Category Archives: web 2.0

Getting viewers to create your content

Posted on October 12, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Few TV shows have embraced the Internet as broadly as The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Last night was the conclusion of Colbert’s Green Screen Challenge. For the recurring segment, Colbert made a clip of him wielding a light saber … Continue reading →

Posted in media, video, web 2, web 2.0, YouTube | 29 Comments

Following local search to nowhere

Posted on October 10, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

One of the big frustrations I have with local search is that the data is often old. With many sites, the information can be 18 months old. More than once I’ve driven to businesses that were no longer in business. … Continue reading →

Posted in city guides, google, local search, web 2.0, yellow pages | Comments Off

Public transit and online maps

Posted on October 2, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Google Labs has expanded its transit planner service to include Eugene, Ore., Honolulu, Hi., Pittsburgh, Pa., Seattle, Wash. and Tampa, Fla. The service started last year in Portland, Ore. This slick service integrates with Google Maps and lets you plan … Continue reading →

Posted in google, local search, maps, microsoft, transit, web 2, web 2.0 | 3 Comments

MapQuest introduces draggable maps

Posted on September 29, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

MapQuest introduced their take on draggable maps. The maps themselves are nicer than Microsoft’s and Yahoo’s, but not at the same level as Google’s, both in terms of appearance and performance. One big disappointment: If you do a search using … Continue reading →

Posted in aol, maps, microsoft, web 2, web 2.0, yahoo | Comments Off

Plaxo’s elegant bounce management

Posted on September 26, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

I use Plaxo (not to be confused with Paxil) to manage many of my contacts. It’s an online address book that can automatically sync with many PC-based address books. One of the features is the ability to send your contacts … Continue reading →

Posted in contacts, email, web 2.0 | Comments Off

Geotagging the world with Flickr

Posted on August 29, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

At long last, Flickr has released a geotagging interface. Geo tagging is the process of applying longitude and latitude data to assets – in Flickr’s case, to images. Why would you want to do this? It’s easiest to explain with … Continue reading →

Posted in flickr, geotagging, google, gps, local search, maps, mashups, web 2, web 2.0, yahoo | 3 Comments

Google adds saved locations to maps – a first step

Posted on August 8, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

In letting users redraw the map, I talked about letting users save personal points of interest. Google recently added saved locations to its mapping product to let people enter requests such as “pizza near home”. The interface is a little … Continue reading →

Posted in google, local search, maps, mashups, web 2.0 | Comments Off

Comedy Central vs. YouTube

Posted on August 1, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

Last night, the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert’s satire of Bill O’Reilly, aired a hilarious segment about Wikipedia and what Colbert termed “Wikiality”. It was so funny, I wanted to share it with some friends. I went to Comedy Central’s Web … Continue reading →

Posted in video, web 2, web 2.0, wikipedia, YouTube | 3 Comments

Personal mashups – letting users re-draw the map

Posted on July 31, 2006 by Rakesh Agrawal

The Google Maps API has been a runaway success, allowing developers around the world to create mashups marrying Google maps with data on a variety of topics, including craigslist real estate, taco trucks in seattle, flickr pictures, cellphone reception and … Continue reading →