With the heatwave on in many parts of the country and rains drowning the rest, my somnolent sense is getting restive. I mean, how much of browsing can a man do in a day’s work. Also with no money to do online shopping ( it IS the 26th of the month), all that I can do is to only keep going to each online site and see what is happening – new deals that I will miss, new destinations that I will not travel to and new cuisines that I will not partake.. Like I said, I am getting a trifle restive.

This led me to take a clinical look at the some of the more well known websites and apps, just to see the kind of user experience that they were providing.. which proved to be too much fun, and frustrating. Fun, because, some of the stuff that I experienced was really funny, like dancing web pages etc and frustrating because, sometimes, I didn’t even know what the portal was all about. And these are reasonably well known destinations. Having spent some time, there, I decided that this is a good time to give away the (un) official web and app awards to some of the sites that excel in one category or the other. So here goes:

1. Where is the News Award: www.indiatimes.com

The home page opens to three ads (2 sidebars and I banner) followed by a featured story on how Sweden is revolutionizing renewable energy. Not that I have anything against either Sweden or renewable energy but NEWS? Nyet, nada, Nahiiiiin! I click on the News tab and my eye hits on editor’s picks, and I say ‘aha’. However, the first item is: http://www.indiatimes.com/play/rio-olympics/spectator-stray-dog-joins-bengaluru-marathon-bites-runner-and-costs-him-the-race-255290.html. Again, not exactly, my kind of news. Again nothing against stray dogs or marathon (my sympathies with the runner who was bitten), but news of national importance, possibly not!

2. PM is not the only News award: www.newsx.com

There was a time in the mid-70s during the emergency, Doordarshan newsreader Salma Sultan used to start her everyday news (yes, everyday) with ‘Aaj pradhan mantra Shrimati Indira Gandhi ne kaha (today Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said)”. Every day for those 2 years. NewsX is following this glorious tradition. Of the top 10 stories, 3 are about the Prime Minister, all of them in the Top 5. I mean, I respect my PM as much as the next man, but 3 out of 5 stories? Naaah.

Dancing page Award: Once again to www.indiatimes.com:

Click on any news story and watch the fun.. the page keeps moving up and down and you are struggling to read the news. Suddenly, a banner ad for a shoe shows up at the bottom and then the page kicks again to your news item. When you are halfway in the story, again the page kicks down and some other story appears only to vanish as suddenly and your original story reappears. Now you don’t know where you stopped. No matter, you have a headache.

Where are the comments award: www.indiatoday.indiatoday.in:

Read the story and you can figure out what other readers have commented, coz, it doesn’t exist, at least on the same page. There are some emoticons asking you to rate, presumably ranging from ‘like’ to ‘dislike’, and a few in between. The other question that I have is why should I log in to see what the others are saying. I can understand if you want me to log-in to comment, but just to read the other comments – jee nahin!

And Finally,

The filthiest forum award: www.firstpost.com.

By a mile, the forum has to be not only the filthiest, but also the most slanderous, foul-mouthed and bordering on libel. Most of the comments refer to the body parts of the person who is commenting, or those of the newsmakers or even of the writers. Hindi abuses and English counterparts number more than the number of other parliamentary (sic) words. Any comment is reacted to by invoking various sexual activities of the commentor with members of his family, animals etc.. It is clear that there is no moderator in any of the forums on firstpost. Most likely if questioned, they will hide under the ‘freedom of the fourth estate’ argument.

Pl feel free to create more such awards for our thriving online purveyors

Next week: Awards for the ecom sites

Subu

Disclaimer: The views are personal

Tags : Web Awards