A truly good website is one which apart from offering a variety of comprehensive services also ensures that it keeps changing according to the tastes and preferences of cyber citizens. It is imperative to understand a few basic terms in this context...terms which we hear in daily life, but at the same time those that we are unable to explain when asked by a layman.
Web site - A site (location) on the World Wide Web (a system of internet servers). Each Web site contains a home page, which is the first document users see when they enter the site. The site might also contain additional documents and files. Each site is owned and managed by an individual, company or an organization.
Web portal - A Web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, on-line shopping malls, etc.
Vortal – A Vertical Industry Portal is a portal Web site that provides information and resources for a particular industry. Vortals are the Internet’s way of catering to consumers’ focused-environment preferences. Vortals typically provide news, research and statistics, discussions, newsletters, online tools, and many other services that educate users about a specific industry.
Therefore, websites, in general could either be portals or vortals. Now that we know what exactly we are talking about...lets see where rediff.com fits in.
Founded in 1996, Rediff.com India Ltd., is one of India’s leading Internet, communications and media companies serving Indians globally, both online and offline. Through its online and offline product and service offerings, Rediff.com offers interest specific channels, local language editions, sophisticated search capabilities, online shopping, long distance calling cards and Internet based telephony services. Its news publication, India Abroad, is one of the oldest and largest South Asian weekly newspaper, serving the Indian American community in the United States. The Company also provides users extensive Internet community offerings, all tailored to the interests of Indians worldwide.
The success of a portal, in the long term, depends to a large extent on its ability to offer better value added services to its patrons and rediff.com has been doing just that over the years. The site currently claims to have more than 15 million registered users and this milestone has been achieved within a short span of just 6 years.
The immense popularity of this web site stems from the myriad range of services that it offers to cyber freaks across a whole spectrum of ages, professions and categories. I have been a regular visitor to rediff.com for the last 4 years and make it a point to check out their homepage atleast 3-4 times a day, mainly to catch up with the news headlines.
Since the site offers many services and it would not be possible (nor necessary) for me to cover all of them in this review, i’ll only stick to those which are commonly used by people and more particularly which I have used myself.
News: This is the first thing that catches ones eyes on seeing the rediff homepage...one-line highlights of the latest happenings around the world, be it in politics, finance, sports or anything else. I have personally found their news updates to be very prompt and accurate (which is more important) and it is for this reason that I always turn to rediff to know what’s happening in the world around us.
E-mail service – Though i’m not a registered user of the e-mail service, I have come across of a lot of other people who are, and the feedback has been positive on the whole...the only glitch, I believe is with mails which have attachments (could somebody clarify on this please?)
On-line Shopping – This is a relatively new concept for us Indians because i’m yet to come across more than a handful of Indian websites that offer this service successfully. I think this concept still has some time to pick up in India, considering that we do not buy anything unless and until we get a feel of the product in our hands which is quite justified..after all nothing can be more convincing than checking out the product in person instead buying it after just seeing or reading about it. Another major deterrent here is the hazards associated with giving out credit card numbers while making purchases on the net...remember thieves are thieves whether on the net or off it. However, from what I have seen, customers (whether on Rediff or other on-line shopping sites, have the option of either paying Cash On Delivery (CoD) or directly debiting it from an existing savings bank account (this arrangement is currently available between various websites and select banks like ICICI bank, HDFC Bank, Global Trust Bank, etc.). As an added incentive and in order to give more choice to the customers, rediff also offers to take back the product and refund the price if the customer is not satisfied with it for whatever reason.
Chat – Rediff has by far the largest population of cyber chatters...there was a time when I used to regularly chat at rediff..not anymore though...apart from having outgrown the age of looking out for dates, I find that the chatrooms are too crowded with guys desperate to “patao” girls...Gosh, whatever next? Credit should also be given to rediff for bringing together a lot of couples.. I myself know of a pair (from 2 different parts of the country) which met on rediff chat and are now happily married and have a kid.
Search Engine – Most portals worth their names have search engines but I have found Rediff’s to be quite good as compared to most of them.
Miscellaneous – There are a whole lot of other attractions on Rediff like cool links to insurance sites, health sites, etc. These are quite helpful I providing a lot of information that is not easily available on the net.
If asked, I would rate the success or failure of a particular website on the following parameters and have rated Rediff accordingly on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best and 1, its opposite.
Content (Whether it covers only a few services or offers most that I might be looking for..secondly whether the news is up-to-date or not...) – 5/5
Easy access/availability (Is the site “up” at all times or is it in a prolonged state of hibernation (“down”) most of the time?) Offering too many services on the site but being unable to keep it up and running does not give a very good impression, right? - 5/5
Design and Visual Appeal – (categorisation of the sections, colour/graphics used and their layout and use) – 3/5
Ease of navigation – (time taken to access links and connected articles) – 4/5
Are the password critical services like e-mail and on-line shopping backed up by adequate security ? No comment about this one because I don’t use the e-mail services...as for the online shopping, I placed an order for a T-Shirt on a CoD basis and the deal was satisfactory followed by a call from their customer care reps asking if I was satisfied with the deal..for that alone I would give a rating of 4/5.
My only grouse against the site is with regard to its design and layout..even after being a regular visitor, I find it difficult at times to trace out what exactly I want.
All in all, Rediff comes across as a good (Indian) web site offering good services. I’d give it an overall rating of 4/5.