Dooyoo versus Ciao let the battle commence!

I have been writing for the opinion sites Ciao and Dooyoo for over three years now and I guess it is an addiction. I am amazed both sites still exist due to their similar position in the market place and the fact that about 90% of the contributors contribute the same reviews to both sites (I know I am as guilty as everybody else on this charge.

During my years of review writing I seem to have changed allegiance to my preferred site quite a lot. I thought I would write this review to state what I like about each site and what needs to be changed.

For those of you that have been on Planet Zog for the last few years Dooyoo and Ciao are both European owned websites that offer normal punters to wax lyrical on a wide range of consumer products from important purchasing decisions (such as cars, holidays, banks) to silly trivial stuff (such as toilet paper and the latest chocolate bar on the market). Members can mark reviews on their usefulness and this is how the consumer can make a little bit of extra money. The aim of the site for the operators is an extensive consumer resource but in reality the content is often submitted by a clique of frustrated writers who want to impress by writing the longest review ever or trying to review a common product very wittily. One can peer rate the reviews by clicking the buttons at the end. Dooyoo has four choices (Verry Useful, Usefiul, Somewhat Useful and Not Useful) whilst Ciao has six (Exceptional, Very Helpful, Helpful, Somewhat Helpful, Not Helpful and Off Topic).

Money talks

Dooyoo does pay better there is no doubt about it. There is a blanket 3 pence per read for each review clicked on. This is different to Ciao, which has a more complicated system. You are paid anything from 0.5 pence and 2 pence per rate. This is doubled in the first month if you write the first review in paying categories. The payment depends on the number of reviews written and how much the product is searched for. You also only are paid if you get positive feedback on the reviews. I must admit the 3 pence per read of Dooyoo is very enticing but in a way I think Ciao does have a good system. It makes more commercial seems as you are not paying out for the millionth review on a Mars Bar or a person’s top ten list of footballers wives!

I also think that only paying for positive reviews is a good idea as I think it brings the standard of reviews up a lot. Since I have been back on Dooyoo recently I have noticed a significant number of people who have written forty or so reviews that are not that good. They can churn out short reviews of 200 words and still get their 3 pence. I think with Ciao you have an incentive to develop your review writing so that you get paid. The other thing I like about the Ciao ratting system is the off topic button. I find it frustrating on Dooyoo when I find a really good review that is well written and interesting but I can not give it a Very Helpful as it is not particularly relevant. However I feel guilty giving a Not helpful rating as it is a good review so end up giving a Somewhat helpful ratting rather than the more helpful Off Topic that Ciao has.

It has often been commented that Ciao is busier than Dooyoo. I have seen myself post a review on both sites and you receive a rate almost instantly. I find that Dooyoo does have a slightly lower rate but the difference seems to have been levelled thought he years and if there is any it is compensated by the higher rate of payment.

Crowns versus diamonds.

Both sites reward the crème de le crème of reviews by an additional payment. Dooyoo hands out crowns worth £1.50 once a week whilst Ciao has the monthly premium fund and diamonds Diamonds are worth £5 and up but there are less of them. The remainder of the premium fund is then divided up by the rest of the writers that have done well. You can nominate a review for an award by either clicking the nominate for a crown link on Dooyoo or the Exceptional button on Ciao. I must say I prefer Dooyoo’s system. Then again I am biased (and a wee bit bitter) as I have never won an elusive diamond but have a nice crop of 30crowns. I have strove for a diamond but the scarcity of them has meant have never been within a chance of getting one. (Or maybe my writing is just not good enough or I do not write in the right categories).

I also like the method of nomination in Dooyoo as it is anonymous and has nothing to do with the overall rating of the review. In Ciao you are only allowed five exceptional in a day and I think that is a culture of “why was it not exceptional” (then again the same can be said for the Very helpful ratting on Dooyoo).

Payday

Ciao and Dooyoo pay slightly differently. On Ciao your reward is in pounds and pence. You can request your payment once you have reached £5 and they pay it into your bank. The one bugbear I have about Ciao is that it often takes ages for them to pay you as they only pay out once a month. Dooyoo has a more complex method of payment. Your get Dooyoo miles ( 1000 miles equals a pound) . You have three options, you can either donate to charity, get an Amazon voucher or save up for a cheque. You need at least £10 for Amazon and £50 for a cheque. The cheque also has a handling fee. The Amazon voucher limit used to be £20 plus a handling fee so I am glad the threshold has gone down and the handling fee waved. I tend to go for the Amazon voucher as I usually get it within a couple of working days. The major problem I have found with Dooyoo paying out is that your Dooyoo Miles are only valid for a year. I found that my Dooyoo miles expired when I was not using it quite as frequently so Dooyoo is not that great for the casual user.

One area where Dooyoo has come on leaps and bounds is in the process of suggesting products. Before it was like searching for a needle in a haystack to find the propose a product and when you did it took ages to find. Now it is easy to suggest a product. You just go to your profile and click on the icon. You then just suggest the product and add a link to the website and a picture link. Voila. I have also found the process seems to be much quicker and you can check on the progress of your suggestion. I much prefer this to Ciao where you have to find the exact category then spend half an hour going round in circles in the product search until you get to the suggest a product button. On the topic of search engines, Doyoo’s one has become a lot better since the old days when it was worse than useless but I still find what I am looking for more easily at Ciao.


Community Spirit.
I think this is the main difference between Ciao and Dooyoo. The emphasis on community is a lot stronger on Ciao than Dooyoo. I think this is a double-edged sword. On Ciao you have two guestbooks (a private and a public one) and a complicated system of community points. On Dooyoo you can sign up for a Tooyoo guestbook and link it to your profile and thus can participate more in the fun and games if you want. At the moment I like the more subtle community on Dfooyoo as often I think it can get overpowering on Ciao. Community points were nice at the start as it was fun to work my way up but now I find they encourage churning (especially in the Ciao Café where you get all the pointless challenges on what you had for breakfast five days ago). I think in a way the coloured dot hinders people as assumptions can be made. If you are a white dot you are probably a bit rubbish whilst a gold dot might mean quality. That is not always the case as I can think of a few of the higher coloured dots who are not that great but they get read just because of their dots rather than a new talent.
However I do like the guestbooks as sometimes I want to make a comment that is not entirely relevant to the review.

So what is the result after many rounds of sparring. I personally am leaning more towards Dooyoo due to the payment levels, the crowns and the subtler community involvement.