Blogger Flame War Calacanis and Winer

In probably one of the more silly things, the flame war between Jason Calacanis and Dave Winer heated up this morning with Techmeme following along the many blogs warping out and taking sites like a war against the Borg and the Federation.

While both sides make good points, the thing about blogging, and the thing about opinion, even if it is backed up with fact is that we are making a statement, we then back up our statements with many people saying the same thing that support our statement, then we all go out for a beer to two. Unless you are Linux or Microsoft fan boys, they just have fun spinning everything in to a flame war no, even if there are calls for peace across no mans land.

So, depending on how you feel about Mahalo, and user assisted search, then that will really determine which side you are going to take. Did Mahalo let everyone down? Or is it still working out the problems and gains in fits and starts. In the longer run will Mahalo even matter, or is Ms. Dewey tons cooler and we should all do that instead.

Or is Jason right, in that he got broadsided in the blogging world because he expected friendship rather than objectivity?

In the end none of it matters, what matters is raw numbers of people coming to the site, and getting use out of it that is meaningful. We have seen a lot of cruddy technology, we have seen some very good technology. While the dust up continues, that is fine, in the end though, do you use the web site, did it help you do what you wanted to do, or did you try it then flee. Mahalo still has to work out some issues, people still need to use it, and otherwise it will still end up like many marginal sites out there. A couple of hundred people a day, surviving off advertising and that is ok too.