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Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by ghurlman on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:10PM (#1455664)
"Mahalo dollars"? What's the conversion rate to USD, or to Shrute Bucks for that matter?
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by what on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:48PM (#1455852)
1 Mahalo Dollar ~= 0.68 USD, based on the price of iPod nano in their store.

Or 1 Mahalo Dollar ~= 0.57 USD, based on their $25 gift cards.

Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by chris24 on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:35PM (#1456013)
1 Mahalo dollar is equal to $0.75 USD, if you have 150 Mahalo Dollars or more. If you don't have that much, then you have to buy something with the 'Mahalo Store', which offers a very limited number of items for an even lower exchange rate.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by jasonmcalacanis on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:54PM (#1456099)
I'm sorry, why is this on Hacker News exactly?

Isn't there a more interesting story about another deserving startup or individual we can focus on?

really.... I'm bored with seeing Calacanis on the front page of HN.

Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by lanstein on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @01:51PM (#1455598)
There's a Mahalo 'community'?
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by tptacek on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:17PM (#1455688)
Sure, in the sense that there is also a Demand Media 'community'.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by jcromartie on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:23PM (#1455730)
I was about to make the exact same quip :)
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by jasonmcalacanis on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:54PM (#1456101)
Actually, there is a really solid community of folks building pages, asking questions, providing answers, etc.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by what on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @04:21PM (#1456194)
I'm inclined to believe this. Check out this question titled "Do your family members or friends criticize you for the amount of time you spend on Mahalo?"

http://www.mahalo.com/answers/do-your-family-members-or-frie...

Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by mcknz on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:44PM (#1456053)
At least it's not a message to the Hacker News community.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by famfam on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:49PM (#1456074)
I love how snarky comments are downvoted on HN UNLESS they're about Mahalo. 30 more karma to go, then I'm going to come back and downvote you and everyone else making the same comment on this thread.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by dschobel on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @04:11PM (#1456169)
HN has a general disdain towards anything which is detrimental to the online landscape (spam, bad pieces of legislation, etc).

No one really gives a crap about Jason or Mahalo, the consensus just seems to be that it operates in the gray areas of SEO with little value added to the content they vacuum in.

Feel free to correct the perception though.

Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by famfam on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @04:29PM (#1456208)
Not arguing about the dubiousness of Mahalo. I agree with the assessment. But I don't see why we're lowering the bar for the quality of comments when it's re: a maligned entity. Sorry, it's still HN, when I read a thread about Mahalo I'm not looking for a me-too dogpile of jokes or zings. I want to read some real analysis.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by epoxy on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @01:50PM (#1455594)
Well that's certainly confusing.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by oldgregg on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @01:51PM (#1455604)
I agree, he keeps using "community" and "mahalo" in the same sentence.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by alanh on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:23PM (#1455725)
How long has Mahalo been using Dora the Explorer as their mascot?
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by what on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:35PM (#1455791)
How can they afford to pay 50+ people $1000/month. Do they really pull in that much from advertising?
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by jasonmcalacanis on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:55PM (#1456110)
Significantly more.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by slouch on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:38PM (#1455801)
www.mahalo.com/type-anything-here
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by alttab on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:41PM (#1455815)
http://www.mahalo.com/mahalo-is-a-trap

Looks like they are willing to pay me to make that page. I may take them up on it.

Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by blizkreeg on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @02:46PM (#1455844)
I get that they're making good money by embedding ads in every inch of the site. Is this really a 'good' and respectable business model though? Something about it doesn't sit well with me, especially when the site doesn't offer quality content to the user.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by hvs on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:43PM (#1456045)
That's your conscience speaking. The fact that it bothers you is a good thing.
Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by OmarIsmail on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:52PM (#1456090)
Things aren't always so cut and dry. There's probably some people - a large number in fact - that does derive benefit from some of Mahalo's pages. You also have the fact that the revenue generated by Mahalo is going towards paying people which lets them live and feed themselves, etc.

In terms of the grand scheme of things, what Mahalo is doing isn't that "bad".

It's also not the ideal case either. As a savvy web user a Mahalo page is one of the last pages I'd want to visit, but I'm also savvy enough to know how to avoid it.

Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by jasonmcalacanis on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @03:57PM (#1456119)
Suggest taking a look at these pages, which get a lot of traffic, that people stay on for a long time and that provide a lot of value:

http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-play-guitar-chords http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-strawberry-shortcake http://www.mahalo.com/star-wars-the-force-unleashed-walkthro...

Re:Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community by OmarIsmail on Wednesday June 23, 2010 @04:39PM (#1456234)
I don't doubt that there are diamonds in the rough. However, when I search and see a random Mahalo page in Google I have no way to know if this is one of the diamonds, or one of the thousands of "rough". Why take that chance when I can go to a more reliable site that I trust more?