CIAO - Think I must be missing something (ciao.co.uk)

Member Name: soutram

Product:	ciao.co.uk
Date:	27/02/09 (196 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of products to read about

Disadvantages: Very low payout for writing reviews

I recently signed up to Ciao as I thought it would be much like this site, where you write a review & earn a little bit of cash along the way, boy was I wrong.

Im not sure if I am missing something on ciao but it seems to be a quite confusing website, its very easy to sign up but that's about as far as it goes. The layout is somewhat confusing; reviews are surrounded by loads of adverts etc so much so the review tends to get a little lost in it all.

It works more or less the same as this website where you can read a review and rate it (Exceptional, Very Helpful, Helpful, Somewhat Helpful, Not Helpful & off Topic). If you want to earn a little bit of cash (and I mean little bit) you can write a review yourself but unlike this site you don't get paid for writing the review you only get paid for the ratings it receives (and only if its rated helpful, very helpful or exceptional).

Now each product usually has a £ sign next to it & depending on how many pound signs there are next to it depends on how much you get paid per rating, so it works as follows:

£ = 0.5p per rating
££ = 1p per rating
£££ = 2p per rating
(If you are the first to rate a product you get double the payment for the first 30 days.)

So if you review a product with one £ sign at 0.5p a rating you need to get 100 people to rate you review just to earn 50p (sounds like a tall order to me).

Suggesting a product that is not on the site is a bit long winded to, first you have to search for it if you cant find it you have to go through the categories to see which on it could go into, then at the bottom of that page it will say product not found, you click this link & then you have to search for it again & it will finally say product still not found (at the bottom of the page) you can then suggest the product you wish to review. Nothing like this site where you simply click one link & off you go.

You can also get surveys from this site but as yet I have not had any & from what I hear they are not really worth doing either (pay as little as 10p for a survey).

I just don't see how people make much money one ciao, it seems like a lot of time and effort is needed for not a lot of reward.

I realise that some people probably prefer ciao to dooyoo but I am not one of them, I think I will be sticking to this site from now on.

If I have got it wrong & am missing something please feel free to leave a comment & fill me in on where im going wrong.

Summary: Not the site for me, to confusing and hard to navigate around