Thanks to team Mahalo I have five iPhones to give away. Yes, I’m going to give these away in a Mahalo.com contest. I’m not sure exactly how to give them away. I was thinking about:

1. a photoshop contest
2. an easter egg contest where we hide something on a Mahalo page
3. give one to each Part-time Guide in the Mahalo Greenhouse as they hit 100 completed search result pages (aka SeRPs).
4. give them to whoever creates the best proposed Mahalo search result page (i.e. folks post to their blog their best search result for a creative topic they pick–our staff pick the best ones).

How do you think we should them away?!?! Looking for feedback.

From a friend over at AOL… (yes, I’m stilling giving my peoples over at AOL plugs from time to time, no there is no post-AOL bad blood).

best j

Watch the best programmers in world compete head to head at the 2007 TopCoder Open sponsored by AOL. Webcast live from the Mirage Resort in Las Vegas, coverage will begin Friday, June 29 at 4:00 PM EDT on the AOL Developer Network, dev.aol.com.

With $260,000 in prizes at stake, the TopCoder Open is the major league of programming competitions. And with over 4,600 programmers entering the competition from around the globe, the pressure heats up in the finals as the field narrows to the top 77 coders. Over the course of the three hour webcast hosted by ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap, viewers will be able to watch the high stakes software competition unfold through live views of the arena, entertaining coder profiles, and interviews with contestants – all culminating with in-depth coverage of the final results.

Want a sneak peak? Watch the preview!

http://dev.aol.com/node/484/play

Live coverage begins Friday June 29, 2007, 1:00 pm PST/4:00 EDT (21:00 GMT) on dev.aol.com

TechCrunch20 deadline approaching… get in now!

http://www.techcrunch20.com/blog/2007/06/29/one-more-week-to-submit-on-time-for-techcrunch20/

(Note: it’s a soft deadline, but still!)

I loaded firebug and I’ve been testing how fast Mahalo loads for the past month. My amazing tech team just got sprites working and our beautiful pages designed by Jon Hicks (with Sean Jackson) have now dropped down from 25 http requests/items to 10 thanks to this little bad boy:

http://content.mahalo.com/skins/mhodefault/mahalo_serp.gif

For none tech folks: we load one image–the one you see above–for all the artwork on a page and then crop it… this reduces the number of items loaded… *big* *time*. It’s like the number one design tip going around for faster sites. It works. Big. Time.

I’m seeing .5 to .8 second load times for SeRPs…. What are you guys seeing?!?!

If you could do 10 loads of the same page and tell me times for each of the 10 loads that would be great.

Right now, my parents have been stuck on the runway in NYC for hours.

I was stuck on the runway trying to get to London for hours two weeks ago.

Watch this video below for an idea of how bad it can really get. (via consumerist)

These airlines really have to get their acts together in terms of how they treat people during delays. They need to be honest, they need to feed people, get them beverages, let them get up, and–for the love of God–let them get off the plane when it gets to the point of absurdity.

A modest proposal: It should be up to people if they want to get off the plane if the waiting time become > than half the time of the entire flight or greater than two hours.

Based on Walt Mossberg’s video review below, I’m going to buy an iPhone. Steve Jobs told me that if I trust the keyboard I would do fine going from blackberry to iPhone. I didn’t believe Steve to be honest, but I do believe Walt when he says it.

So, I’m gonna give it a go.

Hello again everybody,

Tyler here… producer of the CalacanisCast, back with some more details about the tonight’s CalacanisCast beta 30.

As mentioned before, we will be broadcasting #30 tonight LIVE at 7pm from the Operator 11 studios in Los Angeles.

Special guests will include Jay Adelson (Digg CEO),Kent Nichols (AskANinja), Ted Murphy (Payperpost), Robert Scoble, Steve Gillmor, and Loren Feldman (1938 Media) plus a special cameo by Toro the bulldog among others…

There is a max capacity of about 40 people for those who want to be in the cast. All you need is a webcam, headphones, and a gift for gab. To join the show, sign up and login to your operator11 account tonight at 7pm (pacific) and go the “Now Playing” section and click on the “Get In Now” button.

If you would like to be featured as a special guest please contact cast at calacanis dot com, otherwise please send any questions to marisol at operator11 dot com

We’re getting totally swamped with all the details of the TechCrunch20 conference–in a good way! We really could use an experienced conference producer to spend the next 12 weeks helping us do all the crazy details involved with a conference… you know, press, tables, sponsors, speakers, food, details, etc.

If you know anyone who is a) hard working, b) located in Los Angeles or SF, and c) available for the summer up until September 17/18 please let me know.

jason at calacanis dot com.

Nice story in NYT on human search, with some nice coverage of Mahalo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/business/yourmoney/24digi.html?_r=1&ref=yourmoney&oref=slogin

Some key paragraphs below… thoughts?

• A hand-built Mahalo search-results page has one conspicuous advantage over Google’s: grouping into subthemes, which make a page of links much easier to scan and to find items of particular interest. For example, Mahalo’s page about Paris Hilton, the site’s top search subject last week, arranges the recommended links into clusters including news, photos, gossip, satire and humor. The use of subject categories also eliminates the need to provide, as Google does, two-line text excerpts from the listed sites to provide clues about the site’s contents.
• The Mahalo page about Ms. Hilton lists more than 80 sites. Each takes up only one line; grouped by subtheme, they are easier to skim than the 12 sites that fill the entire first page of Google’s search results.
• All of the links listed in Mahalo send the user to Web pages that contain genuine content, not sales pitches in disguise. By using its own editors as the final arbiters of what goes in, Mahalo cuts off access in its listings to Web sites that confuse a search engine’s algorithm with advertorials that commingle advertisements with noncommercial information. To those in the trade, outsmarting the algorithm is called “search engine optimization.” For the rest of us, it produces Web pages littered with spam.
• Last week, Mr. Calacanis tried to illustrate how spam has infested some top results on Google. After running searches for “low-carb diets,” “Lasik” and “lingerie” at Google and at Mahalo, he compared the results. The exercise succeeded in exposing a few examples of Web sites ranked highly in Google’s results that contained advertorials or content apparently scraped from higher-quality sites.

This is a first… lobby letter for an add on Facebook based on other folks who added you.

I think I’m gonna wait until Alex has a billionaire on this lobbying list… I mean, how can you take this list seriously when it’s got Guy on it.

j

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Dear Jason,

I have invited to you to become Facebook friends. My other friends from Facebook include Arianna Huffington, Jimmy Wales, Chad Hurley, John Battelle, Joe Trippi, Blake Ross, Guy Kawasaki, etc.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Alex Hammer