Is Jason Calacanis Eating His Hat?!

I was surprised to get this email from Jason Calacanis, who had expelled me from Mahalo summarily when I objected to his outrageous vertikal management and revenue grab of content providers on his web human search page. I'm contemplating now that Jason is eating his hat and grovelling to his workers, although of course, not without sticking it to his former FIC, whether I should go back and keep my little pages updated -- that is, if my ban is removed.

It's an interesting episode for the Metaverse, because it shows that a stubborn ego-driven geek like Calancanis can still be persuaded, when he hears enough agida from his workers and sees his bottom line fail, to turn around and change. Like the IMVU guy did on his tsuris with the adult verification thing.

These are lessons for our Lindens, too, and it's still not too late for them to call Viewer 2 an exotic Beta for power users who want shared media, and go back to pushing the old viewer to newbies so that search works in the old way, and what new people who do join can find businesses and the economy is not ruined.

Nota bene, metaversal managers: Schemes that make "for a happy few and a frustrated many" even if they are plumping your own bottom line -- and they won't, eventually -- are non-starters. They have to be fair. They have to be based on open and fair and flat payments and on metrics visible to all: traffic. Indeed, the old web page counter should go in that the geeks scorned and measures to prevent gaming it go in as well. After all, if you can prevent gaming of ad clicks *good enough* you can prevent gaming of web counters. And ultimately, any system that puts in non-expert overlords over content providers to manage them and "help them" and grab their revenue will also fail on the fast-moving do-it-yourself web where experts rise to the top quickly and don't need a management class to siphon off their value.

BUT I'm not seeing that Jason has thoroughly changed if he still has the pernicious revenue-sharing concept in Mahalo Answers, which will get more traffic than most of the pages. He's saying he has "shelved the vertical management system" that arbitrarily pinned to content producers like me expert on some subject area and gave them the opportunity to be paid by management's revenue share for their work. Good! But...These vertical managers -- who shouldn't exist, really -- are being turned into more august game gods and now called Guides and being given a compensation of $1000 a month. What's their job description now? What I think would be more fair is for the Mahalo company *gasp dare I say it* to behave like an encyclopedia or newspaper of the old days and have an editorial board and paid staff like a normal company. They should not be paid on the basis of traffic or their help in revenue boosting of a page, but should simply be paid a flat wage to do the job of editing and curating -- or simply eliminated as a class.

FROM JASON:

A message to the Mahalo Community,

Our goal at Mahalo is to build a high-quality content and community destination – one that delivers information our consumers can trust.  To do this, we need talented, motivated writers.

For the past year, we have experimented with a writer-compensation method that shared revenue from our pages.  While the revenue sharing system seemed entrepreneurial and fair in theory, after careful examination including getting your feedback, we've concluded that it failed in practice.

We heard your feedback about huge variation in writer compensation that was not directly tied to quality, and about the confusing nature of Mahalo dollars.  In short, the system created a happy few and a frustrated many.

So, starting on July 1st, we are moving to a more traditional flat-rate payment system, with incentives based on quality and traffic.

Here's how it will work:

1. On July 1st, Mahalo will stop revenue sharing on topic and "how to" pages, and shelve the concept of vertical and page management.  Revenue sharing on Mahalo Answers will continue.

2. All Vertical Managers will be offered Guide or Senior Guide roles based on their tenure and performance as Mahalo consultants to date. Guides will receive $1,000 a month for their content and Senior Guides will receive $1,300.

3. Page Managers and Go Team members will be given the ability to apply for one of 50 new Guide positions, paying $1,000 per month.

4. All Guides will be responsible for 25 new pages, 12 hours of updating (i.e. on the Go Team), and 10 questions or answers weekly. You will be able to do this work whenever you like so you can easily schedule it around your other writing obligations!

5. NEW FEATURE: We're moving payments of Guides to – wait for it – weekly!  The week after you perform your work you will get your PayPal payment. This was one of the most requested features from our writers and we're thrilled that our new flat-rate system will make this easy to implement.

6. NEW FEATURE: Mahalo Dollars will be removed from page management and creation. You will not have to worry about the conversion ratio anymore! Mahalo Dollars will be limited to Mahalo Answers where folks love them and the fun stuff they can buy with them. You've told us that real writers wanted to be paid in real dollars and we've listened. No more conversions!  Everyone will have 31 days to cash out their Mahalo Dollars (cash outs can occur anytime in July – no cash outs as of August 1st).

7. Mahalo Dollars will only be used in the Mahalo Store going forward. No more cashing out for real dollars (gift cards and donations will still be available).

8. NEW FEATURE: A group traffic incentive of $100 each will be shared between Guides for every month that Mahalo breaks the previous month's traffic.

9. NEW FEATURE: A group revenue incentive of $100 each will be shared between Guides for every month that Mahalo breaks the previous month's revenue numbers.

10. NEW FEATURE: A quality incentive will be given to a selection of pages and Guides each month based on our Community Team's judgment.

There are going to be many questions and comments on these changes I'm sure. The small number of folks who had the killer revenue pages are going to be disappointed, and the majority of folks who were not breaking $500 a month are going to be excited.

We understand change is hard, but our intention is to build a system that creates a vibrant, fun and profitable experience for everyone.

I'm sure there will be some issues we have not anticipated, and you can expect us to pivot, as all start-ups must, if something isn't working.

Mike Bracco and I will be discussing these changes in a town hall meeting today, Wednesday, at 11AM Pacific time (2PM eastern). Join us here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mahalo-tutorials

We look forward to your feedback.

All the best,

Jason McCabe Calacanis
Mahalo founder & CEO

PS: If you have any questions, comments or concerns you can always reach me directly at jason at mahalo.com
PPS: We are discussing this issue here on Mahalo Answers: http://jc.is/jasonmessage

Comments

[cube]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20008636-261.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

one step forward and two steps back.

[Darien Caldwell]

"Google held that the DMCA's safe harbor provision protected it and other Internet service providers from being held responsible for copyright infringements committed by users. The judge agreed. "

I hardly see this as a step backward, let alone two. The judge has upheld the very basic tenent of the DMCA, as stated above. Viacom's desire was to gut the DMCA to it's very core.

What you don't seem to understand Cube, is that if the judge had sided with Viacom, it would have rendered the DMCA law invalid. And without DMCA, people, and by people I mean normal, everyday people without large bank accounts, and huge legal teams, would be left with no real recourse against theft of their creations, other than a full blown legal case.

The beauty, and curse, of DMCA is that it places the power straight into the hands of the creator. YOu have only to file a DMCA complaint against a service provider, and the content is taken down, immediately. 9 times out of 10, this resolves the issue, without costly legal proceedings. If the DMCA is false, the person who the complaint was made against, can counter-file and have the content put back up, and it's only THEN that it can go to court, at the discretion of the original complainant. When people are guilty, they don't usually counter-file.

It's a pretty fair system, and Viacom tried to kill it. Without it, only large companies like Viacom would have the legal resources to go after copyright violators. Don't be so quick to want DMCA killed. At least, not for us poor people, maybe you can afford it, most can't.

[Prokofy Neva]

No, cube is right, DMCA is at root a ruse, a sop for the little guy, a cop-out for the big Google and other grabbers of everybody's stuff to sell their ads.

By having this system and the "safe harbour" excuse, Youtube evades responsibility and enables theft. It's the California business model as cube has often pointed out.

What's fair about a system that forces you to chase a giant thief and drain your pockets with lawyers' fees if you can't get that thief to take down the stolen goods?

DMCA is one of the things that is a hobble on real progress on this issue. It's good that it exists and is a recourse, but people have to understand that ultimately it's a cop-out.

[Darien Caldwell]

You don't have to chase a giant thief. You send a DMCA complaint to Youtube (who I assume is the giant thief you mean, though they aren't), and they take whatever it is down. It's really that simple, and costs nothing more than a stamp at most.

[cube]

DCMA was a LOBBIEST paid for BAD Law. Its as harmefull to our society as were the "laws" that "prohibited alcohol" and the "laws" that permitted "humans as property".

Judges are now bought and sold- why the surpreme courts - corporations free unlimted speech-via DOLLARS- was a bad judgement as well...- reaxamine it prok;)

anyhow- unless the majority wants human works to identify with, we'll continue to walk lock step into the machine as autistic robots programmed to believe were all beta or obsolete.

[Antonius Misfit]

"What's fair about a system that forces you to chase a giant thief and drain your pockets with lawyers' fees if you can't get that thief to take down the stolen goods?"

The irony of this is that the "giant thief" role can be equally applied to Viacom, given the proof found in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fpGNRmchdY

Imagine if Viacom prevailed and everyone followed Viacom's legal argument. They'll get screwed over six ways until Sunday with lawsuits.

The DMCA, however, is at least a fairly cheap and expeditious recourse for all involved, as Darien pointed out.

Viacom, honestly, is being a craven hypocrite and they know it.

[Darien Caldwell]

Wow, thanks for that link. Amazing how Viacom can be so hypocritical.

[anonymous]

You forgot a couple of things that make this seem less sweet than it looks on paper.

- Guides will be working fulltime hours (most likely) more for this $250 a week payment. They need to create 25 large new pages a week, as well a set number of questions and answers a week, and spend 12 hours updating existing pages, in order to get paid.

- Thousands of people who will not be chosen as the select few guides, who have been working to build up to the $150 cashout minimum, now can't cash out their money. They will have to spend it at the overpriced Mahalo store. Overseas residents can't even do that - the store does not ship to them. These people have had their work stolen.