When Jason Calacanis dropped Mahalo on the world last year, I was skeptical. After all, why would I use something other than Google when Google seems to give me the results I want each and every time I use it? I checked it out a few times and it never really clicked with me; I’ve used it sparingly since then. I love the idea of a human edited search engine, where every result is crafted by someone with a real brain and not an algorithm, but I also love the pure, raw power of Google and the ability it gives me to really dig deep into a search term and find what I’m looking for.

Today, however, I realized why Mahalo is so fantastic. It’s not targeted at people like me. It’s not aimed at tech geeks or people who know how to use search engines in advanced ways. Mahalo is for people like my grandmother, who gets confused on page one of Google’s results and ends up closing the browser in frustration after not finding what she was originally looking for. I introduced her to Mahalo, and she can’t stop gushing about it, because it’s SIMPLE and 99% of the time gives her exactly what she’s looking for. She doesn’t need the power of Google’s index — she just needs the best information given to her in the easiest manner possible, and Mahalo does that.

In fact, she loves Mahalo so much that she’s set it as her start page after years of having AOL.com as her home page. It’s the first place she visits every morning and she says she probably looks at it 20 times a day. She’s also thinking about contributing to the Greenhouse, which I encourage — it’ll give her a hobby where she’s doing something useful, and she gets to brag to her friends about how “high-tech” she is. She’s gotten 3 of her friends hooked on Mahalo as well.

So, Jason…you’ve done a great job, and you’re providing a fantastic service to people. I’m impressed, and I’ll be recommending Mahalo to all of my non-geek friends.