For you search geeks in the audience, there’s a great article this month in Fast Company about new search engine Mahalo entitle Man vs. Machine. The company, led by abrasive CEO Jason Calacanis, hopes to compete in the search space by replacing computer algorithms with human editorial.

I think it’s safe to say it’s a longshot, but it should be entertaining. Using human editors is already something engines like Google practice. And, like the story says, even a small percentage of the search market can be a nice chunk o’ change.

So, being the curious lad that I am, I decided to see how the humans stacked up against the machines for the keyword “jobs.” Having recently written about Google’s problem with duplication on the same search query, I was intrigued with Mahalo’s breakdown:

I certainly agree with some of the choices. Craigslist is a no-brainer that should be showing up on Google for the same search. I also like the breakdown in categories if you checkout the “jobs” results page.

Cute icons are used to help in the search process. Interestingly, each results page has an editor open for recommendations. If you don’t like the results for “jobs,” feel free to contact Mahalo editor Laura today. Other job-related searches may have different editors.

Popularity: unranked [?]

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