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
- 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
- Rakesh’s travel secrets for your holiday travels
- Favorite things, day 2: credit cards
- Favorite things, day 3: Hawaii
Top Posts
- A look at Groupon's extremely lopsided merchant agreement
- A phone that could only come from Apple
- Flickr places provides a wide-angle view of the world
- Anyone can be a journalist
- LivingSocial merchant agreement
- Think Groupon is a technology company? Think again.
- Investing in Groupon is like investing in a leaky bucket
- Yelp advertiser agreement
- Earth Day and assholes
- 'Tellme about your new gig'
June 2023 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 Meta
Pages
Category Archives: advertising
How small businesses should use Yelp
Although I’ve strongly criticized Yelp‘s business model in recent weeks, Yelp is an incredibly important platform for small businesses to be aware of and engage with. And unlike Groupon, which has almost no redeeming value, Yelp has created a valuable consumer … Continue reading
Posted in advertising, local search, yellow pages, yelp
4 Comments
Virgin America knows how to make daily deals work
I admit it. I am in the bag for Virgin America. I have been since before they took off. (Literally.) I once live tweeted a flight to San Diego using their in-flight WiFi. Savvy travelers will recognize that the picture … Continue reading
Posted in advertising, airlines, groupon, local search
4 Comments
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
Bing, Yahoo! try to capitalize on Google’s Michael Jackson traffic surge
Seen over the weekend: ads for bing and Yahoo! on Google search results for “Michael Jackson”. The bing ad led to bing’s xRank page for Michael Jackson. The Yahoo! ad bizarrely led to a Yahoo! shopping results page for Michael … Continue reading
Ads that work: CapitalOne Card Lab on flickr
There’s so much ad clutter out there that it’s rare to see an ad that really hits the nail on the head. Here’s one that jumped out at me: an ad for CapitalOne’s Card Lab. CapitalOne lets you customize many … Continue reading
Posted in adsthatwork, advertising
Comments Off on Ads that work: CapitalOne Card Lab on flickr
Slice, dice, repackage and resell
The newspaper business has missed out on a lot of opportunities over the years. Here’s one they shouldn’t miss: repackaging content for niches. Most major markets have an industry specialization or two. In Detroit it’s the auto industry. Minneapolis has … Continue reading
Posted in advertising, journalism, media, newspapers
Comments Off on Slice, dice, repackage and resell
Your customers are Twits
Last year, I blogged about how local businesses could use Twitter to reach their customers. In that hypothetical example, a street vendor would let regulars know whether he was working or not. A number of large companies, including Zappos, Comcast … Continue reading
Posted in advertising, customer service, lbs, local search, marketing, social networking, twitter
4 Comments
Why don’t local businesses use the Internet?
Back in the mid 90s, I frequented The Weinery, a total dive of a hot dog place in the Cedar/Riverside area of Minneapolis. Jerry, the then owner, collected email addresses and would occasionally send out specials. Say the password when … Continue reading
Posted in advertising, lbs, local search, marketing, newspapers, yellow pages
9 Comments