Par excellence? (Feedback and General Suggestions for dooyoo)

Member Name: fluffypup

Product:	Feedback and General Suggestions for dooyoo
Date:	02/03/01 (139 review reads)
Rating:

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Generally all members and people who use Dooyoo love it – me included! It is the current number one consumer product/service Internet site in the UK. It even has a nice shiny golden trophy and is well deserved! Both the Dooyoo staff and members should be congratulated for their hard work.

I personally can’t give feedback or suggestions without summing up Dooyoo. Firstly, what is Dooyoo? It’s a consumer service about products and services. It relies heavily on its members to write opinions about products, services and views on various items, topics, products and services. Dooyoo has a rating system that other members use to award the ‘usefulness’ of the opinion, review or personal views. The best opinions are awarded crowns. High regarded members get voted into the ‘Hall of Fame’ or get awarded ‘guru’ status. Least regarded members are rewarded with unfavourable ratings. The concept of getting paid for writing opinions and getting your opinion read and commented on by other Dooyoo members is first class idea. Dooyoo’s other notable points is its circle of friends list - including daily email updates of friends’ opinions.

The Dooyoo site has a cornucopia (my big word of the day) of categories ranging from books, computers, electronics, house & garden, lifestyle, movies, television, services, speakers corner, travel, campus, internet, games, kids & family, motors, music, shopping, sports & outdoors and a UK & Ireland Guide. These ever expanding categories appeal to anyone and everyone. There isn’t one section that Joe or Joanna Public can’t relate to! If you want consumer advice just browse through the categories or use the navigator search engine. You’ll usually find an opinion written on any subject and how people have rated its usefulness.

I based my feedback and suggestions on my eight months as a member, opinion writer, consumer, entrant into the hall of
famer, guru, reader/commenter on over 5000 opinions and 1000 comments, and an examination of the Dooyoo set up.

Dooyoo is an excellent community or ‘forum’ rather than a true champion amongst consumer sites. The idea of recruiting ordinary guys to write and rate opinions is first class. I’d sooner believe the views of ordinary people than the grey suits and ‘let’s do lunch brigade’ journos. We can relate more to their views than respecting those who take the free lunches, backhanders or freebies. Dooyoo also allows us to copy the style of the likes of Jezza Clarkson. It gives us the opportunity to vent our anger and slag off the poor products and services that get inflicted upon us – in the hope that maybe one of these providers takes notice of views and comments. The downsides are that a lot of Dooyoo writers are in it for the money and cover the bare minimum! As consumers we need a balanced and fair comprehensive opinions.

Dooyoo is only as good as its opinions or reviews. If the reviews and opinion are substandard then Dooyoo will ultimately fail. Dooyoo addressed the concerns of many of its members by kicking off many of the underachievers, cheaters, 75-worder brigade and the money grabbers by reducing the payment to 10p per opinion and upping the rewards for premier opinions to £1.00 rather than 50p. The results have spoken for themselves. There are more crowns being awarded and more informative opinions and fewer rubbish opinions. Hopefully, the encouragement and reward will continue or extend.

Is Dooyoo really that useful? Some sections like movies and internet sites fair well but turn your attention to products like digital cameras and computer games you’re on pretty dodgy ground. Go to the movies and waste £5 on a bad film based on a poor opinion. £5 doesn’t dent your purse strings that much. Spend £500 on a digital camera based on the recommendation of a non-comprehensive opi
nion with 30+ Very Usefuls (V.Us) becomes a major headache, especially if you are solely basing your judgement of buying on the experience and information of the opinion writer.

The circle of friends network plays a huge part in biasing opinions, as friends don’t like to down rate their friends. A revision of the rating system may need to get examined. Dooyoo has at the moment a 4-tier rating system; maybe this has to be extended to a higher tier or scale system (1-10? 10-excellent and 1-total rubbish). A number scaling system would give a fairer and more accurate representation of any opinion than maybe the present 4-tier system. I would like to see the abandonment of the circle of friend’s new opinion update. These updates only encourage tit for tat ratings (an indirect way of ‘I’ll rate you if you rate me’ system). This abandonment would encourage people to explore Dooyoo more rather than circle of friends.

Dooyoo also promotes itself as a ‘community’ consumer site. Community suggests friendly and promotes warmth but maybe it’s gone a little to far in one area? The principle objective of Dooyoo should be ‘consumer’ not ‘community’. Speakers Corner opinions are not really consumer related but are heavily biased towards current affairs or political issues. I find most opinions in this section are very subjective, personal and find that most can’t be rated VU or U, as you can either agree or disagree!

I would like to see a ‘three strikes and you’re out policy’ with regard to people who plagiarise, cheat, tit for tat VU raters and serial COF list adders. These people are passively or actively cheating the system. They should be kicked out of Dooyoo and given 3 chances to change their ways and 1 for serious cases.

It would be great if Dooyoo could adopt a policy of emailing when it awards a crown for a premier opinion, entry into the H
all of Fame or gaining Guru status. I’ve found out my entry into the Hall of Fame via people emailing me and stumbled across my nomination as a Guru. It would give a more personal feeling towards its members.

It would also be great if Dooyoo could announce when it is going to carry out maintenance and when possible disruption is going to take place. It can get very frustrating to find that you go to log in only to find the network’s down. It must be said that Dooyoo can get impossible to access and use at peak times of the day (6pm – 10pm). User frustration at the page changes can turn people off of Dooyoo. Dooyoo would benefit from increasing the capacity of the site at these times.

Like most sites and companies you only find out how good a company is when either something goes wrong and/or its level of communication. To date Dooyoo have been really good when I’ve experienced problems. They normally reply, depending on which community manager, within 1-3 days sometimes within hours. My problems have usually been sorted out with no more than 3 emails. I find this is something Dooyoo should be congratulated.

I think that there are some minor issues about the levels of advertising on Dooyoo. Dooyoo requires advertising to survive and I have no objections to this. I believe that Dooyoo should remain impartial throughout - sometimes this impartiality comes into question. For example, will members gain crowns for slating (with justification and facts) a company that advertises on Dooyoo? I also object to advertising advancing into opinions, as the sword should cut both ways, as members can’t add links in their opinions.

In summary, Dooyoo’s a great community consumer site. Its won awards and I’m proud to be a member! Dooyoo has, in my opinion, got to promote more of the consumer issues rather than the community aspect. It’s ultimately judged on its consumer reviews and opinions rather th
an member’s political comments or topics of the day. Dooyoo should step the encouragement of receiving useful and complete opinions with an accurate quality of ratings. I would suggest an overhaul of the present 4-tier system to a possible 10-tier number scale system - 10 being excellent & 1 being very poor. This suggested overhaul would encourage a fairer and more accurate rating system. I’m of the opinion after 8 month’s of use, that the circle of friend’s is just an encouragement for ‘you rate me and I’ll rate you’. I would suggest doing away with the CoF email updates, as this would encourage people to explore Dooyoo rather than just sticking within their friend’s network. Dooyoo’s attractiveness is the ability to write and get paid for opinions. The premier awards have been good to raise standards in writing. A greater promotion of writing ‘useful’ and ‘comprehensive’ opinions has to be extended. As consumers, we all wish to find and read opinions that are accurate and appropriately rated. I think that Dooyoo should concentrate on consumer products and services and ditch the speaker’s corner category, as I find it hard to rate people’s opinions as VU through to NU but can either agree or disagree. I would also like to see a higher profile or crack down on cheats (tit for tat raters, plagiarists and the bare minimum opinion writers). Dooyoo could increase the personal touch and announce awards to members when they are issued with crowns, hall of fame entries or guru status. The Dooyoo team have been great in communicating with its members. Problems are quickly discussed and resolved within a few emails. A level of communication that could be improved is the announcement of maintenance and planned disruption. Dooyoo should be congratulated with this level of service and maintenance of its level of communication with members (via email, newsletters and via community messages
boards).

Well done - Dooyoo! 7/10

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