I didn't go to the summit, but have bin reading all the negative posts about his presentation. This one is a great angle to think of things.
Some people thought he might have bin going for shock value to hype up his Maholo. But it sounds like he was just providing the facts of what still happens in this industry
-Brian AM @ Pingo
Jason Forthofer
· 1 year ago
While I agree with everything Jason said, I don't think Mahalo is really any better. It's a lame directory filled with links from all the big players everyone already knows about.
Look up a movie, it's all IMDB, Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes, etc..
Travel pages are loaded with TripAdvisor, Frommers, Concierge.com, etc...for every travel related page. Real creative.
Part of me just thinks his "ballsy speeches" are just a great way to get us doing exactly what we wants...talking and linking over to Mahalo.
Jason Calacanis
· 1 year ago
I think this is perhaps the best coverage/perspective of the discussion i've seen. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.
Jason Forthofer: We do select a lot of the "big players everyone already knows about" because they are the highest quality sites. We do find a lot of things that are not the top sites and try to include.
In fact, our system is open so you--the site owner--can not only suggest your site, but you can also discuss with us why you think it's better than IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, or Wikipedia. If you can't make a case for it being better are you suggesting that we put a worse link above a better one?
That doesn't make much sense for me. Diversity of sources is NOT what users want. Users want the BEST results that inform them the most, that they can trust the most, and that are, well, "the best."
That's one of the issues I think a lot of Affiliate folks miss: the world may not need your page on "Blade Runner." If you can't make a page that is better than the top 10 pages out there I suggest you don't bother, because the future of the world is the top 10 results actually being the top 10 pages on the internet!
best j
David Deangelo
· 1 year ago
For every negative comment about Jason's keynote, there are about ten other attendees that got what he was saying and his intention. Only affiliate marketers with something to hide would find what he was saying to offensive or "scary".
Vlad
· 1 year ago
From what I understand he stated during his remarks that Mahalo is not competing with Google, just to write the following few hours later on his blog:
I started Mahalo.com with the idea that we could create pages that were more helpful for "guidence" than Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, Wikipedia, About.com, and DMOZ. Will we be right again? I don't know yet, but I think so.
How about that?
Chris O'Byrne
· 1 year ago
Amen to your perspective, Scott. Whether or not Mahalo is this or that or Jason is a this or that... the message is what is important. There IS a LOT of crap out there, not doubt about it. When I started getting into this whole arena, I wanted to get things moving quickly and get as much stuff out there as possible. It didn't work and I felt uneasy and embarrassed about my efforts. I decided to build a community around a website with great content and now I not only feel proud, it's slowly starting to pay off. I think the premise is correct. Build great stuff and build a better site than everyone else and it WILL pay off.
design hotels
· 1 year ago
Whaou a jason calacanis comment on your blog i'm jalous!
David Deangelo
· 1 year ago
@Vlad
You're way off mark. Jason has EVERY right to comment on this affiliate marketing world. He ran a blog network, including Engadget, that had affiliate links in different forms.
His whole talk was about creating something of worth so that it would be easy, relevant and useful to users. Jason was targeting those who would create sites and blogs that detract from reliability of information for the sole purpose of placing links for income.
David Deangelo
· 1 year ago
@Vlad
Btw, I said for every 1 affiliate marketer that's offended, there are 10 that aren't and who take his advice and prepare themselves for long term survival and prosperity.
Mike 11|15 Media
· 1 year ago
That was a fantastic post and it's the perspective everyone is missing. We need to clean up our industry, add value for the searcher or reader, and we all need to think bigger
Scott
· 1 year ago
I don't think misplaced Brook so much as maybe misunderstood.
I'm not talking about all PPC affiliates. I'm talking about those who game the system.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.
Evan
· 1 year ago
Don't blame the affiliates for getting pages into the index, even republished content can rank well or are article directories a bad thing too? If the big 3 search engines haven't become savvy enough to rank good content take it up with them. This concept of affiliates polluting the search results was relevant like 3-5 years ago, but the search results have gotten much cleaner in the last couple years. Good affiliates with good sites and good content will always prevail and the "spammy" sites will fade. I don't think he pointed out anything that wasn't the bleeding obvious...just a couple years too late.
All Comments
Some people thought he might have bin going for shock value to hype up his Maholo. But it sounds like he was just providing the facts of what still happens in this industry
-Brian
AM @ Pingo
Look up a movie, it's all IMDB, Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes, etc..
Travel pages are loaded with TripAdvisor, Frommers, Concierge.com, etc...for every travel related page. Real creative.
Part of me just thinks his "ballsy speeches" are just a great way to get us doing exactly what we wants...talking and linking over to Mahalo.
Jason Forthofer: We do select a lot of the "big players everyone already knows about" because they are the highest quality sites. We do find a lot of things that are not the top sites and try to include.
In fact, our system is open so you--the site owner--can not only suggest your site, but you can also discuss with us why you think it's better than IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, or Wikipedia. If you can't make a case for it being better are you suggesting that we put a worse link above a better one?
That doesn't make much sense for me. Diversity of sources is NOT what users want. Users want the BEST results that inform them the most, that they can trust the most, and that are, well, "the best."
That's one of the issues I think a lot of Affiliate folks miss: the world may not need your page on "Blade Runner." If you can't make a page that is better than the top 10 pages out there I suggest you don't bother, because the future of the world is the top 10 results actually being the top 10 pages on the internet!
best j
How about that?
You're way off mark. Jason has EVERY right to comment on this affiliate marketing world. He ran a blog network, including Engadget, that had affiliate links in different forms.
His whole talk was about creating something of worth so that it would be easy, relevant and useful to users. Jason was targeting those who would create sites and blogs that detract from reliability of information for the sole purpose of placing links for income.
Btw, I said for every 1 affiliate marketer that's offended, there are 10 that aren't and who take his advice and prepare themselves for long term survival and prosperity.
I'm not talking about all PPC affiliates. I'm talking about those who game the system.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.