3 ms·

A little cynical are we? I like that. :-) We had pages in the past that were not spam, but I would say they were on the ehow "lighter" side (think < 300 words.

A little cynical are we? I like that. :-) We had pages in the past that were not spam, but I would say they were on the ehow "lighter" side (think < 300 words. We now are focused on getting experts into our studio and building content around their expertise. This is about 10-25x more expensive, but I don't see any other choice. Google is going to smack down anyone who makes them look bad by trying to rank lower-quality stuff. We rank only 5th for how to play guitar chords, but ask yourself would rather use this page: http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-play-guitar-chords/ http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-play-guitar-chords/ or ones in front of it like: http://guitar.about.com/library/weekly/aa071200e.htm http://guitar.about.com/library/weekly/aa071200e.htm and http://www.guitaralliance.com/guitar_lessons/guitar_chords/index.htm http://www.guitaralliance.com/guitar_lessons/guitar_chords/i... out page is clearly the best.... over time google will move us up i'm sure. big loser in this is ehow for going wide and not deep.

boyter 16y ago
Actually I totally agree. I know nothing about guitar, but for that example Mahalo is the page I would go to first. Its bright, looks maintained and more importantly has a lot of what appears to be good content. Could someone who actually knows anything about music comment on this one? I would be curious to know if the content here is actually better.
- danudey 16y ago
  I've been in the process of picking up my guitar and learning a little, and it seems pretty legit. There's detailed explanations and some good videos, but it does seem to suffer a little from a 'wall of text' in a few places, and could stand to benefit from some good diagrams or visual aids in parts (the 'Frets' and 'Strings' part could benefit from diagrams for example, possibly one showing both). It's not the best resource I've seen for learning chords (Garageband's lessons take that title), but as far as websites trying to help you learn, it's better than most I've seen.
  - rimantas 16y ago
    This is the place to go if you want good lessons: http://justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php http://justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php He also offers intermediate material: http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php Seriously, check this out, I haven't seen anything better on the web, free or paid.
danudey 16y ago
Don't think of it as cynicism, it's just my interpretation of what appears to be a mixed message. You and Mahalo have caught a lot of flack for being a content farm, a scraper site, an ad-strewn wasteland, etc, and you've denied those claims, always seeming like your argument was 'Mahalo has good content and we're totally legit'. Now the message I get is 'we're getting rid of the junk content and focussing on making good, solid pages that will make people stop searching and stick around'. I suppose my interpretation could be off; I'm not referencing any particular quote of yours, so I may be remembering 'we don't have junk content' as 'we're not spamming our content, whether you think it's junk or not'. To answer your question, the Mahalo page you linked looks great (and the amount of content is almost overwhelming at first glance). This definitely isn't the Mahalo I remember, and reading your comments here (and what others have said about your comments elsewhere), you don't sound like the Jason Calcanis I've heard so much about. Evil robot twin? Or genuine individual concerned with making good content people want? Only time will tell, but if you're not here to harvest all our organs I'm looking forward to seeing what you have planned.
- mbesto 16y ago
  No, your interpretation isn't off and Jason didn't answer your question.

boyter 16y ago

Actually I totally agree. I know nothing about guitar, but for that example Mahalo is the page I would go to first. Its bright, looks maintained and more importantly has a lot of what appears to be good content. Could someone who actually knows anything about music comment on this one? I would be curious to know if the content here is actually better.

danudey 16y ago
I've been in the process of picking up my guitar and learning a little, and it seems pretty legit. There's detailed explanations and some good videos, but it does seem to suffer a little from a 'wall of text' in a few places, and could stand to benefit from some good diagrams or visual aids in parts (the 'Frets' and 'Strings' part could benefit from diagrams for example, possibly one showing both). It's not the best resource I've seen for learning chords (Garageband's lessons take that title), but as far as websites trying to help you learn, it's better than most I've seen.
- rimantas 16y ago
  This is the place to go if you want good lessons: http://justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php http://justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php He also offers intermediate material: http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php Seriously, check this out, I haven't seen anything better on the web, free or paid.

danudey 16y ago

Don't think of it as cynicism, it's just my interpretation of what appears to be a mixed message. You and Mahalo have caught a lot of flack for being a content farm, a scraper site, an ad-strewn wasteland, etc, and you've denied those claims, always seeming like your argument was 'Mahalo has good content and we're totally legit'. Now the message I get is 'we're getting rid of the junk content and focussing on making good, solid pages that will make people stop searching and stick around'. I suppose my interpretation could be off; I'm not referencing any particular quote of yours, so I may be remembering 'we don't have junk content' as 'we're not spamming our content, whether you think it's junk or not'. To answer your question, the Mahalo page you linked looks great (and the amount of content is almost overwhelming at first glance). This definitely isn't the Mahalo I remember, and reading your comments here (and what others have said about your comments elsewhere), you don't sound like the Jason Calcanis I've heard so much about. Evil robot twin? Or genuine individual concerned with making good content people want? Only time will tell, but if you're not here to harvest all our organs I'm looking forward to seeing what you have planned.

mbesto 16y ago
No, your interpretation isn't off and Jason didn't answer your question.