Google and Facebook won’t be AOL.

Rakesh Agrawal

The Washington Post | May 15, 2015

Why Google and Facebook won’t suffer the same fate as AOL

I write for The Washington Post on why Google and Facebook won’t suffer the fate of AOL.

With Verizon finally putting an end to the misery of AOL’s decade and a half long decline, some are wondering whether today’s juggernauts — Facebook and Google — will face the same fate. The answer is unequivocal: No.

To understand why, it’s helpful to look at why AOL went from being the No. 1 Internet provider in the country to a has-been outpaced by companies such as Facebook and Google. Facebook is worth more than 50 times the acquisition price for AOL. Google nearly 100 times.

Lists should be presented in an easy-to-understand order

Rakesh Agrawal

How could this experience be improved?

Notifications.
Notifications screen in iOS.

This is so bizarre that I can’t believe Apple missed it. The notification settings screen is in no discernbile order.

If you want to turn off or change notifications, you have to scroll through the list until you find what you’re looking for.

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Localization should be personalized

Rakesh Agrawal

How could this Uber experience be improved?

Uber dialog

The text in the dialog here is in Spanish. It’s of no use to me, who speaks only English. Uber knows my language preference because I use it primarily in the United States to get cars in the United Statest.

It’s extra frustrating because the prominence implies that it is imporant.

Messages like this should (ideally) be translated into the language of the user.

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Finally, proposed protections on prepaid banking products

Chuck Marshall

In November, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published proposed regulations seeking to protect consumers in a market that has mostly been ignored: prepaid banking products.

The prepaid product market has grown from a $1 billion business in 2003 to an estimated $100 billion in 2014, with no signs of slowing. About 8 percent of all U.S. households use prepaid card and accounts, representing the growing number of people without bank accounts. Typically, prepaid accounts provide a way to pay bills electronically or purchase items online for those without credit or debit cards.

What exactly are prepaid banking products? Mostly preloaded and reloadable debit cards, but the proposed regulations extend beyond any plastic in your wallet. The CFPB also seeks to regulate electronic code or any device designed to store prepaid funds or capable of being loaded with funds. That means the regulation would cover not only physical prepaid cards such as those issued by employers to pay wages or those provided to pay government benefits (such as unemployment), but also electronic wallets such as PayPal, Google Wallet or Venmo.

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redesign | transport: Uber’s transportation revolution is part of something much bigger

Rakesh Agrawal

Uber has revolutionized urban transportation in the past two years. The change, so far, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Uber and other alternative transportation providers such as DriveNow, car2go and more than a dozen bike-sharing services will combine with public transportation to completely reinvent the urban core.

Among the changes we can expect in urban cores:

  • Less congestion.
  • Fewer people circling for parking.
  • Parking lots becoming much less valuable, and the spaces being put toward more valuable uses.

car2go is a service that allows one-way car rentals within a city. Instead of having to return a car where you found it, which is the case with Zipcar, you return it to a designated zone and metered parking is included. At 41 cents a minute, the cost is often competitive with public transportation. In the United States, car2go operates in Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Diego, Denver, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and a few other cities. It doesn’t operate in San Francisco because of the city’s refusal to grant the company the necessary permits.

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Target’s new in-store tablets miss the bullseye

vmarks

Target has a history of trying to keep their stores fresh, with user experiences and industrial design that is cohesive and friendly. They don’t always succeed, but the latest changes have been interesting, as Target upgrades their in-store price check experience. It’s important to focus on delivering the features people need, and not more.

One area where Target is trying to improve the user experience is the price check scanners that are placed around the stores, usually at the end of aisles, next to a red phone.

Target is no stranger to technology. They use iPod touch in custom cases with barcode scanners built in to manage inventory and print tags for the shelf with a wirelessly paired printer.

iPod touch with scanner
iPod touch with scanner
Wireless label printer
Wireless label printer

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redesign | travel: Amex tries to reinvent the airport lounge

robpegoraro

The phrase “airport lounge” can mean very different things, depending on what country’s flag flies at the airport in question.

Centurion Lounge SFO entranceIn Europe and Asia, many lounges are indulgent retreats with hot food and complimentary top-shelf wine, beer and booze. In the United States, they generally stop at free snacks and rail drinks — but anybody can buy a membership, instead of that privilege being reserved for premium-cabin and exceptionally frequent flyers.

American Express’s small network of Centurion Lounges (Las Vegas, Dallas-Fort Worth, LaGuardia and San Francisco, with Miami coming this spring) aim to bridge that gap. They offer the cuisine and cocktails of a lounge you might find at Heathrow or Frankfurt at roughly the price of an American Airlines Admirals Club, Delta Sky Club, or United Club membership — with an Amex Platinum card included.

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redesign | journalism: Why the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a terrible metric

Rakesh Agrawal

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It’s the number that we hear about the most when journalists talk about the economy: the Dow. What is the Dow exactly? It’s a basket of 30 stocks. The full name, which we rarely hear, is the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It reflects 30 companies, which are supposed to be representative of the economy.

Today, these 30 stocks are hardly representative of the economy. Only recently was Apple added to the Dow. Apple is so big that its market capitalization exceeds that of the eight lowest value Dow companies combined. Service businesses have become so big that only eight of the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are actually industrial companies.

It’s great marketing for Dow Jones & Co. (now owned by News Corp., which also owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal).

A better, broader metric of the economy is the S&P 500.

There’s another, more important, reason why journalists should focus on Standard & Poor’s 500: Its performance directly affects the well-being of many Americans. A lot of us invest (through retirement plans) in index funds that seek to replicate the performance of the S&P 500.

The Dow gets more glory, but the S&P 500 is what matters.
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redesign | legal: Corporations have the right to strip consumers of their rights. Sound fair to you?

Chuck Marshall

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Nearly four years ago, in a case called AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion¸ the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 preempts any state law that prohibits a contract from barring class-wide arbitration. That dense bit of legalese essentially means that any corporation can take away your right to sue them in court, and instead force arbitration of your dispute. Not only that, but you can only arbitrate the dispute as to your claim alone — you cannot include any other people who may have been harmed by the same conduct.

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