NEW DELHI: ‘Hindustan Times’, one of the first print newspapers to launch an online edition of hindustantimes.com, has refurbished its website in collaboration with Microsoft to make it more reader-friendly and attractive.

The new newspaper-on-the-web was launched today with a promise to have round-the-clock news updates apart from interactive and personalized features in keeping with the need of multitasking that the today’s viewer demands from an online portal.

Rashmi Berry who heads the portal – which was ranked the fourth best news site by Forbes in 2004 - said advantage had been taken of the features of Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 combined with the out-of-the-box functionalities of the Microsoft Commerce Server 2007.

She claimed that months of usability research had gone into re-designing the website, which was not clutter-free with easy to navigate drop-down menus and tab-based controls. The 1024x768 resolution for full screen utilization would also ensure speed, she said.

Other facilities on the site include a search engine, download facilities, the absence of pop-ups, RSS feeds, personalized zones, instant polls, streaming video, a stocks tracker to match scorecards, uploading photographs, rating stories, and adding them to del.icio.us or IM links. There is a separate section for cricket fans.

Functionalities developed using the ASP.Net platform include Web 2.0 features like instant switching using tab based controls, dynamic modules on related stories, and My Zone, a personalized news zone where the user defines his or her order of preference. Further, Ajax Controls are used for bringing real-time updates of matches, stocks, opinion polls and picture slide shows.