Bulldog aficionado Jason Calacanis recently predicted that a large number of Web 2.0 startups will end up on "life support." Could Mahalo, his so-called "human-powered search engine," be one of them? He has laid off 13 of the humans who power Mahalo, with plans to rehire some of them offshore in the Philippines. It's not clear how many staff members that leaves Mahalo with.

Silicon Alley Insider reports that a third of Mahalo's full-time staff was laid off; Calacanis, in a blog post — wait, we thought he stopped blogging — muddles the issue by saying Mahalo has 70 full-time and freelance staff. A former Mahalo insider, however, says the real full-time staff has dropped by roughly half, from 60 this summer to 30 before the layoffs. The Brooklyn-raised CEO is ever the artful dodger.

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