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

On newspapers, Osama bin Laden and Google

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

The Los Angeles Times weighed in on the new Google News feature which allows sources quoted in stories to respond. After a bizarre lead — “Many publishers consider the Internet, and Google in particular, a greater threat to their livelihoods … Continue reading →

Posted in google, journalism, media, newspapers | 1 Comment

Revolutionizing journalism education at Medill

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Chicago magazine has a piece on the challenges facing John Lavine, the new dean at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism as he sets a new course for teaching journalism. “It would be unethical for us to educate you to only … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, media, newspapers | Comments Off

comScore redefines search, Google wins bigger

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

ComScore is changing the methodology for its qSearch market share ratings. Instead of just counting search activity at the major search engines, comScore is expanding the definition of search to include searches at sites such as Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon, MySpace, … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, facebook, google, metrics, search, statistics, yahoo | 3 Comments

Rewriting your corporate history on Wikipedia

Posted on August 14, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

WIRED has a story about companies rewriting their history on Wikipedia. The story is based on Wikipedia Scanner, a tool from Cal Tech grad student Virgil Griffith that allows you to look up anonymous Wikipedia edits from a specific company’s … Continue reading →

Posted in web 2, web 2.0, wikipedia | Comments Off

AOL launches improved mobile search

Posted on August 14, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

AOL today released its new beta of mobile search. Congratulations to rockstar developer Alan Tai and product manager Farhan Memon. Alan did much of the initial prototyping on his own time while we worked to get approval. I pushed the … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, local search, wireless, wireless data | Comments Off

Google’s $4.55 bag of cookies

Posted on August 11, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Vending machine priced by grams of fat, Google, San Jose, California.jpg, originally uploaded by gruntzooki. I was visiting my friend Adam at Google yesterday and he pointed out a vending machine in Google’s Building 43. A vending machine on the … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, fun, google, random | 6 Comments

Virgin America takes to the skies; Chron doesn’t

Posted on August 10, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Wednesday marked the inaugural flights of Virgin America, a new low-cost airline based in San Francisco. Virgin America is currently flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles and New York. This fall it will add flights to Las Vegas and … Continue reading →

Posted in airlines, journalism, media, newspapers, travel | Comments Off

Don’t like how a reporter treated you? Tell Google

Posted on August 9, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is allowing newsmakers to comment on stories that appear in Google News. Google says it allows people who are quoted in articles or affiliated with organizations in them to comment, as well as … Continue reading →

Posted in google, journalism, media, newspapers | 3 Comments

Writing news for search engines and blogs

Posted on August 9, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

One of the reasons I love blogging is that it gives me the opportunity to see things at a micro level. I can see patterns and analyze data in a way that I couldn’t in a typical work role. When … Continue reading →