Cheeow Ciao (ciao.co.uk)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	ciao.co.uk
Date:	27/12/04 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can make money, You can make friends

Disadvantages: Abuse, Premium Fund in general

-Preamble-
It’s funny how you get to the point where you can only cope with so much e-mail about penis extensions, Viagra offers and lonely housewife’s ushering you towards their webcams. Much as you want to not write, you reach the point where you MUST and any old subject will do. Well, here’s one that’s potentially been 3 years in the making and a subject that’s difficult to do justice to with any reasonable word count. I will try my best, of course, but should you glaze over during any phase of this complex debate then feel free to skip a section(s) or simply clear off for another mince pie and coffee.

-The Nature of Ciao-
Ciao.co.uk is part of the wider network of Ciao, which operates in countries like Germany, France and Italy. Now I know that the German operation still thrives however online opinion writing has been in decline for over 3 years now so the other sites in Europe may be no more. You’d have to check as I’m not that interested lacking the multi-linguistic talent to operate anywhere else other than dear old Ciao.co.uk.

Ciao was established as an online forum to capture product reviews/opinions from ordinary consumers like you and I – the idea being that a data base was built whereby Mrs Smith from Acton could then go check all the opinions about digital cameras and find the one that suited her. Her criteria may have been cost, it may have been quality but whatever it was the archived opinions would be ranked with the best reviews at the top so that Mrs Smith could make that informed choice.

Ciao came into being approximately 4 years ago at a time when the Internet bubble was at it’s biggest. In those halcyon days, pay per reads and payments for merely posting far outweighed those of today. Sadly for me, I only started out on Ciao at the very time that payment cuts were imposed i.e. December 2001.

Ciao derives its income from a combination of online sales (links from product reviews are easily accessible to various shops), on site advertising and commission garnered from questionnaires that lead to surveys sent to those members wanting to take part who actively complete their interest profiles.

------------------Ciao features--------------------
Joining Ciao is as easy as you would expect. Simply click the link on the main portal and complete the details. You will need to choose a user name and password and your user name will become your handle as in CB Radio e.g. Black Knight or something like that. You may want to consider this carefully as once you have it you are stuck with it unless you ask Ciao for a name change, although this now seems to have been stopped. I'd avoid something like "the_injured_penis" although I may be being a prude(?)

The main portal of Ciao is primarily aimed at the browsing consumer. Divided into product categories, the idea is that should you want to read about electric kettles then by going to the section on appliances you can read about the lovely kettles to your heart’s content and hopefully choose that kettle of your dreams. Decked in an orange and blue corpoare livery, you have to say that the main portal is neatly set out with a readable text and spaced appropriately to make the main page easy on the eye.

-Community Points and coloured dots-
At the risk of straight (and dull) reportage: Points are awarded according to an opinion being posted, ratings awarded, ratings given and comments made on other opinions. These points accumulate towards the allocation of coloured dot for the member. These dots start with white and finish with gold with different colours along the way. The higher the number of points, the higher community status which even gives a higher weighting when rating opinions.

-Rating and commenting-
There are 6 possible ratings on Ciao i.e. off-topic, not helpful, somewhat helpful, helpful, very helpful and exceptional. Guidelines are available to help with ratings although this single subject remains the most contraversial to date. Many have fallen out of ratings and I am no exception to debating ratings given by some. Rating opinions does determine where an opinion sits in its subsequent archive with, in theory, the best opinions being the most accessible. The higher the rating, the more points awarded with an exceptional rating supposedly an automatic nomination to figure in the Premium Fund allocation or even the diamond awards made monthly. Comments can be made to support a view on the opinion. For more guidance go to http://www.ciao.co.uk/faq.php/Id/2/Idx/4/Idy/2

-Buddy List-
There’s nothing more comforting than knowing other people like you. This might be because they like your writing style or even have take a shine to you for reasons known only to themselves. There are many relationships and, indeed, marriages that have come about via online associations on Ciao! With Ciao you can add up to 100 people to your buddy list by clicking the appropriate link on their profile. Needless to say, you can remove them too should they stop writing or call you “cloth ears” or something. The buddy list is a very popular facility and used to a great extent. Of course, it is subject to abuse with folks looking to add others to their buddy list simply to gain a reciprocal addition. This isn’t how the facility is supposed to be used but it happens.

-How to make money-
Ahaaaa...got your attention back for a few seconds then? Right: Pay per reads exist on Ciao and consist of either 0.5p, 1p and 2p per read depending on which category you write in (PPR denoted by pound note symbol next to product). There is also a premium of an extra 0.5p per read for the first month for movie reviews that are first to be written and posted after a new movie release. Currently, there is an introduction scheme in place whilst the Premium Fund allocates £1000 between designated opinions based on quality. The top 30 opinions are awarded a diamond GIF, which bags them a larger figure from £5 upwards. For those interested in the fiscal side of things, go to http://www.ciao.co.uk/faq.php/Id/2/Idx/5/Idy/1 for more info.

-Ciao Café-
The Ciao Café is a designated area that is meant to be consumer exclusive. Here, you can post items such as poems, short stories, jokes and the like and is popular feature on Ciao. The Café is accessible via the drop down menu on the main portal.

-Guest books-
Writers on Ciao have their own linked guest books. Here you can converse with other writers about…well….just about anything really but things usually start out about opinions written. The GBs are divided into public and private where any private comments are not readable by anyone else apart from the GB holder.

-Guides-
Ciao has no longer has it's own product guides/category assistants due to the nomination system inherant in the awarding of an "exceptional rating". Prior to this, the cat assistants did appear to have a lower profile than the good people of Dooyoo. So low in fact, I'm not sure what they did apart from take the odd query perhaps.

-Abuse-
Abuse can take many forms but, essentially, should be reported immediately for Ciao to act on.

---------What’s bad about Ciao and suggested Improvements-----------
The presence of the Ciao Café perpetuates an ongoing debate as to the reason for writing on the site. There are those who firmly believe that Ciao exists solely as a consumer reference and, as such, the aspect of creative writing has no place on Ciao. There are others who revere the existence of the Café and use it as an outlet for their own creative expression e.g. poems, short stories and so on. This debate will probably rage indefinitely but I can see the merits of no longer awarding community points to creative pieces. At the end of the day, most writers are more interested in what people think by way of a comment as opposed to a simple rating. This would pose a problem for ranking opinions in the archive but then maybe those people interested in reading creative expression would be happy to take the rough with the smooth and plough through it.

The existence of guestbooks seems to foster the ability to leave unpleasant comments either addressed personally to writers or even derogatory comments about their work. These may be public or private comments but this is an ongoing problem for Ciao. A difficult one to solve other than by reporting such people to the abuse section to sort out.

Community points were introduced as something of a smokescreen to shroud the introduction of pay cuts. It’s a clever idea as the concept of community points is as addictive as any computer game you can think of. Ciao have enhanced this facility by showing a countdown on members’ profiles as to how many points are required to get to their next dot. As far as I am aware, it’s only Ciao that uses this scheme (as opposed to Epinions, Dooyoo etc). This appears to generate assumptions abut the quality of opinions posted by those higher up the pecking order i.e. those with a better coloured dot simply MUST be posting a decent piece in which case one must not rate it any lower than VH. It may even be that some writers will only read those with a certain colour of dot. Of course, if you think about it, this is all smoke and mirrors and the community points scheme is utter nonsense and totally unnecessary. It does encourage people to write and post and many like it but ultimately it is flawed and IMHO should be scrapped.

Challenges started out as a bit of fun. Now there seems to be a million challenges all taking place at the same time. This seems to have sullied the original notion and goes to prove that you can have too much of a good thing. With the existence of categories for poems, short stories and so on, there should be no need for so many challenges.The solution would be too have…erm…less challenges (or even none at all <gasp>)

The allocation of the Premium Fund continues to be shrouded in secrecy. It is extremely difficult/impossible to see why some opinions have been awarded a diamond compared to others that haven’t. Whilst there are guidelines available re writing product opinions, the PF remains a bug bear for many and it definitely not as fair as the allocation of crowns on Dooyoo.

------------What’s good about Ciao------------------
As an accompaniment to the buddy facility, e-mail alerts to tell you when one of your favoured writers has written their next piece is probably more meaningful. I don’t use this myself as I like to be in control of when, where and who I read but it is more relevant than the buddy concept along with the 80 points that come with an addition.

Despite the raging debate, I do like the Ciao Café. I enjoy writing creatively from time to time and it’s nice to have an audience – any audience! It really is difficult to find any other sites where you actually get feedback in any meaningful quantity and, of course, it can be fun.

Ciao is a vibrant site with plenty of activity during a day. It’s easy to forge friendships on Ciao and I’ve met a number of people in real life from my time on Ciao. All very different and interesting people and if you want to take this to the next level there is always one more meeting to be arranged for Ciao members to get together and have a drink and a chat.

Whilst the amounts are small, it is possible to make money from Ciao through a combination of the things mentioned previously.

-Conclusion-
There are many reasons to participate on a forum like Ciao. You may be an active shopper, you may want to meet people, you may love writing or you may be an avid reader. Whichever it is, you need to realise that you will NOT make a large sum of money through Ciao. The salad days of making decent amounts of money from opinions are long gone and this applies in particular to Ciao.

I can’t possibly cover every aspect of Ciao. There is a good help section on site so if you are thinking of joining then I would encourage you to scoot through this and maybe look at the FAQ.

My own membership has been dogged with indecision. There are times when I should have left (after all, closing an account takes a second) but I find a combination of borderline addiction along with a reluctance to lose contact with certain writers keeps me coming back to opinion sites in general. I suspect many feel the same and are at different points on the opinionating curve (starts off with puppy enthusiasm, hits a steady acceptance, falls into a cynical decline). Whichever you are, remember that the Internet is a BIG place as is real life itself. Use Ciao on YOUR terms and get the most from your online life to complement what takes place during the rest of your day.

Thanks for reading and a Happy New Year to you all.

Marandina

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