Author Archives: Rakesh Agrawal

About Rakesh Agrawal

Rakesh Agrawal is a 0-1 product leader. Ex-Amazon, Ex-Microsoft, as well as a number of startups. He tweets at @rakeshsfnyc

A new MapQuest beta with not much new

Posted on October 14, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

The latest beta of MapQuest shows how far behind MapQuest is in the functionality race with Google and Yahoo! There are two big improvements in this release: MapQuest finally supports a single search box for entering addresses. The current version … Continue reading →

Posted in google, local search, maps, yahoo | 1 Comment

Technology’s effects on our language

Posted on October 14, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

I was at the Wright Brothers National Memorial a few weeks ago and struck by the telegram that Orville Wright sent to his father announcing the success of the first machine powered human flights. The message was kept short, probably … Continue reading →

Posted in email, fun, im, instant messaging, random | 1 Comment

What’s the most screwed up media business?

Posted on October 13, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Among television, movies, newspapers and music, which industry is the most screwed up when it comes to adapting to the new world? The newspaper business won some serious points this week in the “screwed up” race with Roy Peter Clark’s … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, media, movies, newspapers | 2 Comments

Geotagged YouTube videos come to Google Earth

Posted on October 12, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Google has integrated geotagged YouTube videos into Google Earth. By selecting the “YouTube” layer in the “Featured Content” section section of Google Earth, you can see the locations of YouTube videos. Clicking on the icon allows you to play the … Continue reading →

Posted in geotagging, google, maps, web 2, web 2.0, YouTube | 3 Comments

Fun with Google Maps and geotagging

Posted on October 12, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Here’s a fun trick: copy the KML link from the bottom of a flickr page and paste it into the Google Maps search box. Here are my favorite flickr pictures plotted on Google Maps. (Click through to view it full … Continue reading →

Posted in flickr, geotagging, google, maps | Comments Off

The power of the social graph

Posted on October 10, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

There are many things I hate about Facebook’s Photos application: It doesn’t support high resolution photos. I get a Java cache error every time I try to upload pictures. You can’t search the pictures. It doesn’t use commonly provided EXIF … Continue reading →

Posted in facebook, flickr, marketing, photography, web 2, web 2.0 | 11 Comments

Rocky wuz here

Posted on October 10, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Location-based services have been hampered by the balkanization of carrier networks and a focus on mobile-only implementations. LocPoke, a new Facebook application, is a promising alternative. I’ve written before about WHERE, a location service platform that has offered GPS-based location … Continue reading →

Posted in facebook, gps, lbs, mobile, where, wireless, wireless data | 3 Comments

Using photos to show the story

Posted on October 3, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

A common refrain in journalism schools is “show don’t tell.” It means to make your writing sufficiently descriptive that readers can visualize what you’re talking about. Instead of writing that the “laptop looked old,” you should write “The laptop bore … Continue reading →

Posted in flickr, journalism, media, newspapers, photography | 3 Comments

Flickr and privacy rights

Posted on October 2, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Flickr is one of the treasures of the Web. You can find high quality images on just about every topic imaginable. It’s great for sharing with friends, planning vacations and illustrating blog posts. It also raises a lot of issues … Continue reading →