The rewards system scares me!! (mouthshut.com)

Member Name: GR-Design

Product:	mouthshut.com
Date:	12/05/01 (83 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Another opinions site!, Lots of culture

Disadvantages: Not knowing what we are working for.

Mouthshut is another paid for opinions website. Why they have called it mouthshut when the site is for airing your views on stuff is beyond me but it must be either a marketing gimmick or theres some good reason behind it, anyway…

First off, before you rush off to the site I must tell you that it is an Indian site. This doesn’t really make any difference to you and me as we can all use the site, infact they want us to use the site. The only problem that you are going to come across is the types of opinions you can write. In other words, India doesn’t have all the same things that we do so there are limited things you can write about. Things like mobile phones, computer games and things like that are much the same though. Oh, and before you ask, yes, India speak English!

So here we go for my usual ramblings on the site…..

- REGISTERING

Registering yourself on mouthshut is actually extremely easy. You don’t have to submit as much information to the site as you do on the other paid for sites like dooyoo and ciao. All you have to do is enter a username, password, confirm it, enter your e-mail address (which has to be a real one) and your gender. If someone has referred you to the site then you can enter their referral ID (and why not eh!)

- CATEGORIES

As I have already mentioned, there may not be too many things that you can write about that you may already write about on other opinion sites. However, if you look hard enough there are a lot of things that India have that we in England also have. Things like restaurants, they have McDonalds and they also have Pizza Huts. They use the same mobile phones as us as do they use the same websites as us to a certain extent. But, of course, if you like reviewing websites, theres nothing stopping you reviewing the indian websites that are listed.

You will find the same categories that are on dooyoo and ciao, however, I will just list the
categories in which I think you would be able to find suitable items to write about.
 Automobiles – Yes, they do drive some of the cars that we drive, however, they do also have their own cars which are unheard of over here and vice versa so its pot luck really!
 Books – A lot of the books that are listed will probably have been published in this country aswell
 Computers – Ok, so they might have their own pieces of software but apart from that, computers are pretty much the same in India as they are here
 Electronics – Again, all the same, they do get Sony aswell you know!!
 Entertainment – There is a nice touch here. They have made categories for Indian and International products here. So you can still write reviews about movies shown here and in the US but the indians who use the site can write about the Indian movies that are released in India.
 Health & Beauty – Ok, so they may or may not have superdrug over there, but they will still have the same products made by the same manufacturers.
 Internet – Well what can I say, the internets worldwide remember!!
 Sports – They do have a lot on cricket here as its their most popular sport. You may not be able to write about your local football club, but you should be able to wrote about the superstar players.

So there we have it. You shouldn’t have to many problems finding something to write about!! There are other categories listed aswell.

- WRITING AN OPINION

Writing a review is much the same as the site your reading this on now. All you do is give your opinion a title, write your review, give it the pro’s and con’s and then give it an overall rating in the form of 1-5, 5 being the best.

What is different is that you can request to be notified when you review has been rated, commented on or even when it is read, but then
you’d have a huge amount of e-mails flooding your inbox!

- REWARDS

Ahhh, now were talking…..or are we??

The rewards on this site are a little bit vague. You get points for writing reviews and also points for having your review read. However, how much these points are worth is yet to be decided. Plus, its not yet clear what you can trade your points for!

This is a rundown of the available points on offer….

Registering – 10
Writing a review – 5
Reads – 2
Rating – 1
Referral signup – 10
Referral commission – 5%

Now, for a start, you need to be a member of the site for 6 months to be able to do anything with your points. What this is in aid of I don’t know, I can only think that they are covering themselves and seeing if the site does any good before starting to pay out. Wouldn’t it be convenient for them to decide they are to go bust after 5 and a half months, therefore, they don’t have to pay anybody! I may be and hope that I’m wrong but it’s the only reason I can think of.

If you have been a member of the site for 6 months you also need to have over 600 points in your account. Now, this shouldn’t take you to long to earn. As an example, I have submitted 2 reviews to the site and have already netted myself 75 points, so it can’t be that hard. Once you have collected you 600 points they say that you can then exchange them for your cheque/gift. However, it doesn’t tell you anywhere what the gifts are likely to be nor does it tell you how much the points are worth. Again, I believe that this is to cover themselves. If they had set out and said every point was worth 1p they may not have been able to afford the payouts, but now they can put any value on the points and no one will be able to complain so it may or may not be worth it! Who knows!

- NAVIGATION & DESIGN

This si
tes design is ok. To me there seems to be a little to much text and everything seems to be square and rectangles. The design however is quite pleasing on the eye and the page isn’t to full of things to distract you from what your doing (something that dooyoo is now guilty of after their re-design!!) They haven’t used too many colours either. On saying that, the only colours that I can see are orange blue and green (that doesn’t sound all that nice does it!?) and it all comes together quite well. It does help you identify areas when you get used to the colour scheme and it carries the same colour scheme throughout the site.

Navigation is ok. However, after using dooyoo over the past week I find it to be a bit annoying that I have to go back to the front page to look at a different category but now I’m just being picky! As usual they have a navigation history trail across the top of the page so you can always go back a step if you wish. The parts that you click on to get to places are all laid out nicely and easily identified so you won’t be looking for somewhere to click to take you to that place you have just found and want to explore.

All in all the navigation and design of the site is pretty much average and complies to the ‘rules’ that most good sites do. In other words and to cut it short….You won’t find yourself lost in the realms of a category with no way out!!

- OVERALL

Well from my personal point of view I wouldn’t really recommend the site and I haven’t used it much since signing up, I signed up about a month ago now and have only submitted 2 reviews. You do get a good number of reads on your reviews and the community spirit is all well and good I just don’t like the way that I don’t know what I am going to get out of the site in the way of rewards. I could be collecting thousands of points for a couple of quid for all I know!

All I can
say is give it a go but don’t put too much effort into it until you know what your going to get out of it. If you are not in it for the rewards at all and just like airing your opinions on things then this site is for you and I would heartily recommend it!

It’s a thumbs up to the site from me for everything but a thumbs down for the rewards system!

And now ladies and gentleman, I am done!

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