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PC World - Best Indian Websites 2007 - what a sham

May 14, 2007 · Posted in India Social Networking, India Web 2.0, India portals, comparison, reviews 

biw.jpgLast week PC World India announced the first list of best Indian websites for 2007. I took my time to read through the entire article. Having finished reading the entire story, I cant help but wonder - what a half hearted, lame-ass job they have done at writing the story. For a magazine with their stature and resources, they could have definitely invested more time in researching and taken a more objective, analytical approach.

Following are some of the weaknesses of the PC World ratings approach.

To begin with, they do not define what equates to an Indian website.

Is it a website that caters exclusively to the Indian audience ? Is it a site that needs to have a presence in the Indian market ? Is it a website that has a significant Indian audience ? Without a precise definition, on what basis is a site included as part of the rating process ?

The other big weakness of their approach is that its not objective. If you read the story, you’ll notice that they put a lot of emphasis on the design and usability of the website. I myself am a huge fan of clean design and usability of a site. However, design cant be the primary factor for comparing and evaluating websites. More objective, tangible features need to be considered. A few excerpts from the PC World story below:

It sports a clean and easy-to-use design with a smart color palette to attract the target audience. The dark background of the site enables it to maintain focus on the right areas while infusing a fresh feel to the site.

India Properties has very attractive colors, good layout and informative graphics. The pleasant blue-ish feel of India Property lends itself to a nice surfing experience while the good background picture makes it visually very appealing.

In terms of design, Shaadi.com was the most popular.Fresh, appealing colors, interesting graphics and convenient layout reinforce visual appeal. However, at times, Shaadi’s pages appear to be somewhat cluttered.

The entire story has similar phrases in almost every category. Such observations and feedback about design are subjective - in this case to the jury. Note that it is unknown as to who constitutes the members of the jury. What is the background of the members of the jury ? It could have a direct bearing on statements, similar to the ones above.

Although, I personally agree with some of their results, I do not see eye-to-eye with their approach and reasoning. No factual comparisons, no feature evaluations. The story seems way to amateurish to me. More so, like a cheap publicity stint to drive magazine sales and get the eyeballs. What a big sham !

Update: Now, MonsterIndia is hoping to capitalize on these lousy ratings by issuing press releases such as this one - that they are rated the best job site in India.

Note that I base my observations on the online edition of the story. I dont know if they have a more in-depth article in the print edition.


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4 Responses to “PC World - Best Indian Websites 2007 - what a sham”

  1. Ashish on May 15th, 2007 2:10 pm

    The text isn’t different. They have the occasional screenshot of the site/soundbyte from a member of the jury - and some more content on categories which they did not include - such as classifieds/travel metasearch etc.

  2. pranav on May 15th, 2007 10:32 pm

    ashish - the ratings should work out pretty well for you guys - considering that itasveer topped the photo printing category :-)

    and thanks for the tip above.

  3. Zaid on May 29th, 2007 9:47 pm

    As a design guy, I go after badly designed sites faster than anyone. But there is a difference in judging design for usability versus judging it for sex appeal. PC World writer seems to have gone with the latter.

    -Zaid

  4. haider on May 1st, 2008 12:25 pm

    all the indian computer and tech magz sucks…there are filled with mistakes,errors and junk