So, we figured out what exactly we were queuing up for yesterday. Turns out that a little Apple company was selling something called the “iPhone”, which we were happy to pick up. Why? So that we could give them away to you of course! As part of a promotion, we’ll be giving away five iPhones to people that show outstanding achievement and effort in the Mahalo Greenhouse. We’ll have more details soon about how you can win, but your best bet for now is to head over and apply to become a part time Guide.

Also, the photographer that we met in the line yesterday took a photo that appeared on the Yahoo homepage, and on the pages of Fox News. How cool is that?

Earlier today, three of us Mahalans were walking down 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, when we discovered a queue of people sitting down outside a store that sells Apples. Being the curious bunch that we are, we decided to sit down and see what was up: maybe if we wait long enough we’ll be able to discover what’s going down.

(more…)

The second full week of operations in the Mahalo Greenhouse, where Part Time Guides build search results pages for inclusion in Mahalo, brings more growth and covers more timezones!

• Another 150 applications received from prospective Part Time Guides. Why not apply, too?
• Thirty three Part Time Guides from all over the world, including Israel, Italy, and China.
• Twenty six search results pages in progress.
• We hit a milestone! Our first twenty five search results pages accepted into Mahalo — most just this week — including…
  • Our 25th accepted page, Dresden Dolls
  • Geology
  • Orange County, CA
  • Black Holes
  • Alabama Vacation
  • The Little Mermaid

Meanwhile, the sense of community continues to grow as new Part Time Guides introduce themselves, help and advise one another, and interact with the Guides and Guide Leads of Mahalo. I’m deeply impressed by the people the Greenhouse has attracted.

The Greenhouse, where Part Time Guides (PTGs) from all over the world help Mahalo.com build Search Results Pages (SeRPs), is in full swing!

To date:

• Close to five hundred applicants
• Almost two dozen Part Time Guides
• About a dozen SeRPs in progress, including…
  • Toronto FC
  • Hawaii (State)
  • See them all!
• Six SeRPs accepted into Mahalo, such as…
  • Tapatio Hot Sauce
  • The Godfather Films
  • Fondue
  • The Lion King
  • Catan
  • Geology

Through a dedicated mailing list, chat, and Skype, our Part Time Guides are building a virtual community with a wonderful sense of enthusiasm. I feel like they’re here in Santa Monica with us!

In the weeks to come, we’ll continue to bring on new Part Time Guides, add resources and applications to their toolkits, and begin to issue our first payments for accepted SeRPs. The Greenhouse is open for business, and it’s rockin’!

How do we at Mahalo determine which recommended links will make the cut, and be included in a search results page?

Let’s look at iPhone as an example.

1. Accepted: The link for Apple’s iPhone ads recommended by Andru Edwards shows exactly the kind of link we want to include. It’s something our users will probably be searching for and it’s from a highly respected source.

Figure 1: We accepted http://apple.com/iphone/ads/

2. No action: iPhone Blogger is still in the Recommended Links area. It hasn’t been promoted to the page yet because, while it looks good, it hasn’t been around for very long. We’ll need to see how it evolves, and if others recommend it, before we decide whether to move it to the page.


Figure 2: We took no action on: http://iphoneblogger.com/

3. Banned: We banned iPhone2Win for several reasons. First, and most simply, it felt spammy. After a little research, we discovered it had a very low Alexa ranking. It asks for people to provide a lot of information, but doesn’t give a lot in return. The main site, http://www.gibtshier.com, has an unmodified web template with no information about the company. The company information link on the contest page gives no phone number, just a mailing address for a direct marketing company in Austria. If it asks users for more data than it’s willing to give out and does not have a solid reputation, we don’t want to recommend it to our users. Therefore, this link was banned.


Figure 3: We banned: http://iphone2win.gibtshier.com

We hope this gives you more insight into Mahalo’s link choices. If you’ve got any questions, please ask them in the comments. Mahalo!

In response to popular demand from a Facebook discussion, Dave Winer, and many others we’ve created feeds for new pages and recent changes. You can now track what our Guides are working on from the comfort of your feed reader. If you have questions about RSS, check out the Mahalo page for RSS.

New Pages RSS Feed
Subscribe with: My AOl, MyYahoo, Google, or Bloglines

Recent Changes RSS Feed
Subscribe with: My AOl, MyYahoo, Google, or Bloglines

Links to the feeds for new pages, recent changes, and the Mahalo Blog are also available at the bottom of the Mahalo homepage:

If you use Firefox, you can click the RSS icon in the address bar to view all of the available feeds:

Mahalo!

Two weeks ago we launched the human-powered “search service” Mahalo.com in alpha at the WSJ’s D conference in California. The tag line of Mahalo is “we’re here to help,” and after 15 days of tremendous feedback we’ve learned one thing: you want to help too!

We hear ya, we hear ya. We really, really, really hear ya!

Today I’m thrilled to announce the Mahalo Greenhouse, a place where the public can build search results that—if accepted by our Guides—will be included in the Mahalo search index.

Oh yeah, if we accept your search result we will pay you $10 to $15 per search result (the range is based on how many search results you’ve completed: more here).

Now, if you’re a disciple of Yochi and you absolutely will not work on a web-based project for money, we’ve got an amazing proposition for you: make the web better by writing spam-free search results and we’ll donate your fees to the Wikimedia Foundation. So, you can make the world better 2x: first by making clean, spam-free search results and second by helping keep the Wikipedia running (those server bills ain’t cheap!).

We’ve earmarked up to $250,000 in donations to the Wikipedia this year.

Now, we can’t accept everyone all at once. We’re gonna start taking applications today and adding a handful of folks to the Greenhouse based on merit. What we’re looking for in part-time Guides:

a) a desire to help people–a lot!
b) the ability to surf the web
c) previous work experience at DMOZ, Wikipedia, a well-known blog (i.e. Engadget, LifeHacker, etc), a social news site (Reddit, Netscape, or digg), or a social bookmarking site (delicious, stumbleupon).

Extra consideration will be giving to folks who have an online following on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, MySpace, a personal blog, or the like (i.e. folks who can help us spread the word).

Mahalo for your consideration and we look forward to working with you!

A few people have asked us if it’s possible to add Mahalo to the Firefox search bar. It’s possible and easy. Here’s how:

Step 1: Go to the Mahalo Homepage and click on the logo in the search bar

Step 2: Click on “Mahalo (English)” in the drop down

Step 3: Mahalo will now be the default search engine in the search bar

Mahalo!

Eric Stephens, Mahalo’s Director of User Experience, spent some time this week putting together a quick screencast showing you how to recommend links for search result pages on Mahalo. Here it is on YouTube:

You can also download a QuickTime version of the file.

Please feel free to comment on this post with any questions or thoughts you have.

Mahalo!

Mahalo is hiring!

We have two immediate openings on the development team. Our only location requirement is that you live on the third planet from the sun (and you are willing to fly to Santa Monica four times a year). We’re looking for the VERY BEST people and while we’d love for you to be here, we’re perfectly fine with telecommuting for top talent.

PHP Developer
The ideal candidate has extensive LAMP (Linux, Apache, mySQL,PHP/Perl) experience. We’re also looking for expertise with HTML, CSS, XML, DHTML and JavaScript and cross-browser compatibility issues. Familiarity with Mediawiki a definite plus! The ideal person is a self starter with the “general get it factor”. You work well with a team of like-minded engineers, and have a genuine desire for excellence. You are enthused about building the next product that will define an ‘internet generation’.

Focused on the front end of Mahalo, you will be developing new features in real time. You’ll see your work have immediate impact, as releases are near-continuous. The culture of the company is one where you’ll work hard and play hard, and new features and ideas are very rapidly prototyped and made live. We release and iterate in fast cycles. The opportunity to work for a world-class internet startup in Los Angeles is rare. We expect the coming year to be extremely exciting, with high growth and great rewards. Come be a part of it!

Email resumes to mark@mahalo.com
Craigslist ad is here

HTML / CSS Developer
You’re an expert in quickly laying down HTML, CSS, XML, DHTML and JavaScript. You’re a master of cross-browser compatibility issues and optimizing code and files for speed. Familiarity with Mediawiki a definite plus, but not required. You should also be familiar with AJAX and Web 2.0-style techniques.

The ideal person is a self starter with the “general get it factor”. You work well with a team of like-minded engineers, and have a genuine desire for excellence. You are enthused about building the next product that will define an ‘internet generation’.

Focused on the front end of Mahalo, you will be developing new features in real time. You’ll see your work have immediate impact, as releases are near-continuous. The culture of the company is one where you’ll work hard and play hard, and new features and ideas are very rapidly prototyped and made live. We release and iterate in fast cycles. The opportunity to work for a world-class internet startup in Los Angeles is rare. We expect the coming year to be extremely exciting, with high growth and great rewards. Come be a part of it!

Email resume to mark@mahalo.com
Craigslist ad is here

Mahalo!