Sulekha - The New Avatar!

When things were at their mundane best, Sulekha and its mandarins decided to give us something to believe in!

Well I couldn’t help peppering up my excitement with a little bit of my legendary drama but then what the hell; the occasion demands it!

It was just another evening when I logged into Sulekha yesterday; but something definitely felt different. There was change in air and somehow the erstwhile bland and boring look of the site felt like it was done up with quick strokes of a smart and able techie’s hands!

Home page Sulekha was glistening and beaming with a shiny new look that was enticing to say at the least! It like beaconed me out to go click click click on my laptop and explore its maiden look and features which were dearly prayed and awaited for!

I think the Sulekha Team did a fine job! To revamp a website with over thousand members and god alone knows how many blogs etc etc is not a mean task. I have been involved in the designing of a mega portal and I definitely know what it takes in terms of analytics and detail while designing/revamping a website the size of Sulekha. Ergo, being one of those that belong to the bastion of those that invariably love Sulekha, I’d love to congratulate the Sulekha team for their sincere efforts to spice up the SulekhaExperience for me and my ilk!

Cummon guys, our friends at Sulekha deserve a roaring round of applause! :D

Now, here’s why I think Sulekha rocks harder than ever before!

The New Glazed shiny look : Hell! Even the sign in page looks new and fresh! Sulekha has undergone a massive makeover. The nice globe picture with shiny letters and all makes me feel like I’m visting a new chic portal than the good old sulekha of days bygone!
Templates: Thank You Karthik Kannan for listening. I was waiting for the day when my sulekha home page would look like my blogspot or wordpress blog account! These guys have introduced a slew of new spunky and cool templates that can give your personal home page a new ritzy look! Personally I have chosen the horror template and I’m gonna stay in love with it for a long time! :D Also, not to stay behind, I have tried almost all the templates and have then decided to stick to the ‘Horror’ template. Though we could use a wider choice than given, I think this does for now!
The New Hompage: Once you sign in, you don’t get to see the old boring hompage! Now the homepage looks cool with an orderly stack of sent and received notes. Even the blog page has gone under the knife and it has a little box showing recent comments and the profile of the user is extensively showcased with his/her travel/reading preferences, interests and favorites etc listed! It is easier now to add people in one’s network than before. You can even add a user as your favorite!

Sulekha Rewards: Sulekha has pioneered a Rewards System that awards points to Sulekha members for their participation on Sulekha by way of posting and responding to blogs, reviews, classifieds, events, forming networks, inviting new members, purchasing event tickets, etc. Points thus accumulated can be redeemed towards gifts from several of our sponsors! Now people can earn points not just by writing blogs but by virtually doing everything and anything on the site! I think they would initiate this service from January start or something.

Ranking : Personally, rankings, after templates are my favorite additions to the website. If you click on Top 1000 link on the Ranking page, you would see a list of top 1000 freaking bloggers! Now some of the names there don’t ring a bell but mostly you would find all you favorite bloggers fighting for space in the 1000 countdown!

Broadly, these were the major changes that have taken the Sulekha Experience by storm. Now a little reality check. Inspite of the commendable changes, there are still some loose ends that are causing minor troubles. These include:

1. The blog comments on particular post weren’t visible in a row like before till yesterday night but that glitch has been set right.

2. Whatever happened to the blog roll?

3. If I wanted to delete a certain post how do I do that? Earlier that was possible but I can’t seem to find the tool there any longer.

4. The post a comment page, though it looks pretty cool and aquatic, but on high resolution screens it seem to run out of the width of the site. (whatever that means, I’ve tried my best to explain!)

5. Some people are having trouble accessing their notes.

6. The Profile page cannot be edited as new information is not being uploaded.

Hmm… that’s it! That goes as far as facing technical guffaws. But maybe the Sulekha people have launched a beta version and are testing the new site and take care of all these problems!

And yea, I do disagree with those people who say that Sulekha should have launched a fully functional version in the first go! Now how dumb is that! Even google and yahoo launch beta versions to test new features! How else in the world would they know what’s working and what’s not if they don’t launch test versions!

So Sulekha, you brought on a change that’s worth it. Exciting, rejuvenating and thrilling. I’m having fun and am sure others too! Party Poopers can fly a kite!

Lage Raho Sulekha! *giggles*