How Mahalo Daily Turned a Loss Into a Win
A few weeks ago, I posted my list of favorite video podcasts / video blogs, and one of them was Mahalo Daily. Truthfully, aside from Loren’s work over at 1938 Media, it’s my favorite and has been since the beginning.
Aside from the awesome work Veronica did as its first host, the show itself was a great idea. Video podcasts and most blogs seem to center on two things these days: politics and tech. Mahalo Daily’s range of topics, conversations, guests, and locales made each episode different and interesting. Jason Calacanis went way out on a limb with the idea of a daily podcast about general interest subjects, and not only hit a homerun, but put on a clinic for others to take notice.
Despite the fact that others have tried to be good general interest shows, Mahalo Daily was the only one that ever held any interest for me whatsoever (Rocketboom held it for a long time, but got stale really quick; it’s the only exception). There’s no “long tail” with Mahalo Daily, just a genuine desire to be interesting.
When Veronica announced her retirement, I was crushed. I was left wondering about what would happen to Mahalo Daily in her absence. Veronica wasn’t just the host, she was the brand. She was great on camera, comfortable talking to guests, and beautiful to boot. She was going to be nearly impossible to replace.
Jason was having none of it, though, and he quickly stepped in to take advantage of the situation by turning the search for a new host into a reality show. The first round of auditions happened live on Qik, and some of the cuts from those auditions made it to Youtube and Mahalo Daily. Then, the second round started, and it was like American Idol for Vloggers. Contestant after contestant turned up to be critiqued by Loren Feldman, Alex Albrecht, and the man himself, Jason Calacanis. After a few short episodes, we had our final group who were set loose on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica to do “man on the street” style interviews in a sendup of the The Bachelor called “The Bachelon” (thusly named because Lon Harris, the other host from Mahalo Daily, is looking for his mate). The final round of competition is taking place now, and the ladies are producing and hosting their own episodes of Mahalo Daily to be judged by Jason and crew and a new winner will be crowned.
There is a huge lesson to be learned here. Instead of just hiring someone, Jason publicized the hiring process and made it into something entertaining, and smoothed the transition from one very popular host to two lesser known hosts. Instead of having nothing going on, the “filler” during the transitional phase has proven to be extremely entertaining and has made for some great “tv” over the past few weeks.
Whereas Mahalo could’ve recoiled in pain, they kicked, punched, and fought, and have made the show (dare I say) even more compelling than it already was. That’s why Jason is a master at what he does, and that’s why people should pay attention when he speaks.
When he said Mahalo would be a great search engine, I poo poo’ed it, and now I find myself using it more and more because it’s 100% spam free. When he said he was producing a podcast that wasn’t typical geek faire, I balked at the idea, and ended up loving it.
He has a way of changing minds and working situations to his advantage, and it’s because of that that the loss of Veronica went from being a devastating blow to a shining moment.
Color me impressed.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Like you, I used Mahalo rarely until recently. Now between clusty and Mahalo, I don’t need any other search engines. I like the fact that I don’t get more ads than results with Mahalo. I especially hate ads that look like search results. That’s just annoying. Don’t have that with Mahalo. I didn’t watch Mahalo daily regularly, so I’m not following the Mahalo Idol thing, but it’s a great idea, and I’m glad that they were able to turn a bad situation into a good one.