Valleywag
Jason Calacanis's Mahalo has a problem: its business model is a Catch-22. Mahalo differentiates itself from Web search engines by using the paid services of humans, which Calacanis argues is a cheaper strategy than buying servers. And yet Mahalo seems to have trouble paying the rates it set for its human laborers. A blogger who works for Mahalo as a "mentor" — a fancy title for someone who basically works as a QA tester, reviewing pages of search results created by others, is complaining that Mahalo is refusing to pay the full amount he is owed.
Mahalo's mentor program normally pays $10 per page reviewed. Earning this sum involves reviewing a search result's formatting and links and seeing if any top links from a Google search are missing. Not a difficult job — and one that could well be performed by a computer running a script, from the sound of it. Search IMDB for "Alvin and the Chipmunks", check link, search Rotten Tomatoes for "Alvin and the Chipmunks", etc. The complaining Web surfer was able to review 470 pages in a month, a rate Mahalo scoffed at. No wonder: At that rate, he'd be pulling down $56,400 a year for not much work. The actual labor involved is simply not worth it, even for a company that has just raised $20 million in venture capital.
And therein lies the problem: Computers never ask for a raise. Computers never try to game pay systems. And the cost of computers goes down every year, while the cost of labor rises. Mahalo has clearly miscalculated what it should pay testers. It could no doubt farm the work offshore and save some money. But wages in India have been rising, too. "We've already established what you are, ma'am; now we're just haggling over the price," goes the quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw. But no amount of pimping by Calacanis will save Mahalo's business model.
(Photo by Peter Kaminski)
Comments
The reality is this is one person doing the complaining and I know there are alot of other testers! Why no other complains??? Seems like someone is trying to make a name for themselfs at the cost of Jason's new company!
This type of thing always happens at startups. People hear how much venture capital has been raised and they think they can make a few bucks by flapping their gums to the mags/blogs that follow that industry hoping it will get picked up for better exposure.
This blogger's complaint seem quite legit. It's obvious he put in work for these pages and magically Mahalo changed it's mind about an additional 120 pages after an audit. Me thinks he's getting nickled and dimed to death so he'll just accept the 50% compromise. Jason, why do you hate your contractors?
@c0d3w12: As the original poster of the blog in question I understand your statement. However simply put there are only 30 Mentors on Mahalo. The "none payment" doesn't involve the guides just the mentors program.
I'm not aware of the full number of people that were involved but there were at least 3 of us that I know of that Mahalo refused payments for our pages. Pretty much the top 3 performing mentors in the program for the two months in question.
That's a pretty broad assessment! I'll assume that your either off your rocker or you have some type of inside information. I will hold my comments until this 'audit' is understood.
Is that what the wonder boy looks like? Now, I may be mistaken, and tell me if I am wrong..but....is he a bit pudgy in this picture and showing what could be..
male breasts?
By the way, many document scanning companies outsource OCR key corrections and although the business has tailed off since the first big conversions of the 90's decade, some of the typos created by key correction folks in India, the Philippines, were hilarious.
Algorithms rule. $200-500k spent on custom machine statistical learning algorithms will get you millions in human equivalent drudgery.
off topic note. Calacansis' shirt in the photo - firefox. Epic Fail for Firefox.
off topic note 2 - is this an old picture? he actually looks kind of cute.
$10 to check a page sure seems like a lot of money.
Saying that humans are cheaper than servers is a dumb answer. He could have answered that better. For that, I will smash a pie in his face.
wow, nothing from the blowhard himself? telling!
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