Our Internet site will be available... intermittently

I have been trying to access the website of FirstandSecond.com, which bills itself as India's biggest bookstore over the last 24 hours. The darn site has been down for "Technical Upgradation." I have never seen a technical upgrade take an online business offline for a whole day. And, they have the chutzpah to suggest "...use this opportunity to take a break from net surfing..." I guess someone forgot to tell them that the reason they want people coming to their site is to buy (and, not just surf) and while their site may be down the rest of the Internet is available (and, that includes that of their competitor(s) like Landmarkonthenet). Imagine Amazon being down for 24hours back in 1995 or 1996. I bet it was unacceptable even then. I guess, even the Internet moves at the slow pace of Indian Stretchable Time.

I am no user experience expert but the quality of the user interface and content on most Indian sites is lamentable. It is as if their "must have" list consists of - scrolling text and flashing images. And, the "nice to haves" are fly-out images and pop-ups/pop-unders. Compare rediff.com with yahoo or msn, it is as if rediff is stuck in 1996. Someone once remarked "...India is an assault on your senses... all senses... all the time." The Indian websites seem to be an assault on your sensibilities when they are up.

Corporate websites of IT services providers seem to be the best of the lot. And, even here, there seems to be a correlation between the quality of the site and the amount of revenues earned from abroad. I am not saying that the site quality is allowing them to generate more revenues. The greater the interactions with firms and people in other geographies the greater the incentive to put something better out.