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dooyoo.co.uk in general
by CredDeMas
Overview
Dooyoo is an online review site, where real clients like you or me can review products we have bought, so that other individuals can take on board different perspective's before they decide to buy. In return reviewers are rewarded via "Dooyoo Miles" and those who do a fantastic review will receive a ... "Crown" if nominated and chosen. There around 1.5 million Dooyoo users spanning France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom (each have their own version (I am reviewing United Kingdom Dooyoo)
Website appearance
The background colour for the website is white with green labels and black writing.
When I first joined the site I found the website to be slightly problematic I feel as though Dooyoo really could do better. An example would be the 'My account page' it is so cluttered there is so much information, to be honest even the home page is really cluttered, with product categories and product highlights, why are they there? You have a top menu with some categories labelled that should be enough, use a drop down label, make it easier for the user. They need to space things and out and give less on each page rather than placing so much information packed within one area. I admit though I am more use to it now nonetheless for such a successful review site you would expect far more.
However the site does have clear titles and clear areas and I suppose if you look hard enough you will find what you want through all the other stuff.
Website usage
To review a product it is quite simple all you have to do is enter it into the search box and the chose to review it. I found reviewing really to be an easy task, you are able to see who reviewed you, how useful people have found your review and even get comments, It allows a sense of community within reviewers and you gain regular visitors. I feel as though it should have a 'spell check' system embedded, most modern sites do. I am Dyslexic and the main area which I suffer from is my spelling and I found it unfortunate that I have to correct my mistakes on Microsoft Word for every single review or attempt to anyway It would make sense just to have it within the review writing section ready for all users. I think I would not be alone in wanting such an addition within the site.
** To all those who keep assuming Dooyoo has a internal spell check due to the red line which appears on your screen when you make an error this is not Dooyoos system it is the internal spell check for which ever browser you are using***
Reviewing is really easy and you can access all your own reviews and thankfully correct them or update them, so if you have bought a product which is fine at the moment give it 5 stars and review it, if it decides to break on you for no apparent reason go back and downgrade it. I love the fact it is not fixed!
Dooyoo has so many products to review, I have reviewed the Ibeats earphones, Mcdonalds fast food restaurant, HTC desire X mobile phone and a few others...such a variety however I find it unfortunate that I can only review Items on the Dooyoo catalogue there are so many things I want to review which I can't, I did try using the product suggestion, but that is another thing they need to improve and make simpler, why can't I just send the html address and title; Dooyoo is that not enough for you guys to consider an item, what is with the questions on that page...very frustrating. All I want to do is suggest a LG optimus L7 but I'm finding it ridiculously hard to find the correct category for a mobile...But I suppose it is a good job they have a suggestion page, I just have to figure out how to correctly send a suggestion.
Community
The Dooyoo community is really friendly, I had a message the other day from a lovely dooyooer who told me that I had some spelling errors, so there are always helpful people around. There are guides who are awesome and you can ask for advice, you can specify a guide so if it is a book you a reviewing then the books guide would be appropriate for advice.
Dooyoo Miles
For every review you get you receive the reward of Dooyoo miles depending on the category the review is the more miles you receive. I feel as though the miles are a fantastic incentive for more people to review. 1000 Dooyoo miles are a £1, you can convert your miles into an amazon card, donate to charity to take the money once you have reached a certain amount.
Level 1 reviews: 600 Dooyoo miles and 20 extra per person who reads
Level 2 reviews: 300 Dooyoo miles and 15 extra per person who reads
Level 1 reviews: 100 Dooyoo miles and 10 extra per person who reads.
Dooyoo lounge: 10 Dooyoo miles per reading.
http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/community/_page/faq/#topic2
Crown
You receive a crown if your review is seen as exceptional and nominated by fellow reviewers, not only do you get a lovely crown on your review page but also 1500 Dooyoo miles as a reward! I think it is a great idea and encourages a good community spirit. Cannot wait to get my first crown!
Negative aspects of Dooyoo
-The site layout Home page and Accounts page really could be updated into something more simpler.
-Product suggestion should be more open
-No spellcheck, yes this not required for everyone but as said...I would love if they would add this, after all there is an immense amount of writing going into reviewing.
-Are the reviews all reliable as there is an incentive people I feel can just blabber on and talk nonsense just to get the miles rather than giving a correct idea of the actual product.
Positive aspects of Dooyoo
-Dooyoo miles and Crown system is a lovely way of rewarding people for their reviews, I feel especially the Crowns push people to do accurate and detailed reviews.
-Easy reviewing just search a product and click review (although at times you get a billion results and have to sive through)
-Guides, they are friendly 'experienced' users who will help you and make you feel welcome.
-By far the best review community site I have ever been on, great community, friendly people!
Overall yes I do believe Dooyoo has some issues, but they are my personal issues, I have noticed that a lot of people are defensive over the comments I have written, but IF Dooyoo does not change new reviewers like myself will be put off sites like this and seek simpler sites. And this is a review site without reliable honest opinions from us it would be worthless. I must say though I joined ages ago and I quit but am back now!...And I am really addicted to Dooyoo, I love reviewing telling people the truth about products and giving them a chance to read other opinions before buying something they might regret or decided against after we the 'people' give our reviews. I think sites like this are really important in the modern day and age were the internet rules! Dooyoo your good at what you do and I may bicker about you as though am your other half Dooyoo but I love you!
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Top Ten Websites
by Listerbelle
Like so many people, I use many websites most days. Here are ten of my favourites.
www.hipmunk.com
This is my favourite site for flight searches. Results, which are presented visually rather than as a boring list, can be sorted by travel time, price, or - my favourite - by "agony". It's an easy site to navigate, ... highly recommended.
www.britishexpats.com
With a life strewn across three continents, the BritishExpats fora have helped me streamline my life. For many years this was the only website I spent more than five minutes on daily. It's useful with a strong and mainly helpful community.
www.linkedin.com
This website is so much more than "Facebook for professionals". Nowadays it is truly a career must. I particularly enjoy the go-getting, motivational aspects to having a varied, professional network.
www.leanin.org
One of my recent finds this organisation labels itself as a "global community" committed to encouraging and supporting women leaning in to their ambitions. I particularly enjoy the site's success stories.
www.myfitnesspal.com
I learned about this website from a parenting magazine. It changed my life, instantly lifting my probable post-natal depression. The site is a boon to people aiming to lose weight and/or improve their fitness levels. The community is VERY supportive, and, again, there are wonderful motivation stories and pictures. And it helped me find my abs again ☺
www.allrecipes.com
I was drawn to this recipe website when searching for a flourless chocolate cake. It's my go-to site when contemplate what to cook or when I'm searching for a little culinary inspiration. The user reviews on the site are excellent and very helpful.
http://prudentbaby.com
PrudentBaby is a lifestyle/design/sewing/creative delight that keeps me in touch with my rarely-expressed crafty side.
http://studyspanish.com/
I love languages! This website is well structured and very useful for those of us in the process of acquiring Spanish language skills.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
I'm probably a little more interested in earthquakes than your average Brit, as there is a fault line that runs beneath the garage of our southern Californian home. This website keeps me up to date with what tectonic activity has recently occurred. Of course it wont stop our house collapsing if a Big One comes along. But a little earthquake p.o.r.n keeps me mildly interested in the subject.
http://thechildrenofwestfaliaorphanage.com/
This is a friend's site that details life and challenges in an orphanage in Peru. The infrequently-updated website keeps this orphanage's supporters up to date with the life and times of the children, and also serves as a useful reminder of Tesco's impervious expression: every little helps!
So there you have it. An insight into my little internet world.
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dooyoo.co.uk in general
by miwa
This is my 50th review for Dooyoo since I signed up in December 2012. I noticed a prevalence for 'milestone' reviews to be dedicated to the site itself, so I thought, why not... Hope that bandwagon has room for one more. Drunk with power here, already.
So, me and Dooyoo, Dooyoo and I, me, you and Dooyoo. Initially, I had ... dealings with this site in 2008 through someone I knew who had signed up, and I used to proofread their reviews and once or twice dabbled in writing some of my own when they had writer's block. I became reacquainted with the site recently when I started to try and earn some money online *boo, hiss* to pay for my tuition. Yes, school fees are free in the UK (up to age 18) but as I had left school due to health problems I have to pay my own way... and still being unable to work due to said health problems, it was proving difficult. So you could say the money aspect was my priority when I joined up. And my reviews reflected that - they were short and a bit, well, bad. I like to think I have improved.
Being literary minded (surprisingly), I found it difficult to transition from fiction to reviewing. There are three tenets when writing non-fiction, objectives to achieve and provoke from your audience: to inform, to persuade, and to entertain. Ideally, an 100% perfect review does all of these things, but I think most of mine do 2/3, which ain't bad. After overcoming that learning curve, I found that I do, honest to God, enjoy writing reviews. It delights me that I can make money, even if it's just a few pence, from writing about things I like or dislike. I still find it shocking that Dooyoo pay for things like book and DVD reviews (and even more so for Dooyoo Lounge ones) but of course I am not complaining. I have to thank Dooyoo for enabling me to find something out about myself and for a hobby I find endearing.
However Dooyoo is not all frolicks in the park and raspberry slush puppies, it does have its negative side. There seems to be a great amount of community pressure and a sense of judgement - I partake in this too, every time I see NEW MEMBER posting a review on a mobile phone that barely scrapes past 150 words - 150 poorly spelled words, with no paragraphs or punctuation - I think: why God? To be fair to Dooyoo, they are quick to scoop up these spammers and put them in the dustbin of life, but that's beyond the point. There is something more integrally dubious to Dooyoo, and that's in the format of the site itself - Dooyoo make money off affiliate links and advertising, pays a little of that back to reviewers who get paid for reviews, completing a self-serving circuit. Nowhere in that equation can I see the initiative to write good quality honest consumer reviews. Consumers are what make the site tick. Without them buying through Dooyoo and visiting the site to bring in traffic, there would be no Dooyoo and no money. Not that high quality honest reviews don't exist - in fact, a very many of them do, I would go so far to say the majority of reviews are - but as a consumer I am wary of the honesty of the fact many reviews, due to the nature of the website, may well be faked to make 60p.
Beyond liars, there is also some traits of Dooyoo that go against the grain of consumer need. For example, Dooyoo tends to reward those who write long reviews. As a consumer making an important or expensive purchase, I will read several reviews on an item before mentally correlating the data and making a decision. I do not want to spend 15 minutes reading a 2000-word review. If it contains all relevant data and experience, fair enough, but many are padded out with information, such as irrelevant anecdotes or back-story of a nature I don't care about. Very often shorter reviews contain just the basic facts and relevant experience needed to make a decision, and I am surprised that Dooyoo don't reward express reviews or shorter reviews with their own competition category as I do believe they have an important use.
Thirdly, some items just don't need reviews, to be frank. While it is necessary to share negative information e.g. a product that didn't live up to expectations, average reviews of average products seem unnecessary, like towels, balloon holders, baked beans, bic pens, toilet paper... To be honest, if I want to buy a balloon holder I will go to a shop and buy it, I don't need to know anything more than it has weight enough to stop a balloon flying away. Anyway that hypothetical situation is ridiculous, I would just use a rock, and instead of a balloon, a bird. This is how we do things in North Staffordshire.
Dooyoo HQ are also a mysterious bunch. Once you start playing what I call "the long game" - writing fewer but longer reviews for crowns, instead of writing shorter, more frequent reviews for instant cash - the likelihood of a crown ascends to the arbitrary. Honestly, they seem random. I know people complain about crowns a lot, personally I think they are great, I just wish they were executed in a simpler way. As it stands it seems like reviews posted on a Tuesday or Monday have a higher likelihood of receiving a crown because whoever reads the nominated reviews (God bless your soul) understandably reads down (or backwards) through their list. This is unfair, date should not factor into it - the reviews with the most nominations should be highest on the list and therefore have more chance. This makes more sense. I am confident everyone reading this is sick of crown talk, so I will leave it there.
I enjoy Dooyoo and I have factored it into my life seamlessly - a rate here in between this, a rate there - and I have found it pays for enjoyable work. I have learnt a lot about different things - travel, products, lifestyles - and I have met some great people, as well as introducing friends to the site. I think it could be improved, but I like it here, and I hope to be celebrating another milestone with you all some day. Thanks for reading.
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