MSN Newsbot

Microsoft, in its never ending quest to put a finger in every pie has brought out a pathetic tool that imitates Google News. Named MSN Newsbot, this reeks so strongly of innovation that you might be tempted to think that someone mined the Google News site and changed the colors and fonts around to give it some more eye-candy. From being a ditto of the Google page format, to selection of sections, and even the 'beta' sticker on top, this has to be the worst piece of work from Microsoft. What irks me most is the complete non-usefulness of the website. Every section has at most two stories, and they are so badly selected that they give you no choice but to click on the 'more' link to see what other stories might be on the section. Then there's the 'most popular' section, which has been showing Microsoft related articles for the past two days. What irks me most, however is the eye-candy. Google has perfected a system whereby they use the simplest of styles to create a neat website (note the near absence of any design related images on any Google website). Like any other MSN website, this one has neat graphics which look good at first, but after you stay on the site for a while, the gloss starts getting on your nerves. One of the reasons why I love to stay on Slashdot is that you are never distracted by the graphics. Sites like Kuro5hin which work pretty much like Slashdot are enveloped in so much gloss that you feel the need to escape after a while. I'm sticking with Google for now.