This could be Rediff.com‘s biggest launch in the last few years. To be precise, the biggest after the 2000 dotcom bust. I am talking about Rediff’s relaunch of its email service which matches – or even outclasses other email service providers in some of the features if not all. I met Manish Agarwal, Vice President, Marketing, Rediff India Ltd. He was in Delhi to promote Rediffmail. Agarwal, a coder-turned-IIM graduate and a former executive with Hindustan Lever, is pushing his latest offering as a soap or shampoo. Rediff has launched one of its most expensive camapigns in the recent times to push email. The catchy TV commercial is running in some 15 TV networks. Says Agarwal, “We treat email as an FMCG product. So our launch campaign is as good as any brand launch by Hindustan Lever or P&G.”
The new Rediffmail has most of the features of Outlook Express. It uses Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technology. The users can move emails to folders by dragging and dropping the emails. It can be composed in 11 Indian languages (Sify Mail also is available in 11 Indian languages). It offers up to 1 GB of storage space with attachment size up to 10 MB (but Gmail gives 2.5 GB space away fro free). Rediff also offers auto address completion feature. There is instant mail preview for viewing mail on the same page, without opening a new window; it has email search facility for searching older mail on different parameters including the mail attachments.
All in all, it is a very good attempt from Rediff to become a top-of-the-line email service provider.
Surprisingly, Rediff hasn’t added any of these features to its paid product RediffmailPro. I am one of the customers of Pro, and am finding it tough to procure an old mail from my inbox since it doesn’t have a search facility. I am sure they might incorporate them over time.
Now the question is, will you shift over to Rediffmail? I am not sure if you would leave Gmail and Yahoo to move over to Rediffmail since most of these features are anyways available on these mail services. So sophisticated email users are unlikely to take the Rediff bite. Can they get new users (the campaign is launched to grab the attention of the new generation of internet users)? They might be able to increase their share there. It looks like their main focus is on non-metros (there is regional language composition). That is a good strategy since new internet users are coming from non-metros and small towns.
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