MSN Arabia, partly owned by Link.NET from Egypt, is lacking basic web standards. Despite numerous times of asking the team to stick to IAB guidelines, there is no improvement at all. 
Their response to critism is poor (like the site): "As explained before during our meetings and in our emails; we are part of Microsoft, this would never happen when using MS Internet Explorer."
The screen shot shows that they either use a scret version of IE or I am lacking eyesight big time (always an excuse for typos). Overlay ads (or optimum banners how they call them) sometimes don't have close buttons, the website design even on homepage shows ads all over the place without proper positioning, the whole website is not even close XHTML compliant and if you are looking at it on Safari or Firefox, good Lord not even a prayer helps you navigating anywhere.
I am disappointed about the lack of understanding and support from one of the biggest portals in the region, and frustrated, and willing to give up on advertising with the local Microsoft boyz. Anyone thinking differently, please comment here, and all those designers that send their CV to Flip Media and don't get a job with us, why don't you try MSN @ the Microsoft Building in Dubai Internet City, they really need you badly!
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Comments
Martin Diessner November 26, 2005 at 10:21 am
wisely spoken....I explained them in my last meeting that they ARE the bottleneck of growth in online marketing in the MENA, and not us agencies. Let's see if that will change, what is it they always say then? Insh' allah :-). So God will. I just hope he does, this time.
Dotone November 25, 2005 at 10:03 am
Come on, asking it to be standards compliant which you mean tableless design is far so harsh on them. The official MSN.com has just turned to standards. I guess what they need to first learn is that actually human beings are visiting their website not only bots! That said, for god sake turn of those floating ugly Flash ads. At least if not readable and not saving my bandwisth save my time and dont annoy my browsing at your site.
Long ago they used to run the auto-fullscreen everytime you logged in. Who said I want to full-screen my browser? There is no concerns for users, which means the whole site is ran by a bunch of geeks who know how to hack, and some real beginer designers. No common sense, nor scientific Usability checks are measured at all. That's what's up!