Category Archives: newspapers

Journalists, bloggers and parasites

Posted on March 6, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

There’s an interesting discussion at the Online Journalism Review about whether bloggers are parasites: Over the past months, I’ve heard several journalists make the same comment at various industry forums: That blogs are a “parasitic” medium that wouldn’t be able … Continue reading →

Posted in blogs, journalism, media, newspapers | 2 Comments

USA Today goes community crazy

Posted on March 5, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

USA Today got a facelift over the weekend, with heaping doses of community thrown in. The new site allows you to vote stories up, comment on stories and vote on comments. Selected quotes from user comments are displayed on the … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, media, newspapers, web 2, web 2.0 | 1 Comment

Taking newspapers beyond tonight’s fishwrap

Posted on March 4, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

The newspaper business works much like an old-style manufacturing business where stories go from reporters to assigning editors to copy editors to layout editors with the final destination being the next day’s newspaper. A lot of thought and knowledge goes … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, media, newspapers | 9 Comments

Adapting online newspapers to a search/Web 2.0 world

Posted on January 3, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

I’ve written earlier about troubles facing the newspaper industry as well as some ideas for improving online newspapers. Here are a few more ideas. Make sure your pages are crawlable. Most newspaper sites do just fine at this when it … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, newspapers, search, seo, web 2.0 | 10 Comments

McClatchy dumps the Star Tribune

Posted on January 2, 2007 by Rakesh Agrawal

The end of the year is the time that savvy investors dump their losers for the tax write-off. McClatchy did just that, selling off the Star Tribune in Minneapolis for $530 million. McClatchy paid $1.2 billion for it in 1998. … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, newspapers | 1 Comment

Searching for Web talent

Posted on December 16, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

I’m in the process of hiring two Senior Product Managers for AOL Search. The people I hire will be working on two very exciting and truly innovative products that have the potential to significantly improve the way more than 40 … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, aol, newspapers | 2 Comments

Election night’s big winner: the Internet

Posted on November 8, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Election night is a perfect example of one of the best aspects of the Internet: instantaneous delivery of information to widely fragmented audiences. No waiting for the next day to get results from the newspaper. I didn’t even have to … Continue reading →

Posted in elections, media, newspapers, publishing | Comments Off

Spoonfeeding the reporters

Posted on October 28, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

It seems that more and more news stories these days are just the results of what publicists, leakers and political operatives spoonfeed to reporters, with very little investigation. Take the latest salvo in the ugly campaign for Virginia Senate between … Continue reading →

Posted in media, newspapers | 1 Comment

When free costs $687.50

Posted on October 14, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Bank of America made headlines this week when it announced that it was offering free equity trades for customers who put $25,000 in deposit accounts. Customers in the Northeast who put $25,000 in to such accounts get up to 30 … Continue reading →

Posted in media, newspapers, personal finance | Comments Off

Talking back to the media

Posted on October 10, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

I wrote yesterday about the importance of newspapers engaging with their readers. Over the last two days, I’ve had the opportunity to write to two of the leading newspapers. I was pleasantly surprised with the results. I emailed Scott McCartney … Continue reading →

Posted in media, newspapers | Comments Off