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Comment by ohashi | Hacker News Reader

I just don't buy it. Aaron Wall called you out a while ago and if I recall correctly you denied and denied. This sudden change of heart doesn't read like a moral turn-around, it reads like surrender. You got out-competed by Demand, AOL, Associated Content and trying to re-frame the argument as 'we're all going to suffer if you don't cut back' is bullshit. If you really were turning around Mahalo and it wasn't going to be a content farm (whatever your definition of the term), all of this wouldn't matter. So arguing that everyone has to cut back would be silly, you should let them content farm and get banned by big bad google and you can take home all the prizes! But that's not what is really happening is it?

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Spot on ohashi.

The moral litmus test for Jason's about-face would be if he felt so bad about the content mill pages on Mahalo that he deleted them from the web and tested the (alleged) "quality" content as a business model.

IMHO this just one more example of Jason trying to put a thin veneer of polish over a turd.

We never made spam, we always used humans, but we made pages that were "light" in my opinion. They also lacked an EXPERT.

We solved this by hiring 55 video editors in the last six months and we now add an expert to every page.

So, if you definition of a content farm was "light" content written by non-experts then we we're a content farm.

Guilty as charged, but I confessed my sins and I'm now on the side of the righteous! Aaron Wall is now my biggest fan... he tells his clients to model their sits around my sites.

Jason, I respect you, you've accomplished a lot and I can only hope to achieve as much success.

That being said, come on. You confessed and it's out of some altruistic epiphany?

Mahalo isn't competing for mindshare, it's competing for SEO share and you got beat. If you are switching to a high quality content producer, let the quality of your content speak for itself. Compete for consumer's mindshare as a destination for quality content. You've picked some battles I still respect like fighting against angels charging to be pitched. However, you don't have the same moral high ground on this one. You have no legitimacy as a crusader against content farms. Period. Stop it.

Create some awesome content and share it with us. Sites like this THRIVE on the high quality content. Or re-work your business model and SEO and compete again for that long tail xylophone playing monkies. Either way, stop treating us like idiots and be honest with us.

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