By Tara Dunion

Jason Calacanis is the CEO of Mahalo.com, a human powered search engine. Previously, he co-founded Weblogs Inc. and served as its CEO and before that he was the General Manager of Netscape and the editor and CEO of Silicon Alley Reporter magazine.

I recently had the opportunity to interview him about his new approach to conversing with the online technology community.

You recently announced your “retirement” from blogging. Is it true that you plan to continue the dialogue via a targeted email distro list?

Yes, I’ve started an email list and I’ve sent a half-dozen emails over the past two weeks or so. Almost 3,000 people have subscribed and the feedback has been amazing.

Folks really consider what they are going to write when it is one-on-one in a way they don’t when they post a blog comment.

Where do you see social media heading?

Social media is a term I’ve never really understood to be honest, so I can’t tell you where it is headed.

Blogging isn’t going anywhere, but at a certain point you reach diminishing returns from it as an individual. It’s like being a musician who suddenly gets a huge audience and shifts from playing in their backyard to a cafe, and then suddenly at a stadium in front of 80,000 people.

When you reach the top of the blog pile it loses the intimacy that draws one to it. At least that is my experience.

Was your “retirement” a comment on how people have to prioritize their multi-tasking and be more targeted in their online conversations?

I think it’s a personal decision to go more acoustic and to try to have deeper one on one conversations. Everyone in my industry knows me and what I stand for, so there is little left for me with blogging.

However, I can develop deep relationships with a smaller set of more interesting people with email.

It’s not perfect, and it’s an experiment, but so far so great.

What’s the coolest product you’ve blogged about in 2008?

Hands down it would be the DASH GPS System. It pulls in live data and it pays for itself the first time you avoid an hour-long delay in Los Angeles traffic!

I can’t drive without it.

Other than Mahalo, what other sites are daily must-reads for you?

www.techcrunch.com, www.engadget.com (which, I started with Peter Rojas while I was CEO of Weblogs, Inc), www.edge.org and www.blogmaverick.com

Thanks so much Jason. We’ve signed up for your emails and look forward to continuing the conversation and to seeing you at upcoming industry events.

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