A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

1. We're working with the folks impacted to place them at whatever company they would like to join. I'm personally reaching out to folks who might want these fine people. They will all wind up on their feet and be great additions to the vibrant startup scene in Los Angeles.<p>2. Mahalo is doing amazing videos with experts, but our (text) articles were created by passionate writers who are not necessarily experts. Google want's experts, so we're doubling down and getting experts to help build curriculums and lesson plans for our videos. I'm 100% certain that will solve the problem.<p>3. You can think of us as a free version of Lynda.com for everything. Or a version of Kahn Academy for everything.<p>Imagine tens of thousands of these type of pages and videos being made a year: <a href="http://www.mahalo.com/learn-adobe-photoshop-adjustments-panel/" rel="nofollow">http://www.mahalo.com/learn-adobe-photoshop-adjustments-pane...</a><p>We're going to teach folks every major piece of software, every recipe of note, how to change their oil and how to play any song on guitar or piano. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/howtoplayguitar2" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/howtoplayguitar2</a><p>Video is the future, and we're going to be the largest creator of educational videos this year.<p>It sucks that we got hit so hard, but we will come back stronger. The 95 members of the team that are still with us are more committed than ever to the mission.<p>Yes, it really sucked to get off stage after 47 amazing LAUNCH companies had such amazing launches on stage. I got told on my way to the after party. We struggled over these decisions all weekend with the leadership team.<p>At the end of the day entrepreneurship is about kicking ass and getting your ass kicked. I've been through this many times, but I would be lying if I said it didn't impact me. It does.<p>This is the first time I had such a big high followed by such a low, low.<p>OK, time to change a diaper and give a bottle. No rest for the weary.<p>Back to work.

"Free advice for entitled Gen Y trophy kids: if you spend 12 months at a company over and over you look like a flake."<p><a href="http://twitter.com/#!/Jason/status/12621363849" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/#!/Jason/status/12621363849</a><p>Or maybe it makes you look like someone who thinks they have better opportunities elsewhere.

Could someone tell me more about this Jason Calacanis fellow. He seems to be a very polarizing figure on this site. Really all I know is that he seemed to have a falling out with Michael Arrington and alot of articles seem to mention him in a slightly negative light.<p>Is there some reason for this, and no I'm not trying to troll.

I find this interesting because I have never done a Google search that led me to a Mahalo site. I don't even recall seeing them come up in a search result for anything honestly.<p>Having heard about Mahalo through Podcasts and such, I have been to the site a few times to find some things, but usually ended up back at Google.<p>However, now learning of the How-To style videos coming to the site in droves, I'm definitely interested again.<p>So, this bad press and their bad fortune may lead to new visitors, such as myself. Probably not in the waves that Google brought, but it's "press" none-the-less.

I personally have never found any useful content at Mahalo, sure the site looks a bit better now but the previous version was trash. Imagine how many investing in high quality content lost traffic to the older spam filled, next to no content Mahalo.

I feel for the cut staff and Mahalo has plenty of dough in the bank but reminds me of Jason's article "What to do if your startup is about fail (or "Don't Stop Believing")"<p><a href="http://calacanis.com/2009/02/27/what-to-do-if-your-startup-is-about-fail-or-dont-stop-believing/" rel="nofollow">http://calacanis.com/2009/02/27/what-to-do-if-your-startup-i...</a><p>Applicable lesson I learned the hard way - better to make cuts early in the face of a serious shift vs. burn cash, see morale dip, etc.

The messed up thing about this is, that 10% of the staff have 'slaved' for however long they have been there.<p>All for naught.<p>Maybe they can still get a referral from Jason, but given that I don't think that pays the bills...hopefully it can help them land on their feet.

Didn't they recently pivot and switch over from a lot of written articles to videos?<p>It would make sense to get rid of some writers and get some video folks quick. With their 40 employees, 4 being let go seems hardly a news-worthy event. It seems even more of a stretch positioning this as google algorithm driven.

I like Jason Calacanis. He's done a wonderful job with TWIST, the This Week In network, the Open Angel Forum and the Launch conference. I find him to be very funny and entertaining, passionate about entrepreneurship, tough-minded and determined to succeed, forthright and honest about his opinions, and someone who isn't afraid to make hard decisions. I do wonder about the future of Mahalo, though. Unlike some of Jason's other ventures, it seems as if Mahalo - now version 4.0 - has struggled to obtain a unique and strong identity, let alone sufficient market traction, so far. If it can be the best how-to video site on the Internet, great, but given Google's recent stance on how-to content sites (i.e. the 'farmer' algorithmic change), not to mention all the other companies vying to be the best how-to video site on the Internet, the company certainly has its work cut out for it. On the other hand, these are precisely the circumstances that sort out the real entrepreneurs from the wannabes and from Jason's comments above... I wouldn't count him or the Mahalo team out.

Jason said in the closing remarks of LAUNCH something to the effect of "I am so happy, let's go to the W and get drunk." After arriving at the W, I checked my phone and saw the article on Google's blog - some timing! I feel for him and all of the people that lost their jobs.

I've know Jason since the web 1.0 era in silicon alley — he's always give to his larger community (and still does with his podcast) and the one thing that Jason really taught me: If you fail, dust yourself off and startup again. Mark my words that Jason will come back. I think this is a lesson that everyone in business should learn...

"What’s really interesting to me is that I remember when Mahalo first launched, Jason told me numerous times he didn’t care about Google because he was going to build loyal users who would just come directly to Mahalo"<p>Really?

Now, mind you, this is the same Calcanis who publicly bitched about how employees lack loyalty and job-hop. I wonder why?<p>Mmmmm, savor the delicious irony.

I think this only the beginning of the bad news due to this algo change. There are many legitimate businesses that have been seriously impacted by traffic drops and we'll probably see many more layoffs and budget cuts.

Ironically, I was watching this video recently when Calacanis was talking about "How to kill Google".<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTe15DEWp30" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTe15DEWp30</a>

Maybe this was the excuse for Mahalo to fire the 10% of its workers that were the least productive. The bottom 10% may have even been hurting the company.

Someone get this cat a dictionary so he can look up "decimate", a better word for what happened than removing "a handful" of staff.

This is "Algorithm Age". Damn! They are powerful!

Well you can't fault them for dithering, can you?

Am I the only one who doesn't understand this at all?<p>As far as I can tell, Mahalo.com is a video site. Why on earth would google going after content farms affect a video site in any way?<p>To me, this headline makes about as much sense as "Microsoft changes Windows 7 pricing, pork belly futures skyrocket." Am I missing something?

After weeks of criticism on Google's results being spam'ed, it was clear that Google would react on this. The algorithm change was foreseeable.<p>On the other side this shows the monopolistic power of Google and how they can hurt individual companies like they want.<p>For us as search engine users, it is time to support other search engines, for instance DuckDuckGo.