Monthly Archives: December 2006

Show me the ads

Posted on December 18, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

I like ads. At least some ads. When I’m watching programs that I’ve recorded, I sometimes will rewind just to see an ad. These are usually ads from creative advertisers like Target and Apple. Occasionally, I want to share ads … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, video | 1 Comment

MovieBeam’s (sort of) video on demand

Posted on December 18, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Imagine a Tivo that could only record one channel, would only record shows that the networks thought you might be interested in, charged you every time you wanted to watch something and then would delete it whenever it wanted. Doesn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in consumer electronics, media, movies, video | 2 Comments

Comcast tests early release movies on demand

Posted on December 18, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Comcast is testing the release of movies on settop boxes at the same time they are released on DVD, according to The New York Times. The tests are being conducted in Pittsburgh and Denver. The big winners in such a … Continue reading →

Posted in apple, media, movies, video | 17 Comments

Making the most of search engine traffic

Posted on December 17, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

News organizations are actively playing the SEO/SEM game. If you do a search for “Iraq War“, “taco bell“, “litvinenko“, you will get both organic results and sponsored links from major news sites. The sites take different approaches to where they … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, google, search, seo | 3 Comments

Metro puts real-time train information on mobile devices

Posted on December 16, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Metro is now offering access to real-time information on trains on its redesigned mobile site (http://content.wmata.com/mobile). This is the same information that’s displayed on station platforms, indicating the time until the next several trains. You can bookmark the pages for … Continue reading →

Posted in mobile, mobile search, transit, wireless, wireless data | 1 Comment

Searching for Web talent

Posted on December 16, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

I’m in the process of hiring two Senior Product Managers for AOL Search. The people I hire will be working on two very exciting and truly innovative products that have the potential to significantly improve the way more than 40 … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, aol, newspapers | 2 Comments

Where does DC want to go today?

Posted on December 16, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

I was playing with Kayak and found a feature that’s interesting to explore – a map of where people want to travel. You enter an airport and it will show you the top 25 searched for destinations from that airport. … Continue reading →

Posted in airlines, travel | Comments Off

NBC’s Horny Manatee (SFW)

Posted on December 13, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Conan O’Brien stumbled into another great example of viewers interacting with and reshaping what appears on broadcast TV. This one happened when Conan ad-libbed the URL hornymanatee.com after a segment in which an FSU manatee appears in front of a … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, video | Comments Off

Geotagging the precise location

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

I upped my nerd rating this weekend by hiking the Billy Goat Trail with a GPS attached to my wrist. It’s a trail just a few miles from DC, so I wasn’t worried about getting lost. I just wanted the … Continue reading →

Posted in consumer electronics, flickr, geotagging, gps | 1 Comment

Spams, scams and search

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

During the last two weeks, I spent much of my time in focus groups on search. While I can’t talk about the concepts we were testing, one thing that struck me was the degree to which people viewed all of … Continue reading →

Posted in research, spam | Comments Off