Category Archives: email

Communicating amongst friends: how technology changes human relationships

Posted on September 14, 2008 by Rakesh Agrawal

I realized recently that I’ve been communicating with one of my closest friends over IM for more than 10 years. We talk almost daily, several times a day. I have no doubt that we wouldn’t be as close without the … Continue reading →

Posted in email, facebook, flickr, im, instant messaging, social networking, twitter, Uncategorized, web 2, web 2.0 | 2 Comments

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

Facing Facebook spam

Posted on September 20, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

One of the things I love about Facebook is that I don’t get any spam through the system. Sure, I get some friend requests from people I don’t really know and periodically get asked if I want to become a … Continue reading →

Posted in email, facebook, spam | Comments Off on Facing Facebook spam

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

Why we love social networks

Posted on August 11, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

There was a comment in Paul Kedrosky’s blog last month asking about the real value of social networks: Facebook, MySpace, I don’t get it: personalize a webpage template and exchange links, I mean friendships, with people. Since I responded to … Continue reading →

Posted in email, facebook, social networking, web 2, web 2.0 | 1 Comment

The dumbest application you can’t live without

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Email. I use it everyday and I mostly hate it. We’re stuck with a system that was designed decades ago in the kumbaya days of the Internet when most people who were connected to the Internet meant well and getting … Continue reading →

Posted in email, spam | 3 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

Making better ads

Posted on April 26, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

Every week, I get an email from United Airlines telling me about their e-fares for the coming weekend. Almost every week, I ignore this email because the information isn’t relevant to me. This week’s email includes fares from Burbank to … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, email, personalization, travel | 4 Comments

1309 spam messages in 90 minutes

Posted on April 26, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

I got an unpleasant surprise today – an avalanche of spam in 90 minutes. And technically, I was the one sending it. Or at least that’s what the mailservers thought. Our current email system was created in a time when … Continue reading →

Posted in email, spam | Comments Off on 1309 spam messages in 90 minutes

Making Gmail even better

Posted on April 21, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

I’ve been using Gmail for about two years now. For my needs (read: search and wireless), it’s the best email product out there. Paul K. pointed at Better Gmail, a Firefox extension that makes it even better, solving a few … Continue reading →

Posted in email, google | 1 Comment