• by June 5, 2007

Jason McCabe Calacanis, who sold Weblogs Inc. to AOL for $25 million back in 2005, has a new Web venture backed by such key investors as NewsCorp. and CBS. The "human-powered" search engine is called Mahalo and launched last week in alpha mode.

OnlineMediaDaily recently posed several questions, primarily about the ad sales aspects of Mahalo, to Calacanis:

Have you hired anyone yet to handle ad sales for Mahalo, or are you handling that personally for the time being?

We are not going to sell advertising for the first year. We are testing Google AdSense (check the Corvette page).

You've said you'll be testing various ad units in the next few months. Can you elaborate on the options you'll be testing?

Google AdSense is my default. I've been a big Google partner over the past two companies (Weblogs, Inc. and AOL/Netscape) and I'm 100% convinced they are the best advertisements for both our users and our bottom line.

That being said, if Yahoo or Microsoft want to work with us we are open to discussing and testing their advertising services.

Have you teamed up with any ad-serving, behavioral or other technology vendors?

Nope.

Have you talked with any advertisers yet?

Nope.

Do you have any official relationship with Google? Or are you just using AdSense the way any Web publisher can?

I have a lot of friends (Megan Smith, Jason Shellen, Kim Malone, etc.) who work at Google, and they were all very supportive of the launch last week. We have the standard relationship right now, but I'm sure over time we will find ways to work together on a deeper level.

What is the business plan?

Help people ... a lot!

Why do you think Mahalo is a compelling proposition to an advertiser?

Search advertising is the most powerful marketing platform ever created because users are making a gesture (i.e., typing a word into a box and hitting search). You really don't need to explain how powerful that is to advertisers any more--Google and Yahoo took care of that years ago!

What will you offer that an advertiser can't get elsewhere?

Well, highly qualified search traffic in a spam-free environment.

Do you have a target audience demographic?

Everyone.

How do you plan to generate traffic to Mahalo?

Make an amazing product that helps people--a lot.

What have you learned from your previous online endeavors that informs this one?

1. Create a product that helps people save time and/or money.
2. Create a product that entertains and informs people.
3. Treat your team better than they've ever been treated in their life.
4. Fire fast: Fire people who do not fit into the culture of your company and who are negative.
5. Listen to your customers--constantly.
6. Improve your product--constantly.
7. Be patient.