***MY FIRST IMPRESSION...Through the Neophyte's Eyes*** (dooyoo.co.uk in general)

Name: curious_tan

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Product:	dooyoo.co.uk in general
Date:	01/01/07 (281 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Making myself busy and improve my writing

Disadvantages: It is addictive for people who enjoy life

FRANKLY, it took a while to put my mind working and organise my thoughts on something that has been influential in my daily activities for the past few months. I did several attempts especially during my sleepless nights to write a review (on this category) that I could share with new and old members, and even for those who are contemplating to take part in this consumer site. Unluckily, due to my numerous commitments as a full time researcher, I was not successful to have it posted before the holiday season as my simple Xmas presence to the Dooyoo team - a way of acknowledging the positive outcomes of my membership. Nonetheless, it is not too late to have it posted to celebrate of my ½ year anniversary and the start of year 2007.

CERTAINLY, there are negative impacts associated with my membership, but these are being outweighed by tangible benefits for having Dooyoo in my simple life. For now, there is no turning back and I am quite happy to share my thoughts – my first impression about Dooyoo since I started six months ago. This is a personal account on how I go through to the process of understanding the Dooyoo community as one of the popular consumer sites in the UK. By the way, it is not part of my review to compare Dooyoo with other existing consumer sites available on the net such as Ciao, Tooyoo, or Trivago, or some extent other forum sites available for the members like The Review Writers’ forum, The Opinionators Forum, Tooyoo guestbooks, or even Amazon or Ebay which they have a membership site as well. Yes, it is also beneficial especially for new members to have a comparative discussion, however, it is too early for me to do that considering that Im still enjoying my membership with Dooyoo at the moment which I don’t bother to create an account with Ciao or Tooyoo. So far, I am very comfortable how the Dooyoo team works – my reviews are available on-line and are paid for doing it!

***My New Found on-line interactive site
As the invitation to join the site, it is easy to have my own account in just few seconds. But frankly, prior to my login, I do not have any idea how the site works. At first, I thought that this is just another site for promoting and sharing personal stuffs: photos, blogs, videos, circle of friends, hobbies, etc. My first encounter with Dooyoo was when I searched a book through google search engine and I was directed to the member who did a review of the said book. With my curiosity, I clicked the link to the main home page of the site and the rest is now part of the six months history.

For the on-line viewing public, the site is a ‘gateway’ to well established sites such as Amazon and Ebay. Looking back being a non-member, the site provided me a lot of things in relation to my hobbies. The site offered me several options and choices to purchase something or even influence my decisions to improve my daily living, making/doing things easier, enjoyable and satisfying (fulfilling)! From a simple gadget to a long travel destination profile, Dooyoo gives me the info that I need anytime, anywhere, everywhere I go, as long as I have my laptop and there is an available wireless internet connection. If I did not decide to be open an account with Dooyoo, well, I could still enjoy the services offered by the site, except that I could not fully participate, contribute, and share my passion in life with the rest of the members. And most importantly, if just stay as a non-member, I could not be able to do on-line shopping thru Amazon using the accumulated Dooyoomiles as converted into cash voucher certificates and not be able to communicate with people who want to share their personal experiences, and somehow might influence your ‘purchasing power’.

In the later part of the year, I witnessed the transformation of Dooyoo - the web design/lay-out, competitions, suggestions, rewards system, and other features which somehow resulted to mixed emotions/reactions among senior members. As a new member, the changes did not affect me at all, or I did not bother at all, except for new features added in the homepage and in the individual member’s account which I will be briefly discussed and highlighted later in my review. Maybe, I felt this way because I am still on the process of familiarising the management of the site. In particular, the difference from the original design and features to the latest lay-out did not strike me negatively, except that there is always room for further improvement. Nevertheless, everything works for me.


***Finding my own way – Familiarisation, Searching and Navigation

HOMEPAGE. The old and new designs of the site are easy to navigate even for people who have little knowledge of internet searching or even website design. Like with the majority of the website designs and lay-outs, Dooyoo uses the same principle – having simple and quick functions for both the homepage and the individual member’s account.

Dooyoo homepage provides the basic links to the various functions and features of the site for both non- and members. Based in my personal experience, some of the websites do not provide access to this kind of information for non-members or prior to login. I think it is logical to have this arrangement with Dooyoo since it is a consumer site where the more access to information, the chance of getting new memberships is high. Providing all the information to potential members is vital for allowing everyone to decide to join or not without hiding any unfair arrangement that may cause dissatisfaction or frustrations from the members in the future. Despite the fact that Dooyoo team provided the fundamental policy for membership, I observed (from past reviews) that there are still members who are not completely satisfied the way Dooyoo is being administered. I think it is a good indication because everyone wants to make their contributions (time, talent, resources, etc.) fully acknowledged; consequently, any improvement is not for individual’s gratification but for the whole Dooyoo community’s advantage.

In particular, the Dooyoo Community link having the Guided Tour and Tools are effective features for consumers to have a quick glance of what the site can offer. Also, the Dooyoo Advice Clinic is another link which covers the FAQs (frequently ask questions) relating to memberships and getting started with the review posting, rating and rewards. The homepage guided me to appreciate the benefits of having a Dooyoo account.

Honestly, I did not visit/read all these links prior to my registration. Because of my excitement to write, rate, comment and post my first review, I only visited the Guided Tour link and the Newest Reviews, Speaker’s Corner and the ‘general custom search’s icon located at the top of the homepage. Familiarisation with the site is a continuing process and ‘as the need arises’ which it is ‘not’ a pre-requisite of my membership. Maybe if there is ‘money’ involved (like credit card identification) for registration, then that will be a different story. Everyone wants to ensure that you get what you want from your money. It seems that Dooyoo applies a ‘democratic way’ of dealing with members which for me is working effectively. And besides it is a free will to take part in this site, without any binding arrangement or ‘covenant’ to maintain individual registration. There are problems having this type of arrangement, however, if problem or issue arises (fraud, multiple identities) it is manageable to deal with, and I believe Dooyoo can handle this accordingly without sacrificing the rest of the community members.

With the present make-over, the Dooyoo Community link did not appear to be new really, except for the membership homepage which most of the improvement or modification can be seen. It is still quite a long page, containing mostly of the monthly competition results. Since it is accessible to the non-members, this information is not drawing much their attention. To make this page appealing to non-members, recent results and Dooyoo announcements will still remain, except for the previous months winners will be transferred to the ‘Winner’s page’ link under the ‘Features’ main category. I will not discuss this further making detailed suggestions and feedbacks which are not the focus of my review.

MEMBER'S PROFILE PAGE. The member account profile page’s appearance/lay-out is something appealing to me with a ‘dark green’ motif. Specifically, having an option to download photos is cool wherein I could change or store it in my account. Maybe some members will disagree with me, but having an updated photo is an ‘honest’ gesture to be part of the community. Why? Showing your own real identity makes other members believe that you exist, not a ‘ghost’ writer having a shadow figure appearing on the screen! Sorry, Im not offending others who don’t bother to have their ID updated or plainly using an ‘avatar’, but I do believe that having my photo posted, indirectly there is a little bit of ‘connection’ with the rest of the members who are part of my circle of friends or simply for those members who rated my reviews.

The ‘Suggestion’ feature is also impressive where I could inform the Dooyoo team with my future reviews, and post my reviews upon approval without opening my yahoo account to check the Dooyoo Info Service’s email. So far, Dooyoo team’s response to my suggestions is fair enough efficient with a reasonable waiting time. Moreover, the ‘Mesaging’ feature is effective for me since I always write comments to reviews that I have rated. This feature is valuable for communicating with other members, beyond the reviews, just simply establishing contacts with members that I feel comfortable exchanging notes. In the early design, majority write comments on reviews even these are out of the topic on review just to communicate with the writer. This is because not of us are comfortable to have our email address available publicly. Having this new updated feature, Im more honest to send a personal message to the member’s concern without jeopardising the writer’s reputation or to some extent without affecting his/her ego as others do not able to read my feedbacks not directly posted on the review section.

For some members, it was not ok when the member’s search feature was temporarily omitted in the member’s site. Personally, it is not a big deal for me since the ‘Circle of Friends’ feature allows me to search those people who trusted me and vice-versa. Unless, otherwise, I want to expand my list of trusted members, then search feature will work well. For both non- or members, members’ search can be done using the google, yahoo or MSN search which is easy to search and promote my Dooyoo membership with my non-members friends.

***The Value for my Time and Contribution
Well, my daily routine changed a little bit from the time I activated my account. Before, I just do my regular university work and hobbies; and I face the computer everyday – searching, sending emails, and downloading music and videos. But now, believe it or not, I visit the site everyday to look at the reviews, including those who are lucky for the ‘yellow crowns’ and the competitions. In other words, Im one of the British residents who is now hooked with it.

Since I do a lot of things (dealing with people) in my professional career as a Civil Engineer/Environmental Planner and at same time a lecturer, it is not difficult to express myself and do write about it which is reflected in my personal Friendster’s blog. So, without any hesitation I posted my first review after a week of registration.

It did not turn out good as I expected in my first review. Until now, my first review has the lowest rating out of my 28 ops posted in a span of six months. Having experience of ‘freezing mode’ of that particular review, it did not stop me to continue my writing. Honestly, I fully acknowledged that I was not born to be an English writer. Being a non-English speaker, it is a challenge for me to be involved in the site. There are limitations that affect my way of expressing myself thru my reviews. Fortunately, with my determination to be accepted in the community and to learn from others experience (style), Im proud to tell everyone that I already received 8 crowns, out of my 28 reviews (approximately 29% share) posted, excluding this review. As I said earlier, I don’t read all the links especially on Dooyoo rewards which somehow a surprise for me to see a sparkling crown before my review title. I was also stunned that my crowned review was only rated by 13 members only, without any comment/nomination. With this recognition from Dooyoo, I was inspired to come up with interesting write-ups covering diverse topics from then on.

In general, with the existing member’s features allow me to participate thru posting, rating and commenting which eventually help me interact with members successfully. In addition, the ‘incentive’ mechanism is something that I always appreciated from Dooyoo. Sometimes, being a human being, Im also disappointed the way Dooyoo awards the crowns every week. I don’t question how does it works, but sometimes I cant control myself to doubt how the Dooyoo Team, including the Dooyoo Guides facilitating honest and fair decisions. Anyway, I am very grateful to have 8 crowns at the moment, and expecting more to come. With my writing style, it seems that the crowning moment is very elusive.

And finally, the competition section of the site is not to be ignored making members busy and be inspired. These competitions allow me to be more creative in my writing and do write reviews on various lines of products and services.


**CONCLUDING REMARKS
There’s so much to share my first impression with Dooyoo which could not be done in one write-up. As a new member, I have a lot of things to share which some of it are mentioned earlier, and some of them will be posted in due time. Dooyoo provided me the channel to improve my writing – away from my comfort zone. Thru Dooyoo, it also conditioned myself to accept feedbacks of my reviews which Im not really comfortable to be criticised by others. And most importantly, sharing my time and experience to others with insignificant monetary returns is my little way of helping on-line consuming public – having a community contribution differently!

HAPPY AND BLESSED NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

Summary: Thank you Dooyoo Team