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3 years, 5 months ago

What do you think about Mahalo Answers?

Greetings all! I'm a tech reporter for the New York Times working on a story about the release of Project A. Please specify if you do not want me to use part or all of your answers and or username in a short article about the service. Looking forward to hearing what you think! Cheers, Jenna
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dbspringer's Avatar
dbspringer | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
At first it was easy to wonder, what does Answers have to do with "human-powered search?" But then it struck me: what's more "human-powered" than directly asking the millions upon millions of web users a question AND getting a response? Mahalo Answers is crowd-sourcing at its finest!

With this in mind, it's also easy to see how Answers is the compliment to Mahalo proper. Just take a look at the Bob Dylan page and you'll see it: paid Mahalo guides do an excellent job of sorting through all the best, most relevant facts on a topic, but can't respond to every conceivable query a user might desire. So, if the info you are seeking isn't there, the page itself implores you to "Ask a question about Bob Dylan" and there's a good chance *someone* out there will help you find what you are looking for.

I'm fairly confident that if this 1-2 punch doesn't find what you're looking for, it probably doesn't exist.

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danielle's Avatar
danielle | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

I agree. It is an excellent use of our "human powered service" and feels like the natural evolution to our service.

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evan | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Browse through Answers for a few minutes, and before you know it a half hour has passed. It's easy to get sucked in, particularly with the ability to post videos and images. During the testing phase as I was trying to think of intriguing things to ask, I ended up asking several questions about things I genuinely desired information on. I very quickly received answers that were both helpful and insightful.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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sara's Avatar
sara | 3 years, 5 months ago
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I think Mahalo answers is an intriguing addition to the site -- it's much more interactive than our other pages, and can be very addictive to visit. Whether people need an answer because they want feedback on a question, don't know where to begin their research, or just don't have time to do the legwork, our service can help. And I like the fact that tips will compensate answerers for their hard work and contributions.

FYI, I'm also a Mahalo employee.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

M$

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darcy logan | 3 years, 5 months ago
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I think that Mahalo Answers is a great complement to Mahalo itself. I believe that Mahalo Answers will be different from similar sites because Mahalo has always been focused on two things: people and content. The whole foundation of Mahalo is about giving people what the want and not what the computers think they want. More importantly, I have always gotten the impression that Mahalo asks itself "How can we provide people with a service?" and then asks "How can we make money doing it?" Many companies (especially Internet-based ones) ask those questions in reverse. Yet, the really successful online business (Google, YouTube), started by providing people with a service and then discovered that they could make money doing it. If you focus on the service, the money will come. If you focus on the money, the service is usually lacking--at least in my opinion.
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I am not a Mahalo employee (although I do freelance work for them), so my answer is simply my opinion, based on my experience with them as a Mahalo user:

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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lelah's Avatar
lelah | 3 years, 5 months ago
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As an employee of Mahalo, I think Mahalo Answers presents an opportunity to cut through the noise that other question and answers services get bogged down in. The unique features like multimedia embedding make the product stand out and make it more interactive, which is more interesting to the question answerer and more helpful for the question asker.

I hope you enjoy poking around the site!

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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andy's Avatar
andy | 3 years, 5 months ago
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I think that the Multimedia aspect is really what separates Mahalo Answers from all of the other Answers products that are currently available. The ability to embed videos, photos and even MP3s directly on answers creates exponentially more valuable content and context. Instead of just being able to tell someone the answer, you can show it to them, have them watch a video about, or listen to it.

What would be even cooler would be if, in the future, users could ask their questions directly over video. Maybe in the next iteration users with a webcam can just ask questions directly into their cameras.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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cpryce | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
I like the concept. The site seems to have underestimated the bandwidth required to make the site function. I've received six 503 errors in the past 15 minutes.

One such error happened while submitting an answer. The
submission hung unexpectedly, with a spinning icon next to the button which simply said "Submitting Answer". Firebug diagnosed the connection problem, and I recovered manually. Such errors should be handled more gracefully.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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girmant | 3 years, 5 months ago
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there are many reasons to love Mahalo answers: ability to add photos, videos, MP3s, to ask questions directly, and I'm sure for some it would be ability to earn some money - however the most appealing reason for me is the sense of community.

...and it looks good :)

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

M$

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gully666uk | 3 years, 5 months ago
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I think it's pretty interesting its crowd sourcing with the added incentive of money at the end.It does work as i use twitter once a day if at all, but here i have already answered 3 questions.Speaks for itself.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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smartie's Avatar
smartie | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
Mahalo is an innovative approach to traditional Q&A forums because it puts more responsibility on individuals to self-monitor, research, and edit their responses, and rewards them for their efforts. Other Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers and Wiki Answers offer free advice, but tend to solicit more skewered, “stream of thought” type responses. The financial incentives not only encourage more valid and reliable answers, but tend to follow the open-source information sharing that has recently emerged among computer programming, giving birth to the most innovative and collaborative solutions that only result of community, rather than individual participation.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

M$

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russpage | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
I'm not sure what it provides that Yahoo! answers doesn't. I don't like how there is no politics section (I didn't see one) and no business section. If it's there, it's not easy to find. When you click on the categories you get reset to the top of the page and have to scroll back down to see what categories are sub categories. Very annoying.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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valz's Avatar
valz | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
'Mahalo Answers' is FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is easy to use and very accessible. (See Links below).
It is FUN!!!!!! No way, you say? YES WAY!
It's all free, you can share ideas with great people and earn real money too!
It's like Surfing the web by yourself on a beautiful day......BUT THEN....

You are the Star in a show full of Friends
You have help to do all kinds of things like find Employment
You can Be Cool , share some Jokes (suitable for the workplace of course), learn, share, and help Mahalo become the best place on the Net!
You feel like anything is possible now - like you can reach the Stars !!!!

Mahalo! (thanks in Hawaiian) and ENJOY! :)

LINKS (you can click on them above also)

Surfing
http://www.mahalo.com/Surfing

Employment
http://www.mahalo.com/Employment

Friends show
http://www.mahalo.com/Friends

Be cool movie
http://www.mahalo.com/Be_Cool

Jokes
http://www.mahalo.com/Jokes

Mahalo
http://www.mahalo.com

Stars
http://www.mahalo.com/Stars

EASY CONNECTING WITH YOUR MAHALO COMMUNITY:

Instructions: How to make Mahalo your home page
http://www.mahalo.com/How_To_Make_Mahalo_Your_Homepage

Instructions How to add Mahalo to your search bar
http://www.mahalo.com/How_To_Add_Mahalo_To_Your_Search_Bar

Instructions How to share more by helping build your Mahalo search engine
http://www.mahalo.com/Category:Mahalo_Social_To_Do

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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valz's Avatar
valz | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

Photo credit is Creative Commons by MR+G

connectedgeek's Avatar
connectedgeek | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

Why are all of your links all messed up?

cfinke's Avatar
cfinke | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

Looks like a bug in the software. I'll log it and we'll get it fixed.

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marcusahle | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
Google tried the same type of service: http://answers.google.com/answers and it died. If Google cant create a stable pay for answers service I think it's only a matter of time before this goes under. Google couldn't compete with Yahoo Answers free service. Why would people want to pay to ask a question when they can either A. do a little extra research on search engines or B. go to Yahoo Answers and ask the question for free? It's only a matter of time before this goes under.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

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eiffel's Avatar
eiffel | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

At Uclue fifty of the former Google Answers Researchers provide paid answers to serious questions. Sometimes people just don't have enough time, or don't have the research skills, to do the work themselves.

http://uclue.com/

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chaimchaikin's Avatar
chaimchaikin | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
Mahalo Answers is interesting and exiting as it allows similar functionality to the popular Yahoo Answers but also pays your for answering questions.

Mahalo gives an interesting initiative to users to want to answer more and more questions because you can earn money from answering.

I found that there was not so many questions waiting to be answered and even less with tips. Perhaps this is because it is new and still in Beta testing. I am sure people will join quick and fast.

Payment is also very good because it inspires people to answer properly and not give one or two word answers like they would on a site like Yahoo Answers. Users a rewarded for giving full and proper answers.

Mahalo is amazing and I am sure it will just get better :)

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

M$

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tmarx's Avatar
tmarx | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
I think Mahalo Answers is a great service, but it will definitely be interesting to see how it differentiates itself from the market. It is very similar to Yahoo Answers, and historically copycat sites do not experience success in the long term. That being said I would not be surprised if Jason Calacanis had some surprises up his sleeve to enhance the service. The one major problem I see with the site is that there are both paid and free questions. The paid questions are clearly going to get a lot more answers, and it could potentially get to the point where the free questions are largely ignored. Nonetheless it should be interesting to see how Mahalo Answers does, and I definitely wish Jason the best of luck with this new service.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

M$

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bugsy's Avatar
bugsy | 3 years, 5 months ago
3
It needs an RSS feed for listing filtered questions (one for undecided, one for tip, one for popular).

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

M$

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geekspeak11's Avatar
geekspeak11 | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
I am so excited for Mahalo Answers! I think this has the potential to be huge.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

M$

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creeva's Avatar
creeva | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
I think it could wipe the landscape clean of yahoo answers with it's video support. I also think it should add RSS feeds of your questions AND answers - my biggest complaint on yahoo answers.

You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.

M$

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