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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Category Archives: newspapers
Wall Street and the incredible shrinking newspaper industry
A friend asked me today “Does one Bear Stearns bailout equal the entire newspaper industry?” I decided to find out. Although there isn’t a clear answer, I was surprised by how small the newspaper industry is. Here are the market … Continue reading
Posted in google, journalism, media, microsoft, newspapers, yahoo
4 Comments
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
Old gnews is bad gnews for United Airlines
An amusing story today about a cascade of errors. Amusing, that is, if you weren’t a United Airlines shareholder. United’s stock plummeted more than 75% in Monday’s trading after an erroneous report on the company’s bankruptcy. The report came from … Continue reading
Posted in google, journalism, media, newspapers
Comments Off on Old gnews is bad gnews for United Airlines
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
Taking the “dead” out of the dead tree media
Last week we saw that Steve Jobs died. The week before, we learned that Barack Obama chose Chet Edwards to be his running mate. Both were the results of slips by news organizations. Bloomberg prematurely put Jobs’ obituary across the … Continue reading
Posted in journalism, media, newspapers, wikipedia
2 Comments
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
I’ve long advocated that news organizations geotag the news. But I’ve been skeptical of automated systems for doing this. Google News recently provided a terrific example of what can happen when you use entity extraction for such a task: In … Continue reading
Posted in geotagging, google, journalism, local search, maps, media, newspapers, web 2.0
4 Comments
All the news that’s fit to tweet
Local, local, local. It’s the new mantra for news. I was reminded of this last week after the train I was riding in struck a pedestrian. The event was insignificant to all but a few hundred, maybe a couple of … Continue reading
Posted in journalism, media, newspapers, social networking, twitter, web 2, web 2.0
3 Comments
Copy editors going the way of the dodo
Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten has a hilarious piece making the case for copy editors, who are rapidly becoming an endangered species in newsrooms across the country. Here’s how newsrooms have typically worked: A reporter writes a story. Presumably, they … Continue reading
Posted in journalism, media, newspapers
4 Comments
The first first draft of history
In journalism school, you’re taught that newspapers are the first draft of history. Today it’s common for news outlets to scoop themselves on their Web sites. But even that may not be fast enough when news breaks. Lost Remote reports … Continue reading
Posted in flickr, journalism, media, newspapers, television, twitter, wikipedia
2 Comments
More Americans get their news from… Facebook?
I found out about Tim Russert’s death today through Facebook. One of my friends had updated his status to say he was “shocked by Tim Russert’s death.” I glanced over at my Google Talk contacts and noticed that two other … Continue reading
Posted in facebook, im, instant messaging, journalism, media, newspapers, publishing, social networking, twitter, web 2, web 2.0
3 Comments
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