earnings until their accounts reach at least $30, which could be seen as a clever incentive to get more good content onto Mahalo’s site. However, if the stick that this carrot is attached to is found to be too long, it may work against the site.
Questions are integrated on relevant pages on the topic involved, and users can send each other questions directly.
Jason Calacanis, Mahalo’s founder, should be applauded for his boldness and ingenuity. His concept is certainly more innovative than any other question-and-answer program that is on the Web, though its success is far from a certainty.
If Mahalo Answers does catch on and become a success in the same way Yahoo! Answers has, the human-powered site stands to win a lot, especially financially. If it manages to squeeze decent revenue flows from this model, it will have made Mahalo’s longevity much easier to maintain – and this is before it has even dabbled in its own ad-selling activities.
Sources:
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=03300316PVLR
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10122762-2.html
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081215/jason-calacanis-rolls-out-the-new-mahalo-yahoo-answers-killer/
Jason Hahn
e: jhahn221@gmail.com
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