iTimes user review

The Times Group’s much-talked-about social networking site, which has been in the air for sometime now, finally made an unimpressive landing. I got to know about it after all TOI’s city-specific supplements (Bombay Times, Goa Times, bla bla) carried it as their front page lead. Having being told about a coming ‘renaissance’ in the social networking circuit, I read the article with mild interest. By the end of it, the interest was gone; yet I decided to try it out (for want of something better to do).

First of all, the name. Remember when Hyundai launched the Sonata in India? Everyone said that the company shamelessly borrowed styling cues from bigger marques (front from the Mercedes-Benz C-class and rear from the Jaguar S). The Times Group seems to have done a Hyundai here. The name iTimes seems a direct copy of the 'uber-sophisticated' iTunes brand. And what better way to make your brand ‘cool’ than coloring the letters like Google? That’s the logo for you. Lowercase I (which probably follows from TOI’s genius initiative of replacing the standard first-person pronoun in their Editorial page) followed by a very colorful t.u.n.e.s. With a teeny-weeny Beta written underneath (Read: if something fucks up here, we ain’t responsible for it).

On top of the screen, there’s an option, ‘Make iTimes your homepage’. Hah! I’d rather make George Bush my hero. Also there’s a rolling bar that says ‘most popular profiles’ where some pictures of pretty girls in clichéd dp poses stare at you. Nothing new in that, though. Aren’t you tired of that kind of marketing? I am.

While signing in, the impolite website stubbornly asks you which year you were born in. But that’s the only goof-up there. The rest of the sign-up is smooth. It will send you a verification mail. Click, click, click, then you’re in.

Once in, I was dismayed at the goofiness of it all. Absolute clutter. Tabs, menus and options. To the right, there’s a ‘make new friends’ menu, and another called ‘browse profiles’ (The two names flashing there were Wafa Haji and Lavanya Ball) . Of course, all these prospective friends are women, as usual. Why, though? What if I’m gay?

To the left, there’s a ‘Buzzmeter’ box, which wonders why some SHWETA chick is getting so many views for her profile. Then there’s a tab called ‘Your day’, which contains your horoscope and the weather. iTunes says I should be expecting a high of 23 degrees and low of 8 degrees. Sigh. I wish. I so wish.

Then the horoscope tab. This one was good, since it was the first time I’d seen a website-specific horrorscope. “Don't worry about whether or not you're seeing everything as it really is -- the world is full of veils and illusions today. If you can enjoy the show, that's probably as good as it's going to get.” Veils and illusions indeed.

To the right of the screen, there’s a ‘celeb’s profile’ tab. Of the first four celebs that flashed, I hadn’t heard of any, so no point wasting time there.

In the edit profile tab, nothing new. Just copied attributes from Orkut/Facebook, etc. The favourites tab gets a bit ridiculous though. It asks you for your favourite everything, from possessions to swear words. Blah.

Nothing more in the site worth mentioning. Of course, there are blogs, feeds, messages, videos, etc whatever Facebook, Orkut and Hi5 already have. Ok, one interesting feature. When you scroll right to the bottom, there’s an option that says ‘go to top’. Hah! Now that’s innovation. Facebook didn’t think of that.

Ok, so that’s iTimes for you. Of course, I didn’t have the patience to check out every available feature. There are too many of them, but nothing original. Almost as if the iTimes team didn't know where to stop.

So, a final review wrapup, from a user’s point of view: Overall a neat site, but that’s about it. Nothing new, nothing innovative (apart from that button at the bottom, of course). Certainly not for you if you’re used to Facebook and the like. If you’re the kind that sends out franship requests to random people and stuff like I want to make the franship with the you will you please the be my cool friend, you’ve found what you’re looking for. It’s got precisely that kind of ambience.

One thing’s still worrying me though. I’m yet to figure out how to get out of the site for good.

Go iTimes. A genetically-modified apple a day keeps your sanity away.