Monthly Archives: March 2007

Twittering robots

Posted on March 28, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

One of the things that has impressed me about Twitter is the speed with which developers have adopted the API. There are more than 20 desktop applications and more than a dozen mashups listed on the Twitter Fan Wiki. The … Continue reading →

Posted in newspapers, social networking, twitter, web 2, web 2.0, wireless | 1 Comment

Google’s revamped mobile site simplifies search

Posted on March 27, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Google revamped its mobile search offering, simplifying the search process. Before, you had to enter a search term and then select which index they wanted to search: Web, mobile, local or images. Now you can type in a search term … Continue reading →

Posted in google, local search, mobile, mobile search, wireless, wireless data | Comments Off on Google’s revamped mobile site simplifies search

Google SMS – a way out of voice recognition hell

Posted on March 27, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Google is offering flight status information via SMS. Just send your flight number (e.g. UA 484) to GOOGLE (466453) and you get a return message with flight departure and arrival times, gate information and the airline’s phone number. (With most … Continue reading →

Posted in airlines, google, mobile, travel, wireless, wireless data | 3 Comments

Watching time go by, flickr style

Posted on March 26, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

A terrific presentation from Andrew Tomkins of Yahoo! Research at ICWSM today. He mentioned Yahoo’s Taglines – another way of visualizing flickr data. Flickr photos and the top tags for each day float by. (It gets better if you start … Continue reading →

Posted in flickr, web 2, web 2.0, yahoo | Comments Off on Watching time go by, flickr style

Your car’s computer – friend or foe?

Posted on March 26, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Today’s WSJ has a story that vividly illustrates the tradeoffs that technology can offer between privacy and security (subscription required). The story explores how the increased data that cars collect can be used: That data could be crucial to guiding … Continue reading →

Posted in cars, privacy | Comments Off on Your car’s computer – friend or foe?

In Colorado for the next week

Posted on March 23, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

I’m in Vail over the weekend and then Boulder for the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. If you’re around, message me.

Posted in rocky's travel | 1 Comment

Stupid Twitter GPS trick

Posted on March 23, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Watch my progress from the cab, to Dulles airport, to the moon rover, to the plane, to Denver International Airport, to my rental car, to Vail Pass and finally sitting in my hotel room typing this. Done with Twitter GPS. … Continue reading →

Posted in gps, twitter, web 2, web 2.0, where, wireless, wireless data | 1 Comment

NewsCorpNBCYahooMSNMySpaceAOLTube vs. GooTube

Posted on March 23, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

NBC and News Corp announced a broad-reaching partnership this week that will feature shows from NBC and Fox on AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! — all the major Internet players except Google, the owner of YouTube. The major television networks … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, apple, google, media, microsoft, television, video, yahoo, YouTube | 1 Comment

Because manholes are round

Posted on March 23, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

The elusive square manhole cover I found an interesting set of answers to interview questions. I found the answers first, and sadly, I knew what the questions were. If you haven’t seen the questions before, consider yourself lucky. Very early … Continue reading →

Posted in recruiting | 12 Comments

Algorithms versus car dealers

Posted on March 22, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

My car dealer gave up on the battle. I got my car back from the dealer today and saw the sticker at right on my windshield. On my previous visits, they always put on a sticker telling me to come … Continue reading →

Posted in cars, consumer electronics | Comments Off on Algorithms versus car dealers