The Hindu revamps its website

As many may have already been aware of 'The Hindu' has finally revamped its website after scaring away many eyeballs from its dilapidated looking online avatar hitherto.

Its new version is in beta trials at http://beta.thehindu.com .

I deliberately avoided being judgmental until I got to used to it for reasons of fairness. And after using it almost everyday I must say that its a must visit for me everyday now.

Unlike before, all the news items are tagged properly and one can, from the header, choose easily what section of the items on could go on to.

The font is Georgia. Something that suits a newpaper of The Hindu's legacy.

There is very limited commercialization. Two square blocks of Google Ad-sense ads in the right sidebar spaced quite apart from each other. Never would they intrude your space. Although it is very good to see such values based commerce I wouldn't mind seeing another block of Ad-sense ads on the post-footer level. We have to wait and see if its advertising policy changes in the future because on the old website they used to have local ads as well on the main page.

One feature I would loved to see is tagging articles by the name of their authors. Like: if I want to read Praveen Swami's articles I would love to be able to click on his name somewhere, at least at his latest article to go directly to a page that would collate pieces written by him.

For the moment that's all I ask for.

Overall its a very good design. Kudos to The Hindu team.