No competition

Looking at the websites of competing broadcast mammoths ABS CBN and GMA, there is no doubt who is a contender and who is a pretender.

www.igma.tv vs www.abs-cbn.com

From an ordinary surfer (I mean a casual surfer and not like a proofreader), one can tell that while GMA has established a quality presence in cyberspace, ABS CBN is doing itself more harm than good in its overtly unattended web site left to the mercy of neophyte designers. Oh, not too fast.

GMA website is not that too flashy but it's professional enough. Photos are sharp and crisp, in black and white photos, while the Lopez-owned website has huge photo of Hero and Sandara of poor quality on various sections of the site.

I am not against the Lopez conglomerate. Their site simply sucks. Gone are the days where Pinoycentral is the site to see with their gaudy layout, rich content and interesting features. MBA.ph which contains Metropolitan Basketball Association information used to be a nice one (much nicer than PBA website) until its premature meltdown. It's about time they hire a quality design manager.

That Google Adsense panel at the right side simply shows the site is in need of money, well which site isn't? (even www.gawadkalinga.org needs to pay yearly domain names whether it's donated or not). But the fact that the display version is for "sites with less traffic" compared to INQ7.net's less "addy" layout. And who would not notice the ocassional presence of "More" in Times New Roman and bear no link at all. When you go to their discussion boards, you are met with an error message: Sorry, An error occurred processing your last request! C'mon what have I done on your fragile infrastructure? Yehey.com is much more entertaining than this.

Meanwhile, IGMA is not better than Yehey.com. It's more feminine in appeal and is obviously targetted on the teen-youth age bracket. No wonder the promotion of Starstruck is one of the most taken cared of business. But at least the interface is clean and eye-friendly; the competitor's is almost an eyesore.

So I say this: in the web, among ABS CBN and GMA, there is no competition.