Have gotten amazing feedback from folks on the Mahalo “no results” page we put up quietly yesterday. I didn’t realize how well this would be received. A number of folks told me they can now switch their default search engine to Mahalo because of it. Wow!

That’s the wonderful thing about doing a startup… you can get these great “wins” from things you never thought of. It’s the same rush I get from playing poker and you win with a horrible hand that suddenly becomes great… unexpected wins are the best wins.

The tabbed interface started in a discussion about making a mashed up page of various search results. We thought, well if we’re going to mash it up why not just give the raw materials. We mocked it, and the designed said “hey let’s put the logos in” and I was like… “ohhh…. that looks amazing. Folks are going to freak that we’re promoting competing services.

This is my favorite quote:

• “Mahalo has become something of a searcher’s power tool.”

Wow. That’s the exact opposite of what we were going for. We were going for a service for the masses, but if this feature brings in the power users, well, rocking!

Rustle added:

• of course this is all about habits. calacanis wants to change yours. someone, somewhere is going to create the page you go to by default. who’s it going to be?

Yes, I think that’s right. The good news is that most folks use 3-4 search engines a month so we don’t have to beat Google–we just need to beat one of the other three.