Swift Performance. Review on Shopping.Rediff

Rediff.com is one of the best general portals on the World Wide Web. Its incredible speed and the variety of content and services make Rediff indispensable.

Rediff is like a big shopping mall, where we get many things under one roof.

Rediff, a favorite with Indian surfers has been around for quite some time now. Earlier it was called ‘Rediff on the net’, and then it was launched as Rediff.com in 1996. It has kept the consistency in terms of speed, appearance and quality over the years, surviving aggressive competitors, and the dotcoms bubble burst. It has attracted a large pool of loyal surfers.

Key features of Rediff.com-

1)Home

The portal has a well-designed homepage. Navigation is simple and the appearance is decent. The page gets loaded very quickly.(10/10)

2)E-Mail

Rediffmail speed is great in India.Recently, they have introduced ‘Rediff on mobile’. Subscribers can receive rediffmail on their mobiles, for a fee.

Yahoo provides more attractive facilities than rediffmail. Also, the pop-up window in rediffmail is very irritating. Still, Rediff is useful due its speed.(7/10)

3)Search

The portal has a fast and reliable search engine. If you are looking for India-centric information, Rediff search is more likely to produce the required results.(8/10)

4)News

The news section is placed in the center. You are not likely to miss the headlines if you are on Rediff.com. It’s a good place to get latest national and international news. They cover the financial news very well.

One problem is that the focus on trivial stuff like cricket and movies is increasing. Imagine seeing four headlines in a row about a cricket player’s 30th birthday celebrations, or reading everyday about a bollywood starlet. Give us a break!(7/10)

5)Rediff Bol Messenger

Rediff has its own Instant Messenger .You need a rediffmail ID for that. What I like the most about this messenger is its name- ‘Bol’! It’s a perfect name for a messenger. Rediff Bol has some nice features like offline messages, a search window, mail alerts, quick entry into Rediff chatrooms,etc.

But Yahoo Messenger scores over it due to its web cam and voice chat facility, speed, reliability, finer interface, etc.(6/10)

6)Channels

They have channels for jobs, technology, health, contests, education- you name it! This is possible due to their association with other websites like monster.com,batchmates.com etc.(9/10)

7)Rediff chat

It’s a popular chat site. You have chat-options like Java, Java lite or HTML and there are many chat rooms. Server can be slow (and sometimes down) if the traffic is heavy. (7/10)

8)Rediff Guide to the net

This section carries information, and links for specific topics. For avid surfers who are always looking for new sites, the ‘Site Tours’section is useful. (10/10)

9)Columns

This is probably the weakest link in Rediff.com. The columns are often controversial, misleading and distorted. They need to hire better columnists. (4/10)

10)Blogs

This is one of the latest offerings by Rediff. Blogs are online journals maintained by users. Rediff is one of the few (perhaps only) Indian portals to offer this latest fad of the cyber world. (8/10)

11) Shopping

They sell everything from t-shirts to cameras. Yet, I cannot comment on this feature, as I haven’t used it.

12)Regional content- Apna Rediffnow gives news in Hindi and Gujrati languages. It is a good attempt. (10/10)

13)Users Interaction

Chat, blogs and matchmaker services, allow the users to interact with each other. They also give readers a chance to comment on their news articles and columns. These comments are displayed only after prior approval by Rediff authorities. But, they do allow the comments that criticize their articles in a very harsh tone.

That’s good, isn’t it? (8/10)

14)Customer support

I had to use their customer support only once. There was some problem regarding my rediffmail account. I sent them a mail, I received an immediate reply from them, and that email contained the solution to my problem. So, obviously, I have a good opinion about their support system. (10/10)

Thus, the average rating is 8/10. In spite of its flaws, ‘Rediff’means a quality surfing experience for the Indian surfer.