During my regular browsing on Rediff, I found their newly launched messenger available for download, which is still in the beta stage. I registered a new account with rediff and successfully logged in after downloading their software(4.5 MB)
The first impression of it was rather meek. After using MSN messenger for a couple of years I was looking out for a cool interface. It wasnt to be. The idea of using bright colours like pink, orange and purple for the ’’sign in’’ window was in bad taste. Regular MSN users will tell you exactly why.
MSN uses white, light blue along with some dark shades of blue but Rediff on the other hand decided to go with brighter shades which are not quite soothing to the eye during long sessions of chat. And when it comes to the chat rooms, the whole interface looks like a hush-hushly done java applet rather than a sophisticated one with some new unknown features. It doesnt impress chatting in those windows.
Yahoo by far has the best interface when it comes to chat rooms. Rediff Bol does have some new features like ’’images’’. I tell you what the idea of having it is the mother of all goof-ups till now. These images can be inserted into a chat window while regular sessions, similar to emotions or emoticons. These images are much bigger in size compared to Yahoo or MSN and are poorly designed. Once you are in a chat room, you can send private messages to current members in the room, similar to yahoo. Its anybody’s guess that this system lacks sophistication too. The PM window looked so pathetic that I shied away from testing it!
Rediff has always been my favourite site mainly for its latest news feeds & monthly specials in which they are the best by far! But trying to crouch into such complicated areas without getting a good team of developers will leave a bad impression on the new users of the site. The messenger also has some bugs and unnecessary requirements before entering the chat rooms like ’’Nick Name’’ and other selections. All these should be done at a much earlier stage i.e while logging in. I hope the final product has no similarities to this one.