Monthly Archives: March 2009

15 people I’d want to have dinner with

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Rakesh Agrawal

Sir Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group – He’s my kind of billionaire: irreverent, playful and working for the public good. Steve Case, co-founder of AOL – No one person did more to bring Americans online than Steve. I was … Continue reading →

Posted in random | Comments Off on 15 people I’d want to have dinner with

Facebook drives 6MM people to Friendster!

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Rakesh Agrawal

That headline is kinda, sorta true. If you buy shoddy analysis from misinterpreted data. Like a recent piece from Henry Blodget, mass inflator of the Web 1.0 bubble. He is at it again with a piece on Facebook being a … Continue reading →

Posted in facebook, google, search, social networking, statistics | 1 Comment

More bad news for newspapers: hotels going green

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Rakesh Agrawal

This picture should send shivers down the spines of executives at USA Today headquarters in McLean, Va. For at least as long as I’ve been traveling for business (13 years and counting), a USA Today in front of the hotel … Continue reading →

Posted in hotels, journalism, media, newspapers, travel | 3 Comments

Who needs newspapers?

Posted on March 15, 2009 by Rakesh Agrawal

I read two thought-provoking pieces this week on the decline of newspapers from voices outside the newspaper business and one Really Dumb Idea from a voice on the inside. Author Clay Shirky, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable: When someone demands … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, media, newspapers, web 2, web 2.0 | 5 Comments

Realtime Twitter search is not a Google killer, part 2

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Rakesh Agrawal

In the first part, I wrote about the fallacy of using people with thousands of followers to illustrate how you can get great results if you ask questions on Twitter. In this part, I’ll focus on why the conversational nature … Continue reading →

Posted in facebook, google, search, seo, twitter | 3 Comments

Realtime Twitter search is not a Google killer

Posted on March 8, 2009 by Rakesh Agrawal

There’s been a lot of hype lately about “realtime search” using Twitter being a Google Killer. John Battelle talked about it in searchblog. Mike Arrington talked about it in TechCrunch. There are two scenarios that have been talked about with … Continue reading →

Posted in google, search, seo, social networking, twitter | 3 Comments

The hospitality industry gets more inhospitable

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Rakesh Agrawal

For an industry that markets itself as catering to the whims of its guests, the hotel industry sure goes out of its way to make a bad final impression. I just had a wonderful stay at the Westin Resort & … Continue reading →

Posted in hotels, travel | 1 Comment