Valleywag is of course known for its dead-on accuracy, so our predictions for 2008 need no introduction. Inside, my 25 predictions (made without inside information) cover the futures of Facebook, Google, Digg, YouTube, Twitter, the Wall Street Journal, Apple, Yahoo, Gawker Media, AOL, Dell, LOLcats, the president, and more.
Google Knol may or may not ever come to fruition, but Hitwise was kind enough to put together this chart of its potential rivals in the market for websites which answer your questions. And yes, Jason Calacanis's Mahalo is on there. You have to squint. It's way, way, way down there at the bottom. That little sliver of green. No wonder Calacanis is always commenting here with a link to the site. Think he'll do it again on this post?
"Researchers learned that while people perceive someone who has a high number of friends as popular, attractive and self-confident, people who accumulate "too many" friends (about 800 or more) are seen as insecure." A fact not mentioned in the story: Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has 2,842 friends. [New York Times]
You know, I'm perfectly fine with funtrepreneur-in-residence Jason Calacanis telling us to "please die." I'm totally OK when Calacanis emails me "Subject: Idiot," because I can take a joke, especially when it's true. But dammit, Janet, Calacanis has stopped posting pics of his puppies. Valleywag has been forced to outsource to Professor Chips (above), winner of last year's Babies vs Puppies showdown. After a week where the big stories were Larry Page planting one on new bride Lucy Southworth, Heidi Roizen singing her thighs thin, Google ripping off AOL — AOL? — the Times poaching yours truly, and Megan "Leggy" McCarthy leaving Valleywag for Wired, we could all use some face-blurpy time.
On his way back from Paris this morning, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis realized he had left his passport at his hotel. Savvy Web 3.0 guru that he is, Calacanis sent the above Twitter to the whole world. OMG! This whole thing is my fault for hassling him so much — over the phone, via IM — during what should have been a relaxing trip to Paris. Mr. Calacanis sir, here's the best I could do on short notice. Hope it helps!
Earlier I noted Jason Calacanis's recent gem from LeWeb3. At the Parisian conference, he told the crowd, "As Internet people we shouldn't bother with people who don't understand the Internet because they'll soon be dead." I also noted that Calacanis hung up on me when I called to confirm he actually said it. It's not as harsh as it sounds, at least according to Calacanis himself, who left a whopping 337-word comment on the post. Here's the 100-word version.
What's the matter, Jason? No bulldogs with you in France? Yes, our pal Jason Calacanis really called for all non-Internet people to die at the LeWeb3 conference in Paris, TechCrunch UK's Mike Butcher confirms. When we called Calacanis for factchecking, the moonfaced rhymes-with-entrepreneur said, "You guys are idiots. I don't even want to talk to you. Never call me again." Then he hung up. Jason, baby, is it something we said? Nah: It's something you said.
Perhaps inspired by our tale of the lonely wantrepreneur looking to pay someone, anyone to set him up on a date, a tipster forwarded a New York Observer article from way back in 2000. It's called "They're Single, Ambitious, Worth Millions, But Can New York Women Download Their Megabyte Egos?" It's primary subject? Jason McCabe Calacanis. See? There was a reason to get out of bed today.
The most popular pages on Jason Calacanis's Mahalo search engine concern videogames, videogame cheats, and D-list female celebrities. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We just suspect that Mahalo's venture-capital backers had ambitions higher than catering to immature male geeks obsessed with beating two things: Halo and off. This is the search engine that would compete with Google on quality, worth some $40 million in venture backing — a prettier version of GameFAQs.com? After the jump, Calacanis's greatest hits:
Nerd idol Wil Wheaton claims to have seen the next version of Digg clone Propeller.com — and it's even clonier than before! "Holy crap are they awesome. I can't wait for it to go live," Wheaton Twitters. Propeller, formerly Netscape.com, was bulldog aficionado Jason Calacanis's attempt at building a better Digg by supplementing the wisdom of crowds with the snobbery of human editors. Interesting that AOL is still pumping money into the site. Maybe Propeller isn't sinking quite as fast as we'd thought?
Funtrepreneur Jason Calacanis is turning to low-profile interviews to promote a new round of funding for Mahalo. But CIO Insight? Why is the well-connected friend to thousands turning to a niche publication aimed at IT executives? The always entertaining Calacanis should be able to get an interview with anyone he wants. And where's the usual bluster? "I think it's going to work, although it may take five years and $50 million to prove my point," says Calacanis. We're not sure what to make of this new, tentative Calacanis.
God bless Allen Stern of CenterNetworks. The blogger has given us a gift: something to call Jason Calacanis other than "egomaniac." Now, Stern thinks that being a "community CEO" is a bad idea. Publicly relying on readers of your blog and Facebook "friends" for business decisions, Stern argues, causes customers and employees to lose faith in you as a leader. Calacanis, of course, disagrees, and has embraced the label in a long post defending his newly christened role. Bring out the bulldogs, already.
This week on Valleywag was a first-class tour of Narcissistan. It began when Tinkerbell called in sick and sent us a half million pageviews. Then TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington went Tori Amos nuclear, claiming "I'm watching as the blogging world crucifies me." Finally, TheFunded.com founder Adeo Ressi complained his splash outing in Wired wasn't enough — he wanted the magazine's cover (and we gave it to him.) It all calls for a bulldog chaser. After the jump, a pic so cute it's NSFW. Can you handle it?
Jason Calacanis is seeking to raise an additional $20 million in funding for his startup Mahalo. Investors are being asked to value the human-powered search company at $175 million. This, less than six months after raising an initial $20 million at a valuation of around $100 million, which was to last the startup for five years. At the time, that valuation seemed based more on Calacanis's Brooklyn bluster than anything else. But this additional fundraising is even more of a headscratcher.
Apparently bulldog love isn't enough for funtrepreneur Jason Calacanis. Guy goes onto some podcast with the unfortunate name TWiT. Next thing he does? Write a post on his blog titled "Great feedback on TWiT" consisting entirely of twitter screen shots and a Facebook friend request exclaiming the greatness of Jason Calacanis. "Calacanis was pretty good on this week's TWiT," one reads. Another: "You were fantastic on TWiT this week." That's not feedback; it's fellatio. Here's the collage Calacanis put together to illustrate.
Jason Calacanis's human-powered search engine Mahalo is "fundamentally flawed," says videoblogger Andrew Baron. Well, we could have told you that: It's basically Yahoo's directory, 12 years too late. But Baron, best known for creating Rocketboom, trashed Calacanis's service not for its lack of originality, but for its lack of critical applause. "Mahalo is not a worthwhile product," Baron wrote, "I have never seen a single positive review of the site." What's got the guy so worked up?
