Mahalo: Pulling Out the Stops to Pump Usage
October 27, 2008
Social search site Mahalo.com has added an incentive program to pump up page views. MicrosoftPersuasion.com’s “Mahalo Launches Incentive Program to Spur Use” reported on October 26, 2008:
Mahalo, a hybrid web directory/zeitgeist/search engine with wiki capabilities, has quietly added a Loyalty Program that tracks the number of pages people view and rewards the most loyal visitors with prizes.
You can read the full text of this story here. The Mahalo page explaining the move is here. Mahalo recently trimmed its staff. Now it looks to me as if the company is shifting down a gear. In my experience, incentivizing yields some short term gains. These taper off over time. Sites that draw traffic are magnetic and don’t need tricks. Microsoft has an incentive program in place, yet the Redmond giant finds itself unable to close the gap between Google and Live.com.
What’s next for Mahalo.com? A gentle stasis until the company needs a cash infusion. Then management will have to paint a bright picture or face further constraints. Social search is one of those “sounds great, less filling” approaches to search and retrieval. The reality is less filling than one expects.
Stephen Arnold, October 27, 2008
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