The third place (u-rate-it.com)

Member Name: michaird

Product:	u-rate-it.com
Date:	02/05/03 (425 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Customer service is second to none, it's a new site so gives a chance to have a hand in actually building a success , listens to members and implements ideas quickly, Ability to add own items, Excellent on-site community, encourages innovation.

Disadvantages: Very new site with obvious teething problems, need to increase unique content , speed of changes can be disorientating, people expect it to fail

U-Rate-it...

I expect you will have heard of this place already. The people in the opinionating world don't often stay out of the loop for too long when it comes to developments in the field of their hobby of choice. But many I imagine will have taken a cursory look and thought 'Nah!' or perhaps you don't feel you have the time to contribute to another place, well that's fine. But read on and let me see if I can change your mind.

U-rate-it is, for those that aren't already aware, a consumer review site just like Ciao and Dooyoo. It's new, very new, the site has only really been an option to most of its member since December and the changes it has undergone between now and then are dramatic and surprising. Some members like all the changes, some don't, but there is one thing that sets these changes apart from any other site, what is it? Well...

Customer Service.

Do you remember the testing categories on Dooyoo? The ones that were flooded with fantastic, good, okay and crap suggestions from members on how to improve the site and move the community forward? You know those Ciao categories for member feedback or the 'what makes Ciao a community?' categories that everyone pours their most heartfelt desires for the place that they spend so much of their energy working at in the hope that somewhere the powers that be are reading it.

Well on U-rate-it there is a 'suggestions for improving U-rate-it' category. There is also a suggestion box where you can mail you suggestion right to the powers that be.

Yeah, so what? That's no different to the other places.

Yeah? You think? Well what's different is if you idea is pretty good, if the powers that be (i.e. James) like it or perhaps he thinks the members may like it the chances are it'll be implemented within a week, sooner even. For example:

On April 13th at 3.39pm a member suggested on Chuckle
web that a way to encourage exclusive content and quality on the site would be to introduce a payment for award winning reviews (well talk about that later)

On 13th April at 6.49pm the powers that be (i.e. James) said 'hey, you know that's a pretty good idea. I'll look into it.' (I'm paraphrasing here).

On 13th April at 8.53pm it was announced on site that as of 26th April a cash reward of 50p would be awarded to all reviews exclusive to URI that win an award.

Now how about that? Impressive huh? Can ciao or Dooyoo beat that for customer service?

Perhaps you think that it can't go on indefinitely. Perhaps you think that the golden days of Ciao and Dooyoo have taught you that these things don't last forever. And yeah, you're right, they don't. I've no doubt that after a time it'll take a little longer to implement suggestions, make corrections and such like.

But there are still a few differences between URI and everywhere else; firstly URI is James' baby. It's his site, it isn't owned by some multinational telecommunications company, it isn't based in Germany. It's a personal investment on James' part and while the pessimists among you may feel that that only increases the risk of him losing interest and shutting down, I happen to think it counts for a little more than that.

There are a number of site members who have decided they're committed enough to the success of the site that they have volunteered to be site guides or category guides. As James workload increases I can see these members taking on a more involved role regarding customer service to help out. Don't worry, it doesn't have to be you, there are enough people who wouldn't mind too much already.

Site Layout and features:

The site doesn't look like Ciao or Dooyoo (and lets face it they both look the same) and is confusing when you first try it ou
t. But think back to when you first started using your site of choice, weren't you a bit confused? Didn't it take you time to find your way around? Sure it did.

URI is new, it's unfamiliar and it's a good kick away from the nice safe comfortable world you know. You take a little look, you're not impressed, you leave safe in the knowledge that you tried but it wasn't for you, no one can accuse you of not even trying.

But look closer, go on, have a good look. What is it you don't like?
Perhaps the screen is too wide, you hate that.
Perhaps you don't like the look of the profile pages, neither do I.
Perhaps the layout of the front page is confusing, muddled you can't find your way around.

Well if you don't like it, speak up. Let the people in charge know and they'll see if they can sort it out for you.

It may be that what you want is unworkable; it may be your demands are unreasonable. But be sure you'll be listened too and until you are, why not look at some of the site features that are pretty cool already.

The guest books. - Just like Ciao really allows interaction between members without clogging up the comment facilties.

The private message system - Gives you the option to talk privately with members, where most contact with James comes from and ensures your own personal email need never appear on the site and you won't be cut off from any juicy gossip.

Formatting options - Simple formatting options are available for reviews. If you want to make some of your text bold or underlined to make reviews appear more professional, you can do that. If you want to put smiley faces in your reviews to make them seem fun, you can do that too.

Adding facilities - One of the biggest advantages of URI to many members is the ability to add categories and items yourself. If you're searching for it and you can't find it, decide where
it should go and add it in, it's as simple as that. If you make a mistake (as I have many times, I am probably very annoying) let them know and they'll correct it.

Some people worry that the database with be a big mess, that the facility will be abused and eventually taken away due to being unworkable. Well this may be true, but for the moment it's holding fast and doing well. Category maintenance is undertaken fairly regularly so it's not as if the categories are totally ignored and you can do as you please, it is simply that control has been delegated somewhat.

Quiz night - A (usually) fortnightly get together of site members which takes place at around 8pm on Wednesdays. Comprising 30 multiple-choice questions. There's a time limit so we can be sure Jeeves isn't doing all the work and the questions are provided by volunteer members who obviously can't join in that week. The quiz is rather good fun, people usually gather for a chat afterwards and the winner gets a £10 Amazon voucher for their troubles (I won last week, finally!)

The message box - An on site chat facility, not especially advanced but it serves the purpose. Often it is empty but it fills up after the quiz and people leave messages about how much skiving they're doing that day.

Another use the message box is put to is the occasional suggestion chats, a scheduled time when site members can get together for an hour or so and thrash out with James ideas and suggestions for site improvements.

Web logs - A relatively new feature like an online diary. Perhaps you could use it as your daily journal share your thoughts and feelings with the world, or perhaps you could use it more as a little pluggery log of what reviews you're working on, why you've not been on site for a while, it's you birthday. Being a new feature it's underused at the moment but as people see ways of making it work to their advantage I can se
e it becoming more popular.

Well that's enough features, there are other but you're bored now right? So lets get down to the meat in the pie, the thing you're interested in: rewards.

Member benefits:

URI rewards its members in a number of different ways.

Firstly there are tokens. For each rate you get or give, for each comment you make you get a token. At the end of the month the count is reset to zero and all your tokens, along with everyone else's, go into a prize draw. The draw usually consists of a £50 Amazon voucher and a months free DVD rentals (two prizes for too people). Last month the prize was an MP3 player worth around £100 (and I won it, it's very cool).

When I joined (In December 2002) this was the only reward available, but the site has evolved so quickly and the scheme has been continually extended since then.

When you first join you get £1 straight into your account. When this was introduced all current members were given £1 too, so as not to exclude anyone.

There are awards for the best reviews. The golden lightbulb award is for excellent product reviews and the golden quill award for excellent writing in reviews - so no category is excluded from an award.

The awards come with a 30 token bonus and as a way of encouraging exclusive content for the site reviews exclusive to URI will also get 50p. At the end of the month six of the best are picked from all of the rewarded reviews and each one gets a £15 Amazon gift voucher. Once the monthly awards have been made all reviews marked exclusive on site will be set to a regular review and you can post them to any other site you wish. Exclusive reviews are favoured for awards but don't worry, reviews already posted elsewhere aren't excluded.

For certain categories you'll be paid for each VU or U rating that your reviews receive. The categories are:

DVDs: 3p per VU; 1p per U
Games:
2p for VU; 1p for U
CDs: 2p per VU; 1p per U
Books: 1p per VU or U
Computers: 1p per VU or U
DVD Players: 1p per VU or U
Mobile Phones: 1p per VU or U
Consumer Electronics: 1p per VU or U
Household: 1p per VU or U

When your account reaches £5 you can trade in for a £10 voucher at Miller PC and MP3 specialist. When you account reaches £10 you can trade in for a £10 Amazon gift voucher.

Occasionally the site holds competitions or write-offs. There are two running at the moment. One in the beauty category with a prize of £40 worth of beauty products (donated by a member) and a 'Why I joined URI' challenge for new members with a prize of a £20 Amazon gift voucher.

Short reviews:

A short review is a review of 200 words or less. On any other site this would get a terrible rating and a 'needs more detail' comment.

On URI they are encouraged. Short reviews are intended for an Ezine, which the site plans to publish for members and non-members alike.

The intention is to whet the readers appetite and encourage them to either use links to buy the product earning the site revenue or investigate the site for more information, increasing site traffic.

If you write a short review and a long review they will be automatically linked. I have found that when I write a short review a few days after my full one reads for the full one also clock up with people wanting to read the longer version.

A short review can be rated either Useful or Not Useful and there is a reward scheme planned for the ones chosen for the Ezine although I'm not too sure what is it and things move so fast on the site I wouldn't like to say either.

Reading short reviews can be a refreshing change to the long, often padded offerings we've been used to and they're are much harder to write effectively than you would think.

Rating:

There are five rating t
iers available to the reader.

Very good
Good
Ok
Not useful
Useless!

Tokens awarded for each rating range from 0 - 5 (there are no negative tokens as with Ciao's community points)

Ratings are however anonymous. That is you can see who has rated your review but you cannot see what they have rated. After five ratings have been made an overall rating is given with an icon indicating various levels of thumbs-up ness. A note can be seen on the review how many people found the review very useful or useful e.g. '9 out of 10 members found this review useful or very useful'

While some people may argue that this leaves the road open for abuse I have to say I haven't noticed any myself. If you feel you have been a victim of rating abuse simply report it to James and... well rather than me telling you what the site thinks of abuse why don't I just post some of a recent announcement on site regarding abuse of guest book facilities:

'IP addresses are stored against all entries at u-rate-it and we will ban persistent offenders and name and shame any member found to be 'impersonating' other members."

Pretty unambiguous.

What the anonymous system actually does is stop the incidents of 'Why did you rate my op only H?' Which is annoying an anal at the best of times, destructive at the worst of times.

But I don't want to read an Op I've already read twice before:

Yes, a good proportion of the content is reported by members from other sites. It's not such a bad thing, people are only posting their best work resulting in a higher quality content on URI overall and positive efforts are being made to bring in totally new novice members and encourage the more seasoned of us to make URI our first choice to post.

With preferential reward schemes, a small payment for rewarded exclusive work (which after the required time has elaps
ed can be reposted and possibly earn PF money or a Dooyoo crown) and the fact your review is exclusive is advertised in bright green letters on the new in list, making it more attractive to readers.

It's slowly working too, in the lat 20 reviews posted on site there have been:
8 non-exclusive reviews
6 review revised and updated for the site
6 exclusive reviews.

Not a bad ratio for such a new site.

So in the end.

It's a new site; it's not perfect nowhere near perfect in fact. It'll need time work and a lot of evolution to make it as big and successful as Ciao or Dooyoo - who have had a two year head start if you remember - but with its attitude to its members and overall approach I can see it making it.

You wont get nearly as many reads there as on Ciao, you might get as many as on Dooyoo but that'll change as the site grows.

The site doesn't expect totally exclusive content, it knows that we all want to get as much out of our reviews as possible and isn't about to stand in our way. But it is making more positive efforts than any other to site ensure that while it isn't the only place to reviews it aspired to be the FIRST.

You may not want to join, you may be a cynic, and if it fails you can stand up and say 'I told you so' safe in the knowledge that you were never silly enough to get into something out that might not work.

But me, I prefer to give things a go before I write them off.

Summary: