The propensity of some commercial websites to try to boost their rankings by outsmarting search engines has polluted some results, making them less useful, said James Lamberti, senior vice president of ComScore Inc. That creates an opportunity for companies that can promise a better experience.
Humans are harder to fool, said Danny Sullivan, editor of industry website SearchEngineLand.com.
Still, analysts said the human factor that Mahalo counted as its greatest asset might turn out to be its biggest limitation. "Will the human beings be able to keep up with everything?" Sullivan asked.
Calacanis, a New York native who lives in Brentwood, said Mahalo didn't have to keep up with everything -- just things that most interest people.
"It will take some time to complete, but when it's done, it will be glorious," he said. "Until then, we invite people to compare our results with any search engine out there. For results that we do have, they're going to be five to 10 times better because humans have thought about them."
Mahalo faces other challenges. With editors behind each search, there's the opportunity for bias, said Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, a New York search-marketing firm.
There's also Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Corp., IAC/InterActive Corp.'s Ask.com and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, which operate the five biggest search engines. Last month, Google had a 50% share of U.S. searches, Yahoo had 27% and Microsoft had 10%, according to ComScore. Ask and AOL each had 5%.
On the other hand, Web surfers are fickle, said Charlene Li, analyst with Forrester Research. She said only a third of Google's users relied exclusively on that service -- most try a few search engines for the best results.
Some big names are betting on Calacanis by investing in Mahalo, including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. Calacanis won't say how much he has raised.
"You'll start to see Mahalo bring in revenue in a fairly significant way next year," when the site is scheduled to be officially launched, said Musk, CEO of SpaceX in El Segundo.
"Even if you're a relatively small player in search, that can still mean a company that's worth several billion dollars."
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alex.pham@latimes.com
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Web portal
Company: Mahalo.com Inc.
What: Human-powered search engine
Location: Santa Monica
Employees: 40
Founder: Jason Calacanis, 36, who also co-founded Weblogs Inc. and Silicon Alley Reporter magazine.
Investors include: News Corp., CBS Corp., Elon Musk, Mark Cuban and Sequoia Capital, a Silicon Valley venture firm that also has funded Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and YouTube.
