Either way, Siegler was told by the startup Quora today that Topics (collections of questions and answers on Quora) will soon have locations associated with them. (The feature is live now.) He makes a case that it's a bigger deal than it might seem, but the way he explains it makes me wonder whether he was even able to convince himself. I'll tell you why adding location data to Quora could be a big deal. I think it's because of the pseudo-secret Quora iPhone app that's about to launch.

Above: The Quora map of Portland, Oregon - where tech bloggers come from to challenge other tech bloggers who seem like they want to retire. ;)

To be honest, I think location is going to need to be rolled out to a broader range of topics than it is today on Quora and probably to individual questions too before it proves as useful as it ought to.

How to Hold a Map Upside Down & Backwards

Siegler says that dropping a pin on a map to associate a Quora Topic with a place means that people looking at the Quora page for the Topic will know what place the content is related to. I don't think that's terribly interesting, myself.

He then mentions something brief about mobile phones making location more relevant ("The company notes that as more people use the service from their mobile phones, location-based questions and answers are increasingly important.") and concludes with a line about how if you were planning a vacation someplace, you could use Quora to find unique and interesting information about the place you're going to go.

Sure. Undoubtedly a few people will appreciate the opportunity to look at a topic page on Quora.com about the Taj Mahal and say "well I'll be darned, there it is on a map." And udoubtedly some people will take a detour past quora when planning a vacation. Not very many though and if I were Quora I wouldn't bet the farm on that.

I imagine Quora's vision for location probably extends far beyond these limited scenarios. Their PR strategy regarding the feature may have been woefully unimaginative (and have correspondingly dissapointing results, I'd think, though they're not unique in that) - but I bet the feature itself is going to aim high.

What Location Offers Quora

Take a look at the Quora thread asking what the most beautiful buildings in the world are. It's a commonly referenced part of the site and it really shows what Quora can do. It's beautiful, mind-expanding and compelling for visitors.

Other parts of Quora are just waiting for their elements of location to be leveraged as well. What are the best places to rent a startup company office in SOMA? What are the best restaurants in Portland, Oregon and why? Where can I find an open wifi connection with power after mindnight in Arcata, California?

Those are the location-based questions people want to know...when they are out on location and have location exposed to apps on their phone.

Like the forthcoming iPhone app that Quora is building, testing and going to launch sometime very soon. Why will you have that app running in the background on your phone when there's already a really good HTML5 mobile web app Quora has had forever? Because, one might assume given all this "let's add location" stuff that app will quietly track your location if you let it - and then ping you when it can drop some awesome Quora knowledge about the place you're in.

This isn't about people planning vacations to the Taj Mahal but unclear on where it is on a map.

This is about a big bold move to make Quora, the potentially lovable but potentially pedantic, nichey and forgettable Question and Answer network into something that will stick with users, that will be passed around through word of mouth and thus will grow outside of the Silicon Valley startup and VC clique that...put it on the map.

It sounds great to me. I love those evenings when I remember to go browse the Quora, to find upvoted answers to in-depth questions on topics of interest to me. Tech, location technologies, art, Portland, Oregon, personal hygiene or odd intimate proclivities - there's a Topic on Quora for everyone.

And sometime soon I'm going to guess that you're going to get a push notification sent to your phone reminding you about all that collective knowledge, when you're in a real-world place that it references.

Specifically, you won't just get push notifications when Quora has something to say about the place you're at. You'll get push notifications when you and your phone are in a place that is related to a Topic you are following on Quora. That sounds to me like something that could be awesome.

Where are the best places to go to find UI designers? Let's say you're following that question and then you find yourself in one of those places. Ding, ding, ding says your phone! That would be super cool!

That's what I think is going to happen - and I think it could be way cooler than M.G. Siegler makes it sound. Maybe I just find online location data more exciting than other people, though.

Meanwhile, as Mahalo's legal troubles begin, CEO Calacanis is preparing to launch a new project, itself called "Launch," which aims to be a direct challenger to TechCrunch.

According to news posted on Accentuate in mid-September, and more recently on blog sites Pulse2 and The Next Web, the potential Mahalo lawsuit involves disputes surrounding a change to the site's terms, which now give the company ownership of the content published on Mahalo.com. Prior to the change, the writers also owned the content. This change angered some of the site's users, who are now attempting to sue the company.

The law firm of Green Welling, LLP is currently gathering information from affected writers and attempting to get a class-certified suit underway.

Mahalo employees and contractors interested in participating in the suit are being asked for any "information, documentation, screen captures, emails, other communications or experiences with Mahalo.com," notes Accentuate Services, a blog dedicated to freelancing and fiction writing. The site is maintained by Michelle L. Devon, one of the injured parties, and now the plaintiff in the suit. Those joining her can remain anonymous through attorney-client privilege, she says.

The details of the case itself are not currently being discussed, but it involves revenue sharing disputes and intellectual property law from our understanding of the matter. Devon was previously seen commenting on this thread on Mahalo Answers, the Q&A sub-section of the search site. Additional discussion is also available online in dedicated forum sites both here and here.

Note: Mahalo has not yet responded to our request for comment regarding the suit. We will update this post if we hear back.Update: Mahalo's official comment: "We're not going to speculate on rumors of lawsuits. However, our terms of service have been and continue to be clear. We've always operated under Creative Commons. Under the prior terms of service, the writers owned the content and provided Mahalo with a license to use it. Now that we compensate writers with bi-weekly cash payments, we amended the terms so that we own the content and provide the writers a creative commons license to use elsewhere if they choose. Bottom line is that Mahalo is pro-writer, as evidenced by our substantial and ever-growing investment in quality content. Our Mahalo Guides and Gurus are talented, passionate, creative contributors who are the lifeblood of the site. Writers interested in sharing their passions with a huge audience of readers should not hesitate to apply."

Calacanis Working on TechCrunch Competitor Called "Launch"

As the different parties investigate a potential suit against Mahalo, it seems Calacanis has a new project. According to an article in today's Guardian, the entrepreneur is now investing in an editorial startup called Launch.

Launch will take on TechCrunch, says Calacanis, but with more of a focus on "quality and insight," he says. "When I started with [Engadget founder, and Joystiq, Gizmodo and Hackaday co-founder] Peter Rojas, blogging was a new format that was faster but still had quality and insight," he said. "Now it's even faster but it has lost that quality and insight. You have a bunch of people writing short stuff with no research and knowledge base. They have no credibility."

Launch won't offer news via blog posts, as TechCrunch does, though. It will be provided as an email newsletter - the same format where Calacanis's own deeper insights disappeared to back in 2008.

"If you get people to commit to an email relationship, it's the deepest, most intimate relationship you can have online. Much deeper than Facebook and certainly more intimate than a blog," he told the Guardian.

Do Bloggers Lack Credibility?

As bloggers ourselves, it's hard to not be stung by words like his. Bloggers lack credibility? Ouch.

But blogging, let's remember, is just a format for publishing content. Anyone can blog, from mainstream journalists to uninformed amateurs. That's the power and the beauty of the platform, in fact. Who exactly is Calacanis speaking about when he makes comments like these?

Besides, today's blog readers are now savvier than ever, often interacting with writers through comment forms and on the social networks Twitter and Facebook, which he summarily dismissed. Commenters add their thoughts to posted stories, expressing their support or agreement, pointing out mistakes or offering different opinions or opposing points of views.

While an email newsletter will arguably have a highly engaged audience, as Calacanis says, it's hardly positioned as a direct competitor to TechCrunch, or any other top-tier news site, blog or otherwise.

But that's just my opinion, as a lowly blogger.

In the comments (or elsewhere), you can share yours. That's how this works, folks. And we like it.

Photo by Joi Ito.

Today I got to see, on live streaming video, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington sign a contract on stage to sell the site to AOL. As co-editor today of a competing site, and as someone whose big break was joining TechCrunch as the site's first hired writer, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the deal and what it means.

Things I Learned About Blogging from Michael Arrington

• A great blogger is always on. Looking back over my emails while working for TechCrunch, many of them are apologies for not having anything posted by 10am, or explaining why I am stopping work on a Friday evening.
• It's important to be first, but if you're not first - it's important to link to whoever you learned about something from. The blogosphere is a trail of links, and status is built by earning links from others.
• It's good to stir the pot, to challenge people who need challenging, but it's also important to give people the respect they deserve.
• Details matter in your writing. Unclear, imprecise language is important to avoid.
• The background of company founders is important. It should influence who you chase down to write about and it should be included in any write-up of a startup.
• Conference sessions are boring and pointless, it's usually better to work the halls for stories.
• Even a big, career advancing scoop is not worth ruining someone else's career to get.

I work now for a very different boss, Richard MacManus. MacManus has built one of the world's leading tech blogs from outside Silicon Valley, and with a greater focus on the tech of tech than on the business stories. I've been fortunate enough to learn many things from him as well, having worked here for 3 years now this month.

Arrington the Competitor

If you haven't read it, I suggest checking out this recent "How I Work" article about a day in the life of Michael Arrington on Inc. Magazine's site.

If news is breaking, I want to be on it. We break more big stories than everyone else combined in tech--and that's not prebriefed news or something that was handed to us. I judge my own performance based on that. When we break a story, that's a point. When someone else breaks a story, we're minus a point. And I want to be positive points.

That sums up the TechCrunch philosophy very well. It's one of many things I learned from Arrington - I think similarly, even if he's been far ahead in the point system he describes. I also give myself points for writing a particularly thoughtful blog post that's well received and for articulating something inspiring in an effective way.

Frankly, I also give myself points for my happy marriage, beautiful home and garden in Portland, Oregon, and more balanced life. I hope Michael gets to enjoy some more things like that too, now that he's been to the top of the tech reporting mountain and found a pot of gold.

It was my New Years resolution year before last to spend less time thinking about TechCrunch, but that's very hard to do. They are everywhere and completely dominate the consumer technology business news landscape.

I have found a home that suits me much better here at ReadWriteWeb. But I'm happy for and a little envious of the success TechCrunch has created for itself as an organization.

What Does This Mean for Tech Media?

What does TechCrunch inside AOL mean for the future of tech media? If the continued trailblazing of Engadget at AOL is any indication - it doesn't have to take the wind out of a market leader.

More likely, the exit to AOL could lead to other leading tech news sites being acquired by other big old media companies. Those blogs may need to be rocket ships of growth like TechCrunch has been, but that won't stop many other people from starting sites with sales to big media in mind. It's not very original to say - but the acquisition of TechCrunch validates the market.

It may do so more than previous acquisitions of PaidContent (by the Guardian) and ArsTechnica (by Condé Nast ) did. Those were interesting deals, concerning great publications known well to insiders, but TechCrunch made tech blogging what it is today.

I'm sure the staff there will continue to work as hard as they can, as a matter of professional pride. After they each take a well-earned vacation.

And we'll keep competing with them on quality of analysis and writing - on speed when we can - just the same.

It's undeniable that apps are in vogue. But does that mean the open Web - the one we access through a browser - is dead? Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg really hopes not.

Apps are increasingly popular with users because, well, they just work better. Apps are built to do a few things really well, whereas the Web is written in a language originally conceived for documents and accessed with a single browser that tries to accommodate all the myriad things users and developers want to do. Apps are also popular because they're more more monetizable with advertising, in-app purchases and by simply charging users to download them.

The concern is that the rise of apps could mean an outward migration of quality developers and users to the protected walls of various app stores, leaving the open Web to... well, not die, but fill up with lower quality content and malware. This would be bad because the open Web is also the free Web, where you don't need to buy an app or a fancy mobile device to use it and the barrier to entry is low if you have an idea for something like Facebook.com.

Why it's bad for Facebook if the Web dies

But Facebook's founder seems to think apps, and specifically mobile apps, are where things are headed.

"Mobile... will eventually get to a larger scale than the web. The Web is only at one and a half billion people, whereas everyone is going to have a phone and all the phones are going to be smartphones. So our strategy is that we want to go wherever people are building apps so we can make all of those apps social if they want that," Zuckerberg said today in an interview with TechCrunch about the rumored "Facebook phone."

But Zuck misses the Web, and his reasons for it may be why the Web will never die. Even a billion-dollar corporation like Facebook can't build an app for everything.

"When I was coding Facebook there was no question in my mind like what I was going to build for. It was, you're clearly going to build for the web. I'm not going to build software and I'm not going to build for a phone...

"And that clarity was so valuable whereas today it's like, okay, we want to go build an app. Even a new product that we launch. We're working on Questions, and it's like okay. So we build Questions for the web, then we build the "m" site for Questions, then we build the Touch HTML5 version of Questions. Then we build the iPhone version of Questions, and then the Android version, and then maybe... the iPad stuff. And then we don't work on a RIM version and then a bunch of people are pissed because it's not available on their phone.

"It's kind of a disaster right now. I really hope that the direction that this stuff goes in is one where there's more of a standard."

Why the Web is not going to die

That standard is HTML5, which Facebook plans to push very hard. If HTML5 can deliever a wide range of functions with a good user experience, then Facebook can develop one HTML5 version for every new product it launches and "that would be awesome," Zuckerberg said. And HTML5 could combate the problem of unfair access raised by the great App Migration.

Already Facebook has launched a special mobile site for people in developing countries (and some developed ones). 0.facebook lets users access a speedy, data charge-free version of Facebook with a mobile browser from any basic phone even in parts of the world with poor infrastructure.

Until the devices that people use to access the internet are completely standardized, the Web will never die.

Edit: We've added a poll. Please vote below.

Especially for larger blogs -- like say, TechCrunch -- that often get hundreds of comments per post, reading can become more like scanning. It's easy to scan over a hundred comments looking for text responses that are compelling, but video requires you to stop and fully engage in each comment to see if it is worth your time. A comment that might take 10 seconds to scan in text form, might take 45 seconds in video form. And if you want to rewatch it, it will take the same amount of time, whereas a text comment will theoretically take less time to read on the second pass.

Says erickhill on Hacker News, "You can't 'scan' the content of video comments like you can, say, this comment. It's an interesting idea, but seems to disrupt the flow of communication."

Harder to Moderate

For the same reason that they're harder to scan, they're also harder to moderate. A video comment must be watched, start to finish, before you can determine if the content is offensive, inappropriate, or spam. That means one of two things: either you put more time into moderating your comments, or you let your community do the moderation for you. There are implicationson the user end, as well, because now you might invest time watching a comment that is totally not worth your time, when it is easy to spot text comments to skip with a quick scan.

They're Inaccessible

Video, especially user generated video, is very hard to make accessible. In order to make video accessible, you need to add captioning -- which is probably not something you'll see on Seesmic anytime. That's fine -- it's a sad fact that not everything in the world can or will be accessible to everyone else -- but large blogs that add and encourage video comments also alienate a portion of their readership who can enjoy the textual part of a post, but are then cut out of part of the resulting discussion.

You Can't Leave Links

One of the best things to come out of comment threads are links people leave to related resources. We often find things we never knew existed through links in comments that people leave on this blog (spam excluded, of course). Videos don't have links. So you're left with basically two options -- say the URL out loud in the video reply, which is clumsy and annoying for the watcher to follow up on, or leave a second comment with your link sources, which is also clumsy and adds a bit of noise.

They Increase Load Time

Whether you watch the video or not, the player is one more rich media element that the browser has to load. Video comments tend to be small and the Seesmic player is light weight, but that still has an effect on load time. The particular implementation that prompted this post is also a third party service -- so one more call off site that increases load time. As web sites get more and more overloaded with third party widgets, they tend to start to slow down and the user experience degrades.

Conclusion

Video comments are a relatively new thing, and now that TechCrunch has started a mini-trend, they's something we'll probably see more of. They've only been live at TechCrunch for a day, so it is too early to make an verdict about them. But so far, they seem more of a disruptive force -- one that I'll be inclined to generally ignore -- than something that adds to the flow of conversation.

Certainly there are some blogs that they make sense for. A blog like Beet.tv, for example, which posts in video format, might do well to let users respond in kind. But for most blogs, I think they generally don't make a lot of sense. What's your opinion of video comments on blogs? Please let us know in the comments and vote in our poll.