Mahalo – Paul's Tech Talk

Some good CyberMonday Sites to look at for 2008!

PaulNovember 28, 2008

I was just getting done with that story about the Walmart Stampede, and thought I would encourage people to check these good sites for people to check out for great deals. I have been looking through sites combing for some great sites to find the best deals and here they are:

[ad#ad2-right-1]

Dealio — Dealio will not only show you sneak peaks at Cyber Monday ads, but we will also send you directly to the store so that you can purchase the often limited inventory Cyber Monday deals before they disappear. Best of all, there is no need to hop from site to site – Dealio has all your Cyber Monday shopping covered.

CyberMonday — Shop hot holiday deals from more than 500 merchants. All of Shop.org’s proceeds from CyberMonday.com support the Ray Greenly Scholarship Fund.

Cybermonday Mahalo Deals — This Mahalo page collects links to websites offering information and discounted merchandise for Cyber Monday.

Best Cyber Monday Sales –Well, I finally put together a list of the top retailers throughout the country with links directly to their Cyber Monday deals.

Shopzilla — The company’s mission is to enable shoppers to quickly and easily find compare and buy anything, sold by virtually anyone, anywhere. Each month, Shopzilla connects millions of consumers with thousands of stores.

These are just a few that I could find and wanted to let people decide where they would like to go!!

It’s Offical, Calicanis says Your on your own.

PaulOctober 27, 2008

In the Newsletter, Calicanis says this:

As a startup, you are now, officially, on your own. You can’t count on
your VCs saving you or some magical offer from Yahoo or Google showing
up to bail you out. Chances are Yahoo and Google are going to be
shutting down and/or selling off companies they’ve already
bought–like EBAY and AOL have started doing. Parents don’t adopt
while they’re putting their kids up for adoption.

Now I don’t know about you but I am really worried about what people are going to do next. Some other things Jason said is that the storm is upon us. That’s right, in the next thirty days you will have to figure out how to survive. It won’t be easy. Is this the beginning or the ending of this so called storm? I say only time will tell. I hope this becomes a rebound soon. We are definitely in for the long haul.

Largest Employer : University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is planning layoffs!!

PaulOctober 23, 2008

Is this the beginning or the end of the recession? After seeing this today I wanted to talk about this development. If they layoff a large number of people is this going to effect your chances of finding a job? Here’s what they had to say:

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has plans to reduce its 50,000 workforce by a small percentage. UPMC did not immediately release any specifics.

“As the economy deteriorates, we are proactively taking these steps to ensure that our growth in expenses is not outpacing our growth in revenues,” a UPMC statement said.

[via WTAE.TV]

So now that they have said this, what’s the percentages of the workforce are going to be laid off? I wanted to talk about how you could get ready for the imminent day of this. Here’s some good links to consider:

5 ways to improve your chance of getting hired.

Are you asking to be scammed?

And here are some other companies who are planning layoffs or have laid off people:

Mahalo Lay’s off around 10% of it’s workforce!!

Merck Laid off 13% of it’s workforce

With all this that is going on in the world I thought it was something that needed to be said and let people know about these developments.

Mahalo Lay’s off around 10% of it’s workforce!!

PaulOctober 23, 2008

[ad#ad2-left]In an email he sent to the readers of his publication, Jason Calicanis talks about having to lay off around 10% of people from Mahalo. Here’s the quote:

We’ve laid off a just under 10% of our full-time staff, cut our overhead by doing smart things like renting desks (we have six desks/offices available fyi), and reorganized our editorial department to focus on freelance positions over in-house editors. The net result
of the effort is we are giving Mahalo another year of “dry powder” (or runway) to complete our mission.

This is not to be unexpected after all the talk about the recession coming our way. It does however emphasizes the need for companies to consider there profit margins and accounting strategy.

Mahalo was launched in May 2007 as an Alpha test. That is to say only a select number of people were able to access the site and create feedback to the development of the site. As of January of 2008 it is in what we call the Beta test phase. Which means more people are testing it out and find out it’s flaws to report back about where they need to improve. Mahalo’s directory employs human editors to review websites and search engine results.

[ad#ad2-right]Saying that Mahalo is in Beta still doesn’t lessen the fact that they are worried about there revenue model and expect a drastic decrease in revenue over the next 2 years due to the Recession still hanging over our heads. This is where it comes to pure talent and understanding that most people in the business has to worry being laid off for example Merck Laid off 13% of it’s workforce. Most people know the dread and fear of having the possibility of a Layoff hanging over your head and it is bound to affect even the most stubborn person and independent person. It is going to come at a time like Christmas or the first a year and you will have to scrounge around and try to find another job. It’s tough and I’ve got a list that will help you :5 ways to improve your chance of getting hired.

With this list you will be able to get a better grip of the future and maybe create a better future in the process.

Mahalo is still in it’s infancy and will still need time to grow and mature and with this recession looming over everyone’s head they will have quite a time making heads or tails of the future. So why try to create the future if you don’t know what will happen? That comes with the territory of blogging and website that are 2.0. It’s a hit or miss when it comes to people finding the best content and sometimes finds the worst content. This is where you as a reader have to choice what to listen to and who to listen too. I don’t say that will be easy but it is essential in finding what you need at the time you need it.

If we don’t do anything, this will be the last you will see of some of these big name sites. We need to gather around them and show our support, by reading there content and providing feedback if there is something that needs to be change. That is your power to help these websites become the best they can. So go comment on your favorite website, tell them something you think they can do to better the content. So why aren’t you doing that now?