| Product: |
dooyoo vs other opinion websites |
| Date: |
06/08/07 (232 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Amazon vouchers rock!
Disadvantages: I can spend far too much time here when I ought to be doing other things
Well, okay dooyoo didn’t actually die young but a few years back it was touch and go for its survival!
I joined dooyoo a long time back at the end of February 2002 because in those days writing here could earn me ipoints and I wanted to get enough to pay for flying lessons for my lovely fella. It didn’t take me long to realise I would have to write (and rate a lot) daily for a good few years to achieve this goal. But by then I had become happily addicted to dooyoo, so I stayed! I have never been a very prolific writer here (only 70 ops over five years, including this one) but I found things easy to get the hang of and the community mainly friendly without being too intrusive
Then came the sad time when dooyoo was almost constantly inaccessible and new products were rarely added, so I, along with many others, I temporarily jumped ship. I still craved an outlet for my urges and joined ciao. At first there was a honeymoon period as people dropped me gushy comments and left cloying messages in my guestbook and I am ashamed to say that my head was turned for a little while. It was fun also to find other dooyooers over there and catch up with them as we were in exile due to dooyoo’s technical problems
It didn’t take very long before I found that things were not as rosy as they seemed on the surface in ciao land. All those welcoming greetings, all the cute little comments and in-jokes soon began to show a darker side to ciao. I quickly began to find the incessant dot chasing of some people tiresome. Those community points are designed to encourage people to write and fill the site, but as in all walks of life a competitive system like can bring out the worst in some people. I tried to keep myself to myself as I was asked by an albeit small minority of members to join in helping someone to reach the next colour level, or to take sides in thinly veiled vendettas and arguments
The café side of ciao which seemed fun at first soon palled as well; al those interminable navel gazing question and answer pieces that I soon learned to avoid. In those cases I felt I was judging the writer’s own self rather than their skills when I rated lower than the top ratings
My final straw was the people who started coming over and asking why I had*only* given them a Helpful when they thought they deserved a Very Helpful or even an Exceptional rating. The tedium of logging on each day to trawl through swathes of people begging for higher rates bored me silly. Actually it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds as I felt that I did rate fairly, but it did get a bit wearing. I also got pretty fed up with reading reviews that were laid out identically in a prescribed manner, all similar headings and characters for underlining etc, the same way of phrasing things all made for pretty dull reading. It took a lot of the joy out of being there for me, so I did the decent thing; cashed in my few measly quid and quietly deleted my account
It is a nice place here at Dooyoo on the whole. Sure we get the odd revenge rater, some clicking cartels and the annoying churner who clogs up the new reviews list with reams of useless, poorly written ops. But nowadays these silly people are dealt with nice and quickly by dooyoo. I find the product suggestions are implemented quickly after I suggest them and the reward system is good
The reward system is definitely an area where dooyoo stands head and shoulders above ciao. Every time a logged in member reads a review, the writer receives 30 dooyoo miles; the equivalent of three pence. Simple, straightforward and easy to understand – this makes revenge rating a pretty pointless exercise that only succeeds in making the revenge rater look petty. This simple system makes greedy people attempt to defraud dooyoo, but it also helps to show them more easily too; if a few people who write shoddy ops all rate mainly each others shoddy ops, usually too highly it soon comes to light and dooyoo will sort them out. This is why sometimes our miles fluctuate quite alarmingly as dooyoo will suspend the accounts until their investigations are done, during which time should any of those involved have rated your op(s) their miles will vanish from your total
If both your fellow members and dooyoo deem your op good enough you could earn a nice shiny crown, and the bonus of 1500 miles… nice! Some categories do not earn the miles, but even having an unpaid crown is nice and gives you a little boost. The nomination process for crowns is anonymous, which I believe also cuts down on the backbiting and name calling that can happen elsewhere. Some people do have the urge to leave a message saying that they have nominated a review, but thankfully not too often. I have left a few of these messages myself but only when I have been particularly moved or impressed by an op, usually I am quiet nominator
As they would say on Radio 2… other review sites are available! Most of which, I joined in my self-imposed exile. Naturally I took the easy route with all of them and copied my dooyoo ops across, but not one of the sites could satisfy like good old dooyoo
The review centre is quite nice, although I have yet to see any reward from it, as the main payment seems in the form of monthly draws. Mouthshut is a total disaster with masses of incredibly badly written reviews and a cliquey feel that makes ciao pale into insignificance. Helium is just plain confusing; I really haven’t got the hang of that place at all!
The rewards rack up quickly if you write enough and do plenty of reading, rating and commenting around the site. Cashing in your hard earned pennies is also, on the whole, trouble-free. A quick click and you can get a wonderful Amazon voucher delivered straight to your inbox. Sometimes this does take a few days, but a chaser email to dooyoo get things moving I have found
It is grand see dooyoo good and busy again after all the problems sometime back, when so many people were lured away to the dark sides of opinionating! I enjoy dooyoo because it doesn’t take over my life, I can write as and when I like on a variety of topics and come and go as I please without being hounded by people who enjoy the community side more than the reading and writing. That said the community side is there for those who want it, I have even made a few friends myself here, which is a nice bonus
Summary: Why I think Dooyoo beats the other sites into a cocked hat
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