After Google: Human powered search?

There was some talk here this morning about how newsrooms could help in human powered search.  That brought to my mind a new search site that's getting funding and buzz, Mahalo. Here's how they state their mission:

• Mahalo's goal is to hand-write and maintain the top 50,000 search terms
• Each Mahalo page is quality controlled through a strict editorial process
• You can contribute and earn money by writing great search result pages in the Mahalo Greenhouse

In the past six months, some of the digerati notably, Robert Scoble, have been suggesting this kind of editorial effort could succeed Google, which relies on computer algorithms.