Dear Jason Calacanis,
I was thrilled to see referrers from Google Mail’s Mahalo email area indicating that people were visiting my post “Dear Jason, You Have a Problem with Link Rot NOW.” I was even more thrilled to check the revision history for climate change and discove, soon after those hits to my article, Sara removed the link rot that Lon missed during his early morning revisions!
Responsiveness does encourage feedback.
You predicted, the ability of total outsiders to comment on the pesky little problems at Mahalo would encourage us to give you more feedback. So it has!
So about news scarper sites. . .
I will tell you that this morning, I was saddened to see that Mahalo Press Coverage for August 22, 2007 currently includes a link to what appears to be a scraper blog. You know, the sort of blog that just copies the contents of other blog posts?
If you visit Technology News Blog: Jason Calacanis: Fast Company profile raises more questions than it asks, you will find that “news” story seems to simply regurgitate ValleyWags August 21, 2007 story with the somewhat similar title “Technology News Blog: Jason Calacanis: Fast Company profile raises more questions than it asks”.
Might I suggest the duplicate story be removed? Might I also suggest you train the Mahalo guides to compare the titles and content of “new” stories to already posted stories. That habit would help them avoid this sort of embarrassing duplication of content in the results of your human powered – reviewed – massaged or whatever search engine.
Why not replace that slot with Jason Calacanis – Mahalo?
I know deleting the link to that duplicate content article might make it seem the blog-o-sphere is not simply abuzz about Mahalo. So, might I suggest you replace the link to that scraper site with Jason Calacanis – Mahalo?
CyberCelt included a screen shot that shows the absolutely splendid results returned for “advertising”.
Now, I know that because Mahalo is only in beta alpha, the sort of results Cyber Celt shows might not be considered news. But don’t you think the VC’s might want to gauge public reaction to what you’ve released for public perusal? Especially by people outside the Techcrunch 50,000? Even if they just don’t seem to “get it” about Mahalo?
Or maybe the VC’s should be shielded from that story?
Of course, this is just unsolicited advice from a knitter. I’m sure you’ll use your judgment on including these links to these sorts of negative reactions. After all, maybe the Venture Capitalists aren’t sophisticated enough to understand Cyber Celt’s complex story told using screen shots of the results pages.
Alas, my news article is missing too.
Naturally, I would never question why Dear Jason, You Have a Problem with Link Rot NOW was not included in the August 22 news stories. I’m sure the guides got busy responding to emails and making all the changes I suggested, and just forgot to add the story.
Wishing you well!
As always, I admire your gumption in trying to make this thing work. Dealing with enthusiastic underpaid guides and the flurry of volunteers in the Greenhouse must be a bit like herding cats. Still, I’m sure that by 2040, you will manage to put Google out of business.
I hope my feedback helps!
Sincerely, Lucia
