Jason Calacanis has announced Mahalo Greenhouse, a way for users to get paid for writing their own search results for the Mahalo people-powered search engine. The Greenhouse FAQ gives more details on the program, where if accepted, you can earn $10 to $15 per submission.
Greenhouse kind of makes Mahalo a bit more like Squidoo. For more details on Mahalo, check out Danny’s Mahalo Launches With Human-Crafted Search Results.
Postscript From Danny: Jason comments below on key differences he sees between Greenhouse and Squidoo, which he recently described in an interview with John Battelle as “a dark, dirty SEO back-alley” that should have the plug pulled on it. For more on Squidoo, see Chris Sherman’s recent interview with founder Seth Godin here: Q&A With Seth Godin, Founder & CEO Of Social Search Service Squidoo.
Related Topics: Search Engines: Answer Search Engines | Search Engines: Mahalo | Search Engines: Social Search Engines
Quick FYI: This is not at all like Squidoo in a couple of major ways:
1. You can only get into the Greenhouse if you are accepted and a real person. Squidoo let’s anyone create a lens and as a result the site is filled with spam.
2. Accepted Part Time Guides (PTGs) in the Mahalo Greenhouse can only work on search terms that have not been completed. Compare that with Squidoo where there are 50+ Paris Hotel Lens, which are of very, very low quality.
3. Mahalo Greenhouse PTGs are paid to write search results help users and our full-time guides check their work to remove spam, bad links, low-quality links, etc. Squidoo does not check people’s work and they don’t pay people, as a result people are left to fend for themselves and fill their lens with deceptive affiliate links.
4. We do not allow spam at Mahalo; Squidoo is filled with spam and encourages it by their open design.
So, I really don’t think they are similar in any way. Wikipedia, DMOZ, and Mahalo? Yes… very similar. :-)
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and try Mahalo. But where’s the Mahalo Firefox toolbar?