Changed outlook

INTERNET: Rediffmail has benefited by what can only be termed as a late mover's advantage.

Rediffmail has had a complete makeover. With as many as 10 new changes being introduced, the company has tried to renew its earlier claim of being the fastest e-mail service provider. Critics and users claim it was long due.

The company however has benefited in more ways than one by what can only be called as late mover's advantage. By moving late the company has had the time to pick and choose the best offerings of other service providers and incorporate them. However to its credit, Rediffmail does have some interesting new offerings.

The best of all its changes is the new interface. It's new interface is styled exactly like Outlook Express. Yes, you can just scroll up and down through different e-mails in your inbox by merely hitting the navigation keys on your keyboard.

Also you can read the e-mails without having the page to re-load each time. Says, Manish Agarwal, vice-president marketing, rediff.com, "There was a clear comment from consumers that they want to see new messages and their inbox at the same time. Hence we have adopted this design."

But why so many changes? He says: "When we launched we kept it simple and focused on being fast. But times have changed, and given the new superior infrastructure just being fast is not a relevant enough platform. But that doesn't mean that rediff.com is dumping its fast image, as Agarwal hastily adds, "The consumer still hates to see an hour-glass or a page-loading sign, hence we have tried to make all our services work very fast."

The company has also launched an advertising campaign. Recycling an earlier ad launched in 2001, the company again makes a claim to be lightning fast. Also not wanting to force itself on consumers, the company has left the choice of interface to its users. Both interfaces old and new are available to consumers.

The new Rediffmail also lets you write your e-mails in 11 Indian languages. While translation to other languages may be slightly old, what's interesting is that to translate to Hindi you only need to type the Hindi word in the English typepad.

This means, you can type 'Yeh kya ho raha hai' using English alphabets on your typepad and the sentence will automatically appear in Hindi.

While there are some more changes, these are mostly taken from competition. For instance, the search mail option or the auto address completion have been incorporated in its new e-mail interface.

While, Outlook's borrowed interface makes it simpler and faster to use, will consumers like to use the plain vanilla look remains to be seen.