Why did Google abandon Google Answers, and what is there about Mahalo Answers that will make it successful?
- Technological Reason/secret sauce?
- A higher quality of execution?
- Better marketing or distribution (tie in to Mahalo.com)?
- Better market situation today in late 2008 than in the past.
Please provide explicit differentiation from either Google Answers, or the current leaders in the Answers product category - including:
- http://qna.live.com/
- http://answers.google.com/answers/
- http://answers.yahoo.com/
(or you can argue that Mahalo Answers will not be a viable business in it's own right because of past failures or lack of differentiation)
The Best answer will have the most reasoned and well thought argument (drawing EITHER conclusion) as judged by me ;-) .
Thanks!
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M$9 Answers
As a result, Google Answers became a service of 'looking up answers', as opposed to 'asking people who may be experts on the topic' - which is the Mahalo system
Mahalo opens the door to anyone with subject knowledge or good reasoning/explanation skills and then encourages them to come back through the point system (belts) and the offer of Mahalo dollars.
Any individual is empowered to take part in the Mahalo answers system, which is fun and intuitive.
Out of the options you gave in the question, I would say better execution and better marketing are the main reasons.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
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$
Mahalo is very easy to understand and use, and offers every user rewards at every level (whether points or hard cash).
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$
Look, you have three answers *already*. On Google Answers you would still be waiting!
Mahalo Answers is better than Y! Answers because we police the system and do not tolerate bad behavior--or stupidity. That last part is key. We consider membership in Answers a privilege, not a right. We have no problems delete obnoxious or unhelpful answer, or banning bad users. Of course we don't want to do that, but we will.
I think curation and Mahalo Dollars are the biggest advantage we have.
We have big expectations for the project.... we hope to change the world with it. :-)
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$
Side Note: Having implemented a similar View Count on my web site (Go2.me) - I see you are publishing unrealistically high "View Counts" here - basically, every page refresh, even by the same user in the same session, will increase the view count by one. This gives a much exaggerated impression of the number of people who have seen the question.
You should filter out repeat request by the same browser in the same "session" - not too hard to do by using cookies and/or server-side memcache.
Good points, Jason. It's very impressive that my question has been viewed 54 times in 30 minutes, and had 4 reasonably well thought out answers already.
The main reason Mahalo Answers is better than Google Answers is that Jason has made it competitive (it's Fun!)
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$
Another reason - Jason Calacanis. He has a strong Internet following.
I don't know if Mahalo Answers will be successful, but I do know that it will be around for a while as long as Jason wants it to be.
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$
Seriously, you already got your answer, so what incentive do you have to actually pick the person who answered it best? Suppose I offer $100 for an answer -- lots of people will provide information. Then, I have a confederate paraphrase the best answer and I pick them, essentially getting the answer for free. Does Mahalo do anything to try and block this or at least track people doing it.
Aside from the possibility of gaming the system, though, I'm generally impressed.
___
OK, some nits: The form I just got after clicking Submit looked very similar to the page I was on before, but it's asking me to sign in or sign up -- it should look distinctively different to make it clear, particularly to new users, that their answer has not been posted. Then, it looks like the answer didn't actually get put on the question, so I'm trying again now. (yup, there's a bug there -- it worked the second time, when I was already signed in.)
But, I will comment that I very much like the integrated Sign In or Join UI. Keeping it simple!
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
But the people who were allowed to be payed for answers were limited to specialists and people qualified to answer. This obviously meant that people had to wait much longer for an answer. This site lets anyone answer but BS answers won't earn anyone any money so there is motivation to be as accurate as possible.
me
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$
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$
