Filed under: Internet Tools, Widget Watch
Widget Watch: Mahalo
Today's widget is a simple one that lets you search Mahalo from your Dashboard. Mahalo, in case you don't know, is the new 'human powered search engine' from Weblogs, Inc co-founder Jason Calacanis (there is also another familiar TUAW face involved with Mahalo). Think of it as Google and Wikipedia's love child. A team of guides hand creates search result (they have already created 4000 out of the top 10,000 searches by hand) to give context to your search. The Mahalo search results also include results from Google, for all you traditionalists about there.
Take a look at the Mahalo widget from Coding Robots and check out a few search results from Mahalo (may I suggest Steve Jobs and the iPhone?).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jon said 2:37PM on 6-04-2007
I had never heard of this project until now. My question is: how can they be sure that there is no bias in the results (I noticed TUAW was top on the blog list under "Apple" - how did they determine the order?) and how can they ensure it is up-to-date?
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Havelock Holmes said 2:39PM on 6-04-2007
You might want to read this review before using up any of your precious widget consciousness:
http://www.uncov.com/2007/5/31/mahalo-is-hawaiian-for-useless
Language is a little raw, but review is funny and as the link indicates, devastating. Jason Calacanis takes the review on in the comments. He makes some good points and I'm willing to take a second look.
HHCD
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Scott McNulty said 2:39PM on 6-04-2007
I am not involved with the Mahalo project, so I can't really speak to your concerns. I should point out, however, that Mahalo has nothing to do with Weblogs, Inc or AOL (our loving corporate Over Lords).
As for keeping it up to date, they have a large team of people making sure stuff is up to date.
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Jon said 3:09PM on 6-04-2007
"I should point out, however, that Mahalo has nothing to do with Weblogs, Inc or AOL (our loving corporate Over Lords)."
It may not be directly related, but he's the co-founder of Weblogs Inc so there may be some bias (maybe he's biased without even realising it. I'm not saying I disagree with TUAW being first - I do visit the site at least 4 or 5 times a day - I just wanted to know how exactly they determine stuff like that.
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Dmitry Chestnykh said 5:53PM on 6-04-2007
Yay! We're on TUAW! :) This is the first Mac "application" and so simple... Watch closely for more good stuff to come.
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