Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, November 14, 2007:
Silliest Thing I’ve Heard in a While
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I love when technologists drink the cool-aid, it really makes for funny blogging.
In this post about Mahalo by Andrew Baron he has one of the funniest lines I’ve read in a long time. You should go read it in context, but the line is:
“Mahalo is fundamentally flawed because it’s purpose is to provide useful, valuable information about a specific subject matter, but ultimately so that users who are looking for that information will be lead astray by clicking on less relevant advertising.
Mahalo is unlike Google which uses advertising to help pay for the technology of generating great search returns”
Huh? So Mahalo is bad because the money generated goes to the founders, but Google is good because the money generated goes into search technology. Can he actually believe such a ludicrous statement? Last time I checked the Google founders flew around in a 767 they own for fun and company masseuses are becoming millionaires. So I guess not every dollar is going back into search result technology eh.
Discussion
For background the person who wrote it runs RocketBoom. I tried to hire the former host of RocketBoom after she left the show to work at AOL. Andrew is still very upset about it.
The fact is we make money in the EXACT same way as Google... in fact, we use their advertising technology!
I would chalk this one up to someone smarting from a broken heart.
best j
Created by Jason on 11.14.2007 1:29 pm
Hi Ian, I agree with you that it sounds silly, its hard to articulate the point so I would like to try again here in conctect of your post. In all, this is a very simple concept, please consider honestly:
Google was "inspired" by a good idea for search for other people and that was the motivation behind it. The advertising came later. The ads would support the vision.
Mahalo was "inspired" by selling advertising for Jason. The ads and personal wealth ARE the vision. The ads were not the solution that came later to supporting the technology, the ads were the reason for the technology. But Mahalo is not classified as an "advertising comapany", they are calling it Search.
This is a very simple concept:
If you think about the web 2.0 trend, most people dont know for sure how they will make money from their products if the products become successful. This is not positive or negitive, its simply an indication that they are motivated by the perceived value their product, thinking is really good and will be of great use to others. If people DO like it, then it will make a lot of money.
This is different then saying, "I have a way to make tons of money automatically by gaming Google and if people like it or not, it may just work!"
If you ask "How can I make a great search product"? You come up with Google.
If you ask "How can I make the most money"? You come up with Mahalo.
Created by Andrew Baron on 11.15.2007 4:54 am
Thanks guys, interesting to have you both posting here. I think if nothing else it shows that you both understand blogging and the modern web very well.
Andrew, I don't really care much about Mahalo and my main issue was with your statement as you addressed. I can see your opinion, but I don't necessarily agree with it. I think it's a little naive to think that the Google guys had no aspirations of making money or selling advertising even.
They didn't invent search engines and they didn't event search engine ads. These things existed before Google. So I think it would be just as fair to say that they went out to make a better search engine so they could make a boat load of money. If you go from that premise then they wouldn't be any different than Jason.
I understand Goog doesn't like to come off like this, but I think if you look at their actions over their words you'll see they're as interested in making money as anyone.
Created by Ian on 11.15.2007 9:17 am
" I think it's a little naive to think that the Google guys had no aspirations of making money or selling advertising even. "
Hey, I just announced more advertising for Rocketboom and Im also interested in making a boat load of money.
I think you are still missing the point though: I didn't start Rocketboom because I thought I could make a boat load of money for myself (although I hoped I would), I started it because I thought it would be helpful for the world and instigate change. I wanted to illuminate and help to prove what seems like such a powerful idea: The democratization of media. Thats the reason for its existence.
If I wanted to make a boat load of money and didn't care how (as long as it was legal), I would do something like spam-mail or splogs. I categorize Mahalo in this category - it doesn't require anyone else beside the Mahalo staff to make it successful so its an isolated project and its success is determined not by critical acclaim but by click thru's.
If in one year from now, Jason finds that they are not making it with click-thru's, they will have to mold the business to fit Google. What if Google changes its algorithm one day to consider Mahalo a splog with a mission to get to the top however it can?
This could really hurt if no one else cares.
Created by Andrew Baron on 11.15.2007 10:09 am
I've never used Mahalo until just now, but I think you're dismissing the concept a little bit. For instance I find the Mahalo page on an Acura TSX (http://www.mahalo.com/Acura_tsx) to be better than the Google search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=acura+tsx&btnG=Google+Search).
In addition, if this is all about being nice for the world I don't see how Google fits that. Just look at their result page. They put ads above the first content links. It's essentially extorting money from Acura in this case because they know they must bid whatever is necessary to own that top spot so that Toyota doesn't own the first link for the Acura TSX search.
That's just a small example, but I guess I'm just a pessimist. I don't believe that most businesses or most innovations come purely from making the world better. I think the last few hundred years have shown the exact opposite actually. That most innovation comes from capitalism and financial motivation.
Created by Ian on 11.15.2007 10:30 am
I read the quated line a bit differently (although, when reading the comments I read it wrong). something along the lines of "They have an exalent search result, but then ruining their own usefullness in suppling less-relevant ads and getting the user to click on that".
One of the reasons Google is so successfull is because they can find not only search results, but also relevant ads. and so - everyone wins.
Created by Shmuel Fomberg on 11.18.2007 5:40 am