E-Tabloid and failed portal. Review on Shopping.Rediff

Why do we go to a portal? To save time, to see diverse information in one place, instead of hunting around in multiple locations. Atleast that is my definition of a portal.

I used to be a fan of Rediff in its earlier avatar. So it is painful to see the current condition of this site.

Except for the Business segment, all other areas are in tatters. Let us do a point by point analysis of this.

Sports:

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Where earlier we had insightful articles on sport, we have rumour-mongering and absurd analysis. Prem Panicker seems to have taken a sabbatical. Once in a while, we have some good reports on English and European football. But that is about it. It almost feels like Sports is an afterthought for Rediff these days

I look to ndtv.com, cricinfo.com or bbc.co.uk for my daily dose of news

Movies:

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Now where do I begin. While there have been the odd decent and thoughtful review, the majority of the reviews are pathetic. Where else do you have a reviewer disclosing intimate details of the story as part of what is ostensibly a 'professional review'. I have stopped looking at the movie reviews coz in most of the cases the review acts more like a condensed movie script.

It also does not help that reviews of movies from the Yash Chopra clan/ Karan Johar (which exclusively means a shah Rukh Khan movie) are totally biased.

Also the tabloid nature of the articles here, mean that I cannot open them at work or at home in front of my family.

I have stopped reading movies from this site. I now stick to rottentomatoes.com and mouthshut.com

News:

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Nothing New about the News here. Rediff indulges in sensationalism. Headlines often have no relation to the story content and are there purely to attract more hits. There is also the undermoderated comments section where vitriolic writers have a field. I understand that Rediff has little or no control on the comments posted in public, but some of the blame has to be laid the story content too.

I stick to ndtv.com or samachar.com to get a fairer cross-section of news.

Business:

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Thank god for something sensible. This is a relatively saner section on the portal. Most of the articles here are of higher standards and are very useful bot h to the general public and to specialists.

Headlines:

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Tabloids typically start their day with "Hundreds of buffaloes killed near temple. Fear spreads in <>". Within an hour this headline would be toned down to "1 Buffalo far*ed twice this morning. Could be snake poison from Pakistan say <>."

I am joking when I say that most of rediff's news headlines sound just like this. We seem to be turning into a nation of junk-news lovers. But still institutions like Rediff which were famous for their bold reporting, have a responsibility to tell the truth, not twist and distort facts to their choice.

Take the Bob Woolmer death or the Abhishwarya wedding coverage. In the first case, rediff seems to have more information(absurd as always) than the Jamaican police. And in the second, Rediff clearly do not have an insider access, but they have been straining to quiz everyone from the 7th cousin to the nanny who washed Aishwarya's clothes.

What a fall!!!!

Mail:

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Lets you type in regional dialects, but not worth the trouble for me.

Shopping:

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NEVER go there. As the many horror stories on this website tell you, shopping on Rediff is a game of Russian Roulette, with you being the only player. You will get scrwd. I have had the misfortune of buying something here and believe you me, I am not doing it again. Stick to ebay.in.

General:

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How many popups will you have on the screen? Its irritating to have to close each of them one by one. At work, I cannot install a popup blocker and its a pain.

The screen loads fast but what are all those yucky flash adverts doing on the main page...

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All in all, with the current shape that Rediff is in, I would rather avoid it altogether if it were not for the Business section which is holding up the flag. But Rediff as a portal has failed me completely.