About
RAKESH AGRAWAL
I am Senior Director of Product at Audible.
I have been designing and marketing Internet services since 1993. I have worked at Tellme, AOL Search, uReach Technologies, washingtonpost.com and startribune.com.
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Recent Posts
- Rakesh’s travel secrets for the holidays, 2024 edition
- Airbnb’s changes don’t go far enough
- Rakesh’s travel secrets for the holidays, 2023 edition
- Thoughts on living and dying
- A finance guide for millionaires and billionaires
- Rakesh’s travel secrets for your holiday travel
- Lobsterclass – free classes on product management
- Getting down to numbers: quantitative research
- Pricing the COVID-19 vaccine
- Favorite things, day 1: podcasts
Top Posts
March 2026 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Meta
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Author Archives: Rakesh Agrawal
Why iPad magazines aren’t selling well
Women’s Wear Daily reported recently that after an initial burst, iPad-based magazines aren’t selling well. Well, duh. They were designed to meet the needs of publishers, not readers. Hey, let’s charge $5 an issue for something that requires little work … Continue reading
Posted in ipad, journalism, media
3 Comments
Junk journalism: media flaming fear and irrationality
The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz recently took the media to task for spending too much time covering the TSA’s new procedures, referring to it as a “‘junk’ journalism epidemic.” I’ve about had it with media types who insist on turning … Continue reading
Posted in journalism, media, newspapers
5 Comments
Asking meaningless questions: CBS’ faulty poll on TSA screening
In defending its actions in screening passengers, the TSA continually points to a CBS News Poll which claims that 80% of Americans support the scan. What does that really mean? Let’s take a look at the actual question that was … Continue reading
Posted in metrics, research, travel
3 Comments
Netflix throws away the disc in the US
Netflix is edging a step closer to its name with a test of streaming only service in the United States. The new offering allows users to purchase a net-only subscription for $7.99 a month. Adding DVD rentals is an option … Continue reading
Posted in netflix, television
2 Comments
Apple and Google make their big push to TV screen
This year has seen the biggest push yet to bring the Internet (or parts of it) to the biggest screen in the house. The newly revamped Apple TV started arriving in stores and homes last week. Logitech is announcing the … Continue reading
Posted in apple, apple tv, google, hulu, television
3 Comments
Facebook Places is at the beginning of a long road
Facebook’s much awaited Places product finally launched this week. It’s the first step toward bringing friend finding to the masses. People have been using Facebook to do this for years; posting their location in freeform status updates that their friends can … Continue reading
Posted in facebook, foursquare, geotagging, lbs, maps, mobile, twitter, wireless
Tagged export
6 Comments
Heading toward the Facebook recommendation engine
There’s an interesting thread over at Mike Blumenthal’s blog on the effect of Facebook Places on the local reviews space. My view is that reviews and updates will coexist, much as blogs and Twitter coexist. People who were less committed … Continue reading
Groupon personalizes the daily deal
Groupon announced a shift from its approach of the same deal for all email subscribers in a market to personalized deals in select cities. CEO Andrew Mason says that there is a backlog of 35,000 businesses waiting to be featured … Continue reading
Posted in advertising, local search, marketing
1 Comment
Why small businesses are snapping up the daily deal
In recent months, we’ve seen daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social grow like crazy. Groupon is valued at $1.35 billion. That’s more than 4x the valuation of the McClatchy Company, one of the country’s largest newspaper publishers. It … Continue reading
Posted in advertising, google, local search, marketing, yelp
3 Comments
United’s mobile check in not ready for takeoff
On my last trip, I had the opportunity to try United’s mobile check-in and mobile boarding passes. The promise is paper-free check in. It sounds really great, but it’s not quite there. Partly it’s due to United’s horrible user interface, … Continue reading
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