i want to talk a little about mahalo, a “human-powered” search engine, because i’m sympathetic to the idea. mahalo crossed my radar sometime in june of 2007, i bookmarked it then, and lately i’ve seen other people weighing in, either from increased twit-ing, twitter-ing, or because it’s reaching some sort of critical mass. i can’t say i use it frequently, or ever really, but i do go back occasionally because i like the idea. the implementation, not so much. i’m seeing things i just don’t understand, like:
1. where are the summaries?
sometimes algorithmic search engines do a shoddy job of summarizing a pages’ content. humans should be really good at this. how come the mahalo lists of links don’t have summaries? what qualifies a link to be in the top 7? why not tell me how a link was selected and what i might expect when i get there. i see that some links are deemed a “Guide’s Choice”, but i have to scroll a long way to find that out. this information should be presented in context.
2. why should i trust you?
i can see who edits/maintains a given search results page but nothing establishes their credibility at a quick glance. worse, using screen names to identify editors doesn’t really humanize them. lastly, when i get to their profile (i’ve checked a few), lists of links there don’t boost their credibility with me either. i should learn something about this person that establishes their credibility on a particular subject. ostensibly this is why the editors are listed in the first place.
3. who is the intended audience?
clearly, mahalo is not intended for a sophisticated audience. i like the model, admit that not all viable internet tools are built for me, and could envision a less-savvy individual using it. but i would bet a great deal that this same audience would not use services like delicious, propeller, magnolia, or reddit. why are hooks to these services given such prominence (relative position in the right sidebar)? we learned in robert scoble’s first video, a little about mahalo’s user testing process; i’m curious to know if my hunch on these is wrong. to a similar point, i’m not sure this audience would gravitate to something called “mahalo follow” or “mahalo social”, which are somewhat esoteric terms.
anyway, that’s my $.02.