I got home today and started my usual half-hour’s surfing, checking email, forums, etc. and saw that Jason Calacanis had posted on Twitter to say he was streaming live video on Ustream and I thought I’d check it out. Jason is the CEO of Mahalo, a start-up search engine with a difference – instead of crawling the web and picking up every site out there (including the SEO’d link spam) Mahalo is a “human powered search” where the results are crafted by hand. You might think this is a little odd but Mahalo aims more at handling the most common searches very well and eschews the more detailed and technical searches like specific error messages or code fragments. Mahalo also has a hint Wikipedia to it in that users can create pages, edit text and recommend links to go with certain search terms.
On the Ustream page Jason decided that as a collective (the room had around 150 members) we should start building some Mahalo pages and he kind-of walked us through the process, I myself signed up whilst on the call. Now I was cooking dinner during this period but I still managed to participate in the pages for “Home Theatre PC“, “Home Theater” and “Eye TV“, submitting a handful of links I thought might be useful.
The whole experience was great fun and really demonstrated the point of Mahalo but the amazing part was just the buzz and excitement of over a hundred people collabarating live, being orchestrated by Jason who was intermittently addressing the room and hollering at Mahalo staff in the background, some of whom he also put on air. All in all this was definitely one of those “wow” moments I still get on the Internet from time to time, proof that amazing things are possible if people work together and whilst I’m not ready to give up Google I will lean a lot more towards Mahalo if I just want an overview of a particular topic.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Jason Calacanis, Mahalo, streaming live video, Twitter, Ustream
Yesterday I got another email from Facebook telling me that <insert random name here> has added me as a friend, so I diligently log in (and it seems to ask for my details every damned time) to see who it is and despite the photo and location and other scant details I have no idea who the hell this is. The question I find myself left with is who is the guy, why does he want me to be his friend and more importantly why do I even give a toss? The last 4 or 5 people to add me as a friend have been random people who I had little or nothing to do with at school and back then probably wouldn’t even have pissed on me if I were on fire. The other thing that bothers me significantly is the absurd number of bloody applications you get on there, I had to remove over 100 invitiations to be a zombie, werewolf, post on this wall, that wall, be a member of the christ-knows-what group, rate this, complete that, etc. etc. and it’s way too much for any sane human to bother with. If this is what the 21st century is going to turn friendship into then I’m out.
I find the most disturbing part of Facebook relates to it’s revenue model, sure advertising works and I’m sure that the founder Mark Zuckerburg (sickeningly named ‘Zuck’ by adoring fans) will end up being mightily rich if he sells at a good time but it’s the violation of privacy and the open mauling of personal data that really gets to me. The problem I have is that many of my friends use Facebook as their primary communication tool so I’m basically shafted if I don’t continue to use it. You never know, I might change my mind and I might have a renaissance – I’m always willing to give things a second (or third) chance so maybe one day I’ll be back on there but deep down it’s not the principle of Facebook that annoys me, more the execution and they seem to be sticking with the design they have so for the time being I’ll stick with Twitter and the Gamercast Network for my social networking needs.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: facebook, Facebook Applications, gamercast network, Random Friend Requests, Twitter
I’ve heard talk to Twitter for so long but resisted because of my lazy stance on blogging and the fact that I thought it was just for trendy tech types, well this week I finally gave in and signed up and I love it! For those of you that don’t know, it’s a micro-blog – basiclly like a normal blog but only the post have to be less than or equal to 140 characters. Because of this it lends itself more to throwing up little comments about what you’re doing or where you are and often just URLs of interesting videos, articles or blogs you’ve found. The simplicity of Twitter makes it perfect for filling those little spots of time you have free such as train journeys, waiting for data to load (occupational hazzard) and walking down the street (looking both ways when crossing roads mind you), even better is the fact that it’s availably via the web, instant messaging clients, mobile web, SMS and RSS (supported by the Sony Ericsson W910i). In the service you choose people who you want to follow and then other people choose to follow you, I’m currently wondering how I might increase my number of followers but I guess like any medium that if you build it – they will come.
Well, that’s enough real blogging now – I’m going to get back on over to Twitter and try to find more people to follow.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: blog, Twitter