Category Archives: aol

Why big tech companies often fail

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Rakesh Agrawal

AOL closed an awful week with market cap of $1.26 billion. In December 2005, Google had invested $1 billion for 5% of AOL, giving the company an implied valuation of $20 billion. In less than 6 years, AOL has lost … Continue reading →

Posted in aol | 1 Comment

Bing, Yahoo! try to capitalize on Google’s Michael Jackson traffic surge

Posted on June 30, 2009 by Rakesh Agrawal

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 →

Posted in advertising, aol, bing, google, search, yahoo | 1 Comment

Microsoft yodels for Yahoo!

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Rakesh Agrawal

The announced Microsoft bid for Yahoo! means a lot of different things for lots of people. An emboldened competitor for Google. A stronger ad network for advertisers. Heightened acquisition hopes for AOL. Better benefits for Yahoo! employees. (Microsoft has the … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, google, iphone, microsoft, mobile, mobile search, social networking, wireless, wireless data, yahoo | Comments Off on Microsoft yodels for Yahoo!

Google Chat and AIM, together at last + free SMS

Posted on December 5, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Google has integrated AIM into its chat in Gmail, delivering what Google and AOL announced nearly two years ago when they renewed their search deal and Google invested $1 billion in AOL. The integration is not true interoperability, like what … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, google, im, instant messaging, sms, wireless | 6 Comments

The quest for buried treasure in mapping

Posted on October 18, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

I wrote the other day about MapQuest’s new beta launch and how they’ve so far missed the mark on mapping innovations that have occurred in the last two years. Maps can serve many purposes. Finding a business or a place … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, geotagging, google, maps, yahoo | Comments Off on The quest for buried treasure in mapping

Bringing email into the 21st century

Posted on September 14, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

John McKinley, former AOL CTO and now VC, asks “Who will be the first major (Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/AOL) to break ranks and apply a fundamentally new metaphor to email?” There’s been a proliferation in ways to communicate — IM, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, email, facebook, google, microsoft, social networking, yahoo | Comments Off on Bringing email into the 21st century

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

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 on AOL launches improved mobile search

AOL launches new search product

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

AOL launched a new version of AOL Search today. Disclosure: I work at AOL Search. (But not on this product.)

Posted in aol, google, search | 6 Comments

Fighting spam with picture e-mail ID

Posted on May 2, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

It’s time to turn the daily fight with spam on its head. Mail services should try to identify the mail I should pay attention to, instead of trying to just identify the junk. One way to do this is to … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, email, google, spam | 2 Comments