just minishorts.

By now many the blogosphere regulars would have had a through-the-bloggers'-eyes preview of the new M2U interface (Maybank2U site), or if not, here it is:

Obviously, this sleeker look is a huge graduated from the predecessor, currently still the welcome site for those who key in http://www.maybank2u.com/ or http://www.maybank2u.com.my/. The older site, shown below, has been a personal 'monthly must visit at least three times' site – I use M2U for most of my banking needs, and haven't physically visited a bank since two years ago. And with all honesty, the new version, while being sleeker, takes a lot of getting used to. After all, we're moving on to the sleek, clean version, from a very chaotic this:

Since most people have spoken on the new interface, I'll skip to what could have been missed by Erna, Suan, KY, davidlian (among many other bloggers) and get a little more personal on my opinions. To make it easier, I'll do a list of what I like, and what I really didn't like about the new interface.

Likes

• The new design deserves several thumbs-ups. It's sleeker, and CLEANER, definitely, so much easier on the eyes. Just see the older version which I've posted, and compare it to the new one.
• The speed – it seems to be faster, but then again that's probably because there are lesser people viewing it right now? On the first day when we all logged in at the same time, my m2u screen got stuck for a while, resulting in me not being able to do any banking at all other than viewing what it looked like.
• No ads. For now, I suppose its because they haven't added their advertisers on board yet, so everything looks neat and compact. I wonder how will the neat and sleek site turn out once it goes live with ads and promotions added in … some how having the MAS blue on that yellow-black-white thing doesn't quite cut it for me.
• I really like the colours mmkay… someone on some blog said that the yellow and black looks 'gay' , but I'd like to think it means 'gay' in the happy and busy way. I suppose the yellow and black relates to the maybank tiger mascot identity, but for some reason, the new M2U reminds me of a busy bee, which is great. After all Maybank, like any other gohmen related agency, suffers from the terrible identity and image crisis thanks to the nonchalant procrastinating inefficiency of our clever kerajaan Malaysia.  And speaking of bees, I'll get to what I didn't like about the new site.

Dislikes

• I have to concur with Suan, that agent M mascot thingy totally doesn't cut it, and to me that dislike level is kind of elevated to a 'wtf'?. Introducing M, the so M2U agent, who's supposed to everything as the following poster tells you. So, yah, lemme say that again. WTF is an M-agent?

• Now I'm the sort of person who really can't stand mascots, and for one, I'd like to imagine that people who use internet banking would be considerably familiar with the regular HELP section. I don't know about you, but most of my friends deactivate that paperclip mascot thingy that comes with word (bloody annoying thing, that one) so the Ironman look-alike M Agent, IMHO is a total waste of time. Like errr, why the hell do I wanna know where a fake person lives, and why the heck should I even bother having M as an MSN Live online buddy?
• Ok even if they wanted a mascot anyway, why the heck was M created to look like an Ironman lookalike with a cast-away body (wasn't one of the armours Ironman designed and casted away a gold and black coloured version? )  Whatever happened to something more Maybank, like the Tiger, for instance – oi, use lah some animal that's Maybank related… Even using a Bee would match the yellow and black colours, but heck they had to come up with Ironman.
• On to more serious matters, I thought it interesting that Maybank2U can still, only be accessed by keying in the full http://www.maybank2u.com or http://www.maybank2u.com.my URLs. Key in http://www.m2u.com or http://www.m2u.com.my gets you nothing — the domain isn't even owned by anyone yet. Now I find this kind of odd considering that we've been refering to Maybank2U as M2U, on the goodie bags 'M2U' is printed on sparkling fonts, and even M is noted as belonging to the M2U society. Maybe Maybank should do something about it, imagine accessing the online portal through just 'm2u.com' rather than the more tedious 'maybank2u.com'?

Anyway existing M2U users can expect to get invites to test this new version on their screens rather soon. When you do , haha, try adding that M Agent to your MSN Messenger, and tell me if the dude's friendly, yah? For now, I can't wait to be able to access the new version through the simple domains, but we'll just have to wait till the big launch, yah?
 
But in the meantime, have a look at my conversation with Mr 'Friendly' M, the M2U Agent.

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