J'ACCUSE!!! J'ACCUSE !!!! (The dooyoo Redesign)

Member Name: sidneygee

Product:	The dooyoo Redesign
Date:	23/12/02 (286 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Was Good For members

Disadvantages: Now isn't, And will get worse

So many bitter words have now been written about the DooYoo redesign and I did think I would remain clear of it.

However, not long before the latest phase of this redesign (that occurred on Saturday 21 December), I realised that I might have 'cracked' the DooYoo Master Plan. To be frank, I don't like what I see. Indeed, I am now aiming for a particular (not very high) financial target. When this is reached, then I shall probably not be writing any more DooYoo reviews and I may even take more drastic action.

The DooYoo Phenomenon
I will not go through the full history of the DooYoo process. Those of you who are new to the site can read this elsewhere.

I joined in October 2000, after finding reviews by welshwolf and others on a Hoover Vacuum Cleaner I was interested in buying (and bought and wrote a Review). Ultimately, I became an enthusiastic member, having now written 133 'reviews', gaining 61 Crowns and (so far over 12,000 reads), and earning almost £400.

I paid my dues, serving a period as the Motors Guide and made a number of good friends, several of whom I have met and remain in contact with. I should also say that I have encountered a one or two really objectionable members (who think the sun shines out of their ar*seholes and/or that their 'religion/politics' are beyond criticism). I will not name them (or their religion/politics) here, though.

OK, I may have also 'upset' one or two DooYooers, but my character profile is there on my profile page. Oh, and I do apologise if I have gone too far. Also, if I get riled by the comments or ratings on my reviews, then I won't try to send viruses to their email addresses or enrol them on porn sites (as has happened to me*).

I got on well with the DooYoo werrkers, and was saddened when, one by one, they were made redundant (or left). As the months have gone by, I have been spending less and less time each week on
the site, but there has always been a nagging doubt in my mind as to the ultimate reason for the site coming into being. It all seemed too much too good to be true - particularly at first when you could earn serious spare cash from your DooYoo reviews and reads. Even at 3 pence a read (from members), it still seemed to me that the whole idea behind this site was running a little deeper.

Googling Along
In common with many members, I use Google as a search engine and, if you use Google, you cannot fail to notice that DooYoo reviews have featured quite highly on Google searches fot some time now. Usually, it is the subject group that come up on the Google page but, not infrequently, a specific review may come up - or even part of a comment on a review may come up. Thus I would find items on Google that would refer right back to a DooYoo Review written by myself, or even to a comment I had made.

I'll give you an example. My previous review to this one (which was NOT one of my most successful lol!) was to impart a little knowledge to the DooYoo community on the doubts that I have about coffee - that un-roasted (green) coffee beans are not infrequently affected by mould growth and there are serious potential ramifications. To find out if there were any new developments in this subject since my retirement as a Public Analyst, I did a Google search.

On Page 3 of a Google Search for "Coffee Mycotoxins", I came across the following entry:

?Vegetarianism reviews, prices, ratings - shopping and advice from ...
... I suppose you can get further info on mycotoxins through the search engines ... breath
!): peanuts; walnuts; pistachio nuts; brazil nuts; cocoa beans; coffee beans ...
www.dooyoo.co.uk/speakers_corner/discussion/ vegetarianism/_comments/246362/ - 52k - Cached - Similar pages?.

This was, in fact, an extract of a comment made by me when defending the derision that I had heaped on the veg
gie brigade when writing a review.

Now, this Google-phenomenon did not mean an awful lot to me except that it was obviously the reason for many of the Non-member reads that I was accumulating.
However, in early December, I noticed something strange about my non-member read rate.

Non-Member Reads
For a long time, my non-member read rate was running consistently at about 30% of my total reads. I had always assumed that non-member reads occurred in a number of ways: by surfers coming across the site by accident and picking up a review when browsing the site; obviously as a result of a Google search; Oh and even perhaps on occasions by certain members not wanting to award me 3 pence for a read ? lol- but I reckon it does happen since ar*seholes do tend to be pettyminded.

But on Thursday 5 December, I noticed that not only had my 'non-member reads' edged above 4,000 (compared with the very recent lower 3,000's), but I also noticed that it was then above 40% of my total reads. I noted down my member read total and my non-member read total. On that day, I had 6190 member reads and 4107 non-member reads on that day and continued to monitor. By 20 December, the numbers had become 6,207 member reads and 6010 non-member reads, and non-member reads were increasing by between 81 and 193 a day. Thus, for an apparent 1,880 'hits' on my DooYoo Reviews over 15 days, DooYoo would be paying me 51 pence. I also noted that these non-member reads would all appear on the total at some time during the night, rather than occurring during the day/evening, as did occur in the past.

I find this suspicious - almost as if a computer was logging onto my reviews automatically and increasing the non-member reads (and to hide this was totting them all up at sometime in the goddamn early hours). I then started noting down the non-member reads in some of my latest ten reviews, and the following partial table shows the pattern:


Date Total Breakdown**
05Dec 4107
06 Dec 4267
07 Dec 4392
08 Dec 4520
09 Dec 4604
10 Dec 4705
11 Dec 4846
12 Dec 4990
13 Dec 5103 50/64/179/122/86/162/97
14 Dec 5184 51/70/179/122/87/169/104
15 Dec 5377 52/79/184/125/87/172/109
16 Dec 5476 55/79/187/129/87/177/119
17 Dec 5621 55/82/191/138/87/183/125
18 Dec 5759 56/89/193/140/87/185/131
19 Dec 5883 57/92/198/148/88/194/136
20 Dec 6010 58/96/198/148/88/194/136

23 Dec - 59/111/206/150/92/211/142

** Reviews on
Coffee/Toaster/Nova/Student Accommodation/Car Broker/Corsa/Easyjet

The Most Recent Site Changes
No one can have failed to notice the change to the Member Profile Pages that had happened on the morning of Saturday 21 December. As far as I can see they are as follows:

1. No longer can you see the total member and non-member reads
2. On your front page, you can now only see the last 3 reviews that you have written/revised.

The only purpose that I can think of for the first change is that it hides this non-member read development from your eyes. Come on !!! I cannot believe that this number of non-member reads, accumulated over such a short period is genuine.

The only purpose that I can think of for the second change is that the Op-meisters are trying to discourage accumulations of member reads. How often have you read a reasonable review from someone that you don't recognise ? You go to their profile page and read what else they have written? At one time, you could get a complete list of the reviews by a DooYoo-er on one (albeit lengthy) page. This was great for accessing and selecting the reviews of new friends for reading and rating. In the previous lot of changes, this was restricted to Reviews in blocks of 10. Now, by restricting the profile page initially to 3 reviews, you have to make another mouse move to get more than the most recent reviews, and
a number to access all the reviews that might have been written. A small discomfort, perhaps, but nevertheless 'discouraging'.

PayBack Time !!!???
Thus, I believe that we are into the Pay-Back phase for DooYoo. They get paid by advertisers for the number of visits they get to their pages. So, now they have a system that gets in substantial number of page access (either via Google or malicious computer programming), and a system development to reduce their costs of paying for member-reads still further.

Obviously someone is being selective over what Google will access. My review on the Go airline is the top-rated DooYoo Review in this sector, but only has 42 non-member reads, since it does not show up on a Google search, whereas my Easyjet Review has 142 reads. So I reckon that we are left with a situation where DooYoo has bought, from its members, a huge data-base, which it is now using, selectively, to generate income and, at the same time, it is taking steps to reduce pay-outs to members. Myself, I reckon that costs may even be cut still further

Has Everything Gone According to Plan?
Now I won't say that everything has gone to plan for the Opmeister Gruppen-Fuhrers in Germany. After the Aurora system came in, with its slow connection, loss of features, lack of attention to detail, and the service from the delightful Katie becoming a part-time service - so many writers have voted with their keyboards and either stopped writing reviews altogether or defected permanently to the sparser pastures of Ciao. Now this is to be expected with the British psyche. I reckon it is part of our normal personal relationship make-up. We get drawn into something and go along with it, but often we are looking for an excuse to 'let go'.

I may be one of the few who have not yet defected, but that is now on the cards. But, when I defect, will I be happy to leave my Intellectual Property on the DooYoo site to keep the op-
meistery in sausage, beer and sauerkraut? I note that one of our favourite members in earlier days, ScotGirl (Liz) has done just that a few months ago.

No prizes will awarded for the 'correct answer'?.

Sorry for such miserable Xmas review ...

But I hope all my readers have had an excellent time.

* I will admit to being slightly amused when the log-in name given for me to access these porn sites was "Donkey".
Now, maybe I am quite 'well-hung', but I would not go as far as claiming that !.

Copyright Sidneygee 2002

Footnote:
In 2 days this review accumulated 16 non-member reads. Again, I cannot believe this is genuine, over the Christmas. There were only 7 reviews posted on Xmas day. Thus a VERY low contribution rate by members.

Summary: