If we're going to slam a company for its terrible code, we'd better set the record straight when they make improvements. Today CrickeM, the video site for cricket, will launch with a different name: CricTV. The site itself has also improved: they've dumped the old code and tried to make the site "more like YouTube, less like MySpace", according to the CEO. The service, which is particularly keen on winning over the hundreds of thousands of Indian cricket fans, is gearing up for the World Cup 2007 - correspondents will upload footage from the games.
If you tested the old site, which appeared to be suffering the same number of errors as MySpace despite having no users, you'll know that this new attempt is much stronger. It's nowhere near perfect (or even up to the standard of Silicon Valley startups), and it still feels a bit like a script. But, it's not so infuriating that keen cricket fans will turn away. They've also created Flash scorecards to post to MySpace, hi5, Piczo et al.
We're told that cricket is a huge market that US companies just don't relate to. Even an imperfect attempt to fill this niche could gain interest from advertisers. Meanwhile, rival Sixer.TV also seems to have fixed its totally broken code since last time we checked. These two will now battle it out for the World Cup audience.