Mar 05, 2001 12:44 PM
9779 Views
So where are the points to criticize in a good portal. I have complained and yelled about dumb portals such as Baazee.com and Indiatimes.com which survive on media hype and money power. I have written about nonsense portal such as hungama.com which is surviving on PR hype. So I am looking for a portal that doesn't have all this, and is still successful. My quest brings me to rediff.com
What's rediff:
Rediff was a small news magazine when Internet started in India. CEO of MouthShut.com, your profile says that you have been active with Internet development since 1993. Do you know rediff in it's early days? It was called rediff on the net!
Ajit Balakrishnan is a smart guy. He had an ad-agency called redifussion which had an online division called rediffonthenet.com
Rediffussion got investors to invest and in 1997 they launched a full fledge portal.
Why I like rediff?
It's complete. They have most of the sections available in a general portal such as Yahoo. They have news. They have sports and they have depth. Once I watched an ad from TV 18 which said Content is King. I think Content is not king, cash is king but rediff has both!
Unlike Indiatimes.com which is the WORST PORTAL created on the Internet, rediff.com does not survive on hype. Rediff.com uses it's ad money wisely. It does'nt buy front page of times of india, nor does it make every feature it launches, into a news. Times of India has been badly used by Indiatimes Rediff doesn't own Times, but still gets it's message across.
Rediff's email is extremely fast...atleast in India. Rediff.com is overall very fast. It shows technical stability and concern.
Indiatimes is such a looser that it prints front page times of india news, even if it launches something as trivial as a new category...oh am drifting...this review is of rediff.com not Indiatimes. Sorry.
Somethings that I don't like about rediff.com
They have net guide..which is basically best sites in each category..this is useful, but I don't know how they pick up such sites..
Rediff.com has some stupid editors, such as Nidhi Taparia, who writes good articles on general 'net surfing. But she shows how sex-deprived and hungry she is...cause all her articles have something to do with pornography, lust, vouyerism, Mr. Balakrishnan, can you please ask her to surf some good sites, please!
Overall rediff.com customer service is good. I don't know why they don't have ABOUT REDIFF section. They are not transparent about their organization and structure. They don't have privacy policy nor do their TOS serve any purpose? Who is their lawyer? Mouthshut.com can you suggest your lawyer to rediff.com You guys have the best TOS and Privacy policy, including your ABOUT MOUTHSHUT.
I have'nt checked much about rediff's response to member queries...let me know those who r reading this. Rediff.com does'nt manipulate it's page views numbers, and have some pretty good tie-ups. One thing I would suggest rediff is to acquire some good portals, because you are now reaching saturation.
Keep it up and please continue improving.
