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Avatar Went Hot: April 28, 2008 - 3:47 pm
Posted By: DavidWallace 134 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Social Media
Danny Sullivan writes, "At our SMX Social Media Marketing conference this week, we had a great panel on the future of human powered search. Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, Jimmy Wales of Wikia Search, and Steven Marder of Eurekster all took part. Jason had some remarks on SEO that set off the usual wave of upset. But as I commented to those who weren't at the panel, by the end of Q&A, Jason -- along with Jimmy Wales and Seven Marder -- were agreeing about the usefulness of SEO. It's all down to the definitions."
10 Comments     

Comments

from jasoncalacanis 134 days ago #
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OMG OMG OMG... what stunning comments!!! get the torches and burn him at the stake!!! he's saying the obvious...

ha!

from theGypsy 134 days ago #
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Well, forget the torches J - I'd rather talk about the future/potential of social search. Kinda funny there is no real discussion on this. Personally an algorithmic/human hybrid is a far more logical methodology... all the publicity in the world does not ensure reaching maximum velocity which is needed to truly make social work. Do the majority of people really want to take an active roll in crafting SERPs? Or is it the prospect of the few managing the results of the many?

I am willing to take Mahalo at face value and not bicker about comments made... I'd rather talk search...

from atleich 133 days ago #
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While Jason makes a number of points that may be controversial, he does make valid points nonetheless.  As an SEO myself, my focus is more on how do we make the site better to improve it's rankings.  While link building may be a part of the practice - it is a natural link building process and actually more of publicity than anything else.  We spread the word, if people choose to link then great.

But, I have a post on my blog questioning some of the hand-picked results in Mahalo, and specifically, how I was able to find results that show Mahalo choosing a site which contains bootleg, illegal products.  Read the article about how Mahalo Promotes Bootleg Products. 

from NickBerliner 132 days ago #
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Calacanis may have some valid points but he did try to eat the dried decorative leaves at the networking cocktail reception...

from Gab 132 days ago #
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I have to give him props for the user research and the idea they derived of going for the stuff on the second click. He still obviously doesn't get SEO, but that we already knew. And as to banning users from submitting anymore, that's not quite scalable once your captcha is cracked and blackhats are autosubmitting stuff.

More importantly, if people are spending thousands of dollars on "the standard link buying", what makes Jason think that his $15/page editors can't be bought?

from Gab 132 days ago #
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Steven Marder "We're all used to using blackhat and greyhat..." Uh, to assume that most of the room has done either blackhat/greyhat is largely missing who the audience is, I'm afraid - whitehat SEOs. Not people running automated link spam programs etc. Clueless opinion with a capital C.

from Gamermk 131 days ago #
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You seem to be anti-spam Jason... yet you basically spam this site with comments like that. Your most recent keynote is basically the definition of spam. You seem to say it's okay to spam everything except search engines or more to the point... do what I say, not what I do.

I get that you do this for attention/exposure, but at some point in time it stops being marketing and become the unnecessary act of burning bridges.

from TinPig 131 days ago # - show/hide this comment
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jason continues to game this community. here's my take on it - http://www.tinpig.com/2008/04/jason-calacanis.html

from VikramSingh 130 days ago #
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Jason created a lot of controversy in the search marketing world but didn’t say anything that does not cross the minds of hard working search marketers worldwide. Here is my post in support of that fact:http://www.thebigwaveblog.com/2008/04/28/jason-calacanis-of-mahalo-on-seo-bullst-wasting-time-and-the-google-gods

from Jeeb90 78 days ago #
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"More importantly, if people are spending thousands of dollars on "the standard link buying", what makes Jason think that his $15/page editors can't be bought?"

Good point, especially in the light of the fact that Calacanis himself bought off top Digg users to pay them to be Propeller editors.  If Mahalo does get big...I'm sure we'll have another DMOZesque corruption case on our hands.


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