Dooyoo want to write a review?! (dooyoo.co.uk in general)

Member Name: Stephoohla

Product:	dooyoo.co.uk in general
Date:	25/08/09 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy way to make money, feels nice to be crowned!

Disadvantages: Time consuming

As I'm a skint 19 year old, renting a flat and planning on going travelling next year, I'm always in desperate need of money.

When I heard from a friend that it was easy to review things online and get paid for it, I looked into it. I already write reviews for local magazine Mad Dog, but only music and film reviews, and it's only voluntary, so when I found out I could review practically anything on Dooyoo, it seemed an ideal way to make money.

It was easy to sign up, you simply enter in a few basic details along with your email address. You are then emailed a confirmation link, which you must click on to activate your account (this is for security purposes to ensure no one is trying to create an account under your name).

Once you've signed up, all you need is your username and password and thats it! From there on you can begin writing as many reviews as you want, there are no restrictions. Update: As of the 25th August 2009 (thanks Mummy2Harry) new users can only post 5 reviews a day. This encourages you to explore the site a bit and read other reviews from other Dooyooers so you know what kind of things you should be writing and can pick up some tips. After a month of membership, this limit is lifted and you can post however much you like.

To write a review, you can either browse through the categories (I find its easier to click on the 'More' tab at the top, then click on 'Site Map' which gives you a complete display of all the categories on the site that you can review).

I'll admit, the main reason I signed up was to earn the cash. When you get 50,000 Dooyoo points, you can get £50 cash. Seems like a lot of points, but would be worth it for £50. You get 500 points per review you write, and everytime someone rates it, you get 15 points. If the review is very well written, someone might nominate it for a crown, and if it wins, you receive a bonus 1,500 points.

So, I started writing reviews. I believe the first thing I reviewed was the Xbox game Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Naively thinking that writing the minimum 150 words would be enough, I quickly ended it and went onto my next Xbox 360 game review. My ratings came back as 'Useful' and 'Somewhat Useful'.

I then realised that it was important to give a good review. I wanted good feedback too, and when I realised how important that was, I rewrote my reviews. I realised that I was only really describing the basic bits. Like for an Xbox 360 game, I'd describe the characters and the maps. I needed to be more informative and how I actually felt whilst playing the game, and how long it lasted, and whether it was difficult and easy, etc.. all the things that a game manufacturer won't tell you but you want to know.

Of course, I'm talking specifically about games. Dooyoo reviews everything and anything. Ironing boards, websites, budgies, holidays. Anything you could ever want an opinion about will most likely be on here!

The site overall is fairly easy to use. There are a few adverts which can make a couple of the pages look confusing, but it only takes 10 minutes to get used to the site, and a quick once over by pressing a few buttons will help.

Each reviewer has their own profile (unless they're a guest reviewer) and you can upload a photo and write an 'About Me' to make it a bit more personalised. You can create a circle of friends who you 'trust' aswell, which makes the site a bit more interactive as though it's partly a social networking site. Quite a lot of the people on here seem to know one another, probably through Dooyoo, so it's quite a fun community.

Back to the money side of things. Well, you need 50,000 points to claim any money, and I'm only on 39,000 at the moment, so unfortunately cannot tell you how you claim, how long the procedure takes, etc. Maybe after I've written a few more reviews I'll rewrite this to let everyone know who's interested!

Another update: I recently claimed my first £50 cheque. Yes! It's real! This site isn't a con! It was easy to claim online, you simply go to your Account, under your Dooyoo miles count, click on 'Pending' and then from that page you can claim your cash or vouchers. My cheque took 2 weeks to get to me (postal strikes must've slowed it now) and it's just cashed in my account. Now I'm a happy Steph!

Summary: Overall, a great site, a nice way to make money online too