Following our coverage yesterday of Jason Calacanis’ Project X, we’ve received some inside information on the Project.

The working name, as now reported at ValleyWag is Kokua, although ValleyWag suggests the final name will me Mahalo.

The Project itself is not Wikipedia meets Google as some reports have suggested, but rather Wikipedia meets podcasting.

Each major wikipedia section: cars, video games, news, etc.. will have a paid host that does a daily show and builds a community that will populate the Kokua/ Mahalo Wiki which will have fan/expert based editorials.

Fans will be encouraged to send in their videos on subjects a bit like correspondents, similar to what Rocket Boom currently does (where our insider believes Calacanis credits the idea) and the fan who gets picked for the show that day gets paid $50 or $100, an idea which our insider says Calacanis picked up from Al Gore’s Current.TV

Our mystery insider continues:

Calacanis thinks he can make passionate VIDEOS and highly-ranked wikipages that capture not only Google Adsense [revenue] but video revenue, the videos will be placed on every video service and Jason has two studios built. So if you become a great correspondent you can get to work out of “the studio” as he referrers to it sort of like winning on a game show… you get promoted to be a cast member (like Howard Stern or Flavor of Love–his two favorite examples)

We also had some links to screenshots of the new service provided however the links are now dead.

Having read this I’m going to revise what I said yesterday, this isn’t a Topix Clone, this is a Weblogs Inc clone with a focus on Podcasting/ Videocasting as opposed to blogging to get around the AOL NDA.

More if and when we get it, and of course thanks to our mystery insider for the tip.

Originally posted on May 1, 2007 @ 6:38 pm

Viacom Buying Last.fm?
Say it ain’t so. If Viacom buys Last.fm, I’ll be uninstalling Last.fm from my computers. What next? Microsoft buys Pandora? As far as I know, Last.fm is independent, which is why like it.

What Was Sony Thinking?
Did Sony really use a freshly decapitated goat for their God of War game launch? What in Heck were they thinking? Did their management suddenly grow horns? Is a “we’re sorry” acceptable here. Tell me this wasn’t offline “linkbait” calculated to cause controversy. No PR is bad PR.

Journos vs Bloggers
Bloggers are not journalists. But journalists can be bloggers. Can bloggers be journalists? Who cares? I think I’d rather see a no-holds barred Cage Match between bloggers and journalists. Just no goats, please.

Statisfy.net: Maps and Stats Mashup
Want to see your website’s visitors in (near) real-time on a Google Map? Statsify offers just such a mashup. Very cool. For about six seconds. Though I think there could be potential in this app, with additional features. I mean, it’s not all that different in essence from Twittervision.

Wakoopa: An Application We Don’t Really Need?
Last.fm and others track what songs you’ve played recently. Wakoopa apparently does the same for downloaded applications. Meh. Why bother?

Fun With Digg
Since the Digg API was opened up, some very fascinating applications have been built on it – many I had planned on exploring. If you are a stats junkie that likes different “views” of data, especially for social networks, check these out.

Originally posted on May 1, 2007 @ 12:57 pm

Valleywag has the scoop: (or should that be rumor?) Jason Calacanis, best known for his time starting Weblogs Inc, is entering the search game:

the next venture is a search engine. Calacanis, we hear, has already hired about 20 engineers to work on the project. Begun in the poolhouse of his Santa Monica home, it recently moved to an office nearby. Sequoia isn’t merely giving him shelter while he comes up with a new idea; Roelof Botha, Calacanis’ patron at Sequoia, has already committed the funds. Former associates of Calacanis, such as Mark Cuban and Jonathan Miller, his former boss at AOL, are also backing the venture.

They go on:

It’s a cross between Wikipedia and Google. Calacanis’ new site will create more digestible search results for popular queries such as the names of Hollywood stars, and tech products. The pages will be seeded, initially, with content gathered automatically from the web and other sources. But they will be open to contributions by readers. Sounds like Wikipedia? Yes: except Calacanis will employ paid editors to oversee the pages.

Sounds a bit like Topix to me, lots of content, initially from external sources, then added to by humans, great content for other search engines. The search part only comes into play if the content on the site becomes authoritive to the point that people will actually visit the new site to search for things. It logically cant be a search only play if it generates its own content, search engines don’t generate content, they index it.

One to watch.

Originally posted on April 30, 2007 @ 9:20 pm

The Googlebot just got bigger. Question is, does it have teeth? is it more like a Labrador or a Pit-Bull, both have ravenous appetites, but only one bites?

Google has announced a new partnership with the US States of Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia that will see public information and data from all 4 State Governments indexed and available via Google.

To quote Search Engine Journal (source) quoting Google:

These partnerships developed as both Google and officials with the four state governments recognized that the public is increasingly turning to search engines like Google to access government services, but that a significant share of the information on state agency websites is not included in its index of information sources on the web.

As a result, many online government services can be difficult for the public to find.

According to SEJ, the States will be using Google’s Custom Search Engine.

Originally posted on April 30, 2007 @ 9:47 pm