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"Mahalo has been launched at the D5 Conference today.  This latest project by Jason Calcanis is a human-powered search looking to bring us better search results than some algorithm on a machine could ever provide.\nMahalo works by giving you search results that the editorial staff has pre-selected for Mahalo use.  It's set up a team of about 40 people to handle this feat.  We've all had those experiences where we search for something and don't find anything that comes close to what we need.  Mahalo aims to incorporate the human element to search, such as ChaCha is looking to do.  And it's raised a lot of money to do so, with an undisclosed amount of funding led by Sequoia.  The best part of Mahalo is the directory-like search results that appear for your query, somewhat like Wikia, with the human element thrown in.  The editorial staff throws in their own ratings for top searches.\nConsidering the number of people necessary to fund such a feat, you'd expect Mahalo to have a pretty quick burn rate. There are also other things to consider, such as the team's ability to be ready with an unexpected search that would require a wealth of information (remember 9/11 helping to catapult Google into household recognition?), as well as the potential for skewed data to eventually take shape for the top results, even with the page author's stamp as a way to offer transparency.  The user-submission of relevant links for queries could also be influenced by a select few with ulterior motives, further skewing data. \nMahalo will have an uphill battle as it tries to differentiate itself from social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, and other search engines and directories like Wikia, ChaCha and Powerset, which all aim to create a sort of directory of information around particular subjects.\n[via]\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2007/05/30/mahalo/>