A new search engine – mahalo – has recently launched. The idea is to use guides (people) to identify the most useful sites.
The guides will attempt to locate:
1. … sites that are considered authorities in their field (i.e. Edmunds for autos, Engadget for consumer electronics, and the New York Times for news).
2. … sites which create original, high-quality content on a consistent basis.
3. … sites that have been operating for over one year. Sites under a year will be considered, but most will be placed in a “member-submitted” section at the bottom of the page until they hit the one-year mark.
4. … sites that have clean layout, design, and a modest amount of advertising.
If you feel worthy, you can submit your site for consideration.
I learned that “mahalo” is the Hawaiian word for thank-you on a recent trip. Not sure what the connection is here unless we are to be thankful that someone has eliminated unwanted “hits” from our searches.
Hasn’t this been tried a few times before and evidently without sufficient success to compete with Google? I get the idea, but I bet most people search for too many personal topics for an “expert-selected” approach to work on an everyday basis. For general topics when expertise/quality is an issue, the page rank system that considers the popularity of links to a site already considers the collective decisions of many web page authors. Why would a group of selected “guides” offer an advantage?
This sounds like a test of the collective intelligence vs. expert distinction that was at the core of “The Wisdom of Crowds”. I guess I think it is a good idea that new approaches are continually offered up.
