Miles Better With More Concise Reviews? (dooyoo Rewards System)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	dooyoo Rewards System
Date:	28/12/07 (180 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Encourages more content

Disadvantages: Some will lose out

Having recently returned to Dooyoo after nearly 6 months away, I had achieved my longest ever break from the site having been a member for over 6 years. Then, as per usual, I got suckered into posting again following a chat with a young lady over on Tooyoo who said that, for some strange reason, she liked my movie reviews (yes, it's your fault Lisa!). So what's this got to do with anything? Well, I guess you get to put things into perspective when you are away from the site for so long and it's easier looking from outside than when you are operating from within. Mostly. So the one thing that has been constant for me in all of that time is the payment system. Sadly, I missed the financial bonanza of the first 12 months of the site when it was paying ridiculous amounts of money to get folks to fill its pages with much needed content and came in when things were as they stayed until only recently with 3p per member read and £1.50 for a crowned review.

You do need to consider why Dooyoo exists. It's a commercial enterprise with its own income streams which come from pay per clicks on the various banners and pop ups and commission from click throughs when browsers buy products from either affiliated sites or by using Dooyoo as the channel to access the site that the consumer buys the product from. I've no doubt that Dooyoo has other ways of making money but those would be the most obvious and over the years it has reduced its cost/income ratio by cutting back on staffing numbers with its former office in London closed down and its support staff structure stripped back. No surprise given the harsher economic conditions Internet operators have found themselves in like the rest of us over the last few years. So, in essence, the site needs as it always has done: content. So what's the quality threshold i.e. what will the average consumer read?

I read reviews at other sites. I like to read movie reviews at www.rottentomotoes, I like to read the news at www.bbc.co.uk and www.thetimesonline.co.uk and I'll read the odd product review at Amazon and the one thing they all have in common is reasonable length. In the case of Dooyoo, it classes a premium review as at least 150 words which means that you are eligible for the new posting bonus of 500 miles or 50p. If you equate that to the sites listed above then you ain't that far off what's typical on the Net. To get a crown standard on Dooyoo, I personally believe that you need to be anywhere between 800 and 1300 words without being prescriptive but anything more than that and you are into "kitchen sink" territory and I do find those reviews that go on ad nauseum about a subject very trying. I suppose it's a bit like trying to answer a question in an exam by simply throwing everything you know about a subject onto the paper. The fact is that the examiner will still mark you down as you haven't really demonstrated that you understood the subject and whilst I've never gone as far as marking someone down for it (preferring to simply bail out, more often than not), I have been tempted and would absolutely not nominate an opinion for a crown if I thought it was too long. I do wonder whether it's something that's inherent on Ciao (with respect although is it still the culture that diamond winning reviews are "War and Peace" efforts?) that makes people want to write such lengthy pieces and, on reflection, I've written some long ones myself in the past but you pick up on feedback and adapt and if there is one thing that I hope the new payment structure achieves, it's too encourage a more concise review style.

As members, the bit we forget is that most of the traffic is re-directed from other channels, Google being one of the most popular. That means that whilst we get paid for member reads (less now at 1.5p per read after the initial posting bonus), the majority of our audience is actually outside the membership which is obvious from the total read count. Again, this emphasises the need to post readable reviews of the right length and will be a factor in the reduction in incentive for posting in Speaker's Corner. With no initial 500 miles for submitting a discussion piece and just 1.5p per read then you would expect a reduction in volume in this category. I guess with the main focus being around consumer products then SC hardly fits in with the ethos of the site although you do wonder how many click related sales come from folks reading pieces over there. Possibly more than we think and it would be a great shame if this part of Dooyoo was allowed to fade away.

The main concern over volume has always been the worry over churning. The exact definition is open to debate but, generally, anything over 3 postings a day is thought of as churning. So why would folks worry about this? In the main, writers that post review after review will knock other writers off the main page a bit quicker than they would like and there is a certain stigma in writing short pieces. Even if a new breed of reviewer did come along that had done the maths and decided to write between 4 and 6 pieces a day, their reads would soon dwindle if they didn't read around as that's what happens after a while so, worst case scenario, if nobody read their reviews at all then they would be making between £2 - £3 per day. This seems a soulless way to earn money. It would be quicker to get a bucket of water and sponge and offer to clean someone's car!

So will the new payment structure spell the end of Dooyoo as we know it? Well, it depends why you write. Most people don't actually post because of the money. Having seen many members come and go, most folks seem to write because they enjoy the thrill of being published, they like to express their opinions, they like the interaction with other members and there's a certain pride in putting together a review that others will read. I don't see that the new payment system changes any of this and I know that, if and when I eventually leave, I would miss many of the members (not all but most). It's nice to see the usual suspects (the movie category has never been stronger) and I don't see this changing. I just hope that this works for Dooyoo and the site goes from strength to strength. The Dooyoo admin team have made mistakes in the past and plenty of them but it's still the best site of its kind and where else can you post your musings, interact with like-minded people and read about everything from a Sainsbury's yogurt to The Simpsons movie DVD?

Gotta go: 1150 words!

Thanks for reading

Mara

New payment scheme at http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/community/_page/advice _dooyoomilesFAQ/#topic1

Summary: New Payment Structure