Don't say Ciao to Ciao just yet! (ciao.co.uk)

Member Name: jo1976

Product:	ciao.co.uk
Date:	07/09/09 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Premium Fund payouts help to boost payments from reviews

Disadvantages: Site is difficult to navigate, regular glitches, over-complicated

Since joining Dooyoo just over a year ago, I have found myself increasingly addicted to the site and am constantly thinking about items to review and mentally drawing up reviews of everything I come across in day to day life! I feel a sense of loyalty to this site and much as I was aware that there are other review sites out there I was fairly confident that none of them would live up to the appeal of Dooyoo and that none could match this site for its community spirit and support. Eventually, however, I was persuaded to give Ciao a go and somewhat reluctantly succumbed to cross-posting some of my older Dooyoo reviews on to the site to 'test the water' over there a couple of months ago.

Ciao is probably the main 'competitor' in terms of the established review sites available. It is similar to Dooyoo in that it pays ordinary members of the public for submitting consumer reviews online. Ciao has a reputation for paying absolute peanuts though, certainly in comparison to Dooyoo's standard payment of 50p per review posted in addition to money per member reading too. This is one of the many reasons that I was so resistant to 'going over to the over side.' Even though my reviews had already been written and rewarded on Dooyoo, I wasn't prepared to give them up to another site without having some decent compensation for my time and trouble! I had experience of the Ciao 'brand' through their survey site (which is now a completely separate operation) and I already formed the opinion that Ciao aren't particularly generous when it comes to rewarding time and trouble! Needless to say, I gave up on Ciao surveys some time ago and my expectations of the review writing side of the operation were quite low.

First impressions of the site didn't do a great deal to improve my opinion. I found the site to be confusing, poorly organised and the adverts are far more obtrusive than those placed on Dooyoo. The payment structure is complicated for new members to grasp - it certainly was for me! I found the site's 'Help' section and was informed that topics with a £ symbol paid 0.5p per positive rating, ££ pays 1p and £££ pays 2p. (First reviews for a topic receive twice as much per rating for the first month.) I shan't be booking that Caribbean cruise just yet! No payment is given upfront for posting, nor are payments made for any reads that don't result in a positive rating. The disappointing feature is that many topics don't have any £ symbols at all which means that the writer receives nothing for posting in those categories at all. I scoured the site when I first joined up, looking for the more lucrative £££ symbols and really struggled to find any symbols at all - it really isn't made clear where these symbols can actually be found! I eventually discovered some tucked away but also found that many of the topics that I'd previously reviewed on Dooyoo were in non-paying categories which was a bit of a shame. Many people still write in these categories but I can't see the point personally unless I'm missing something? (This could be quite possible as Ciao isn't the most straightforward of sites to use, by any means.)

Ratings are quite clearly the most important aspect of the site as, without ratings, you won't earn a single penny on Ciao. For that reason, it's not enough to just cross-post reviews over on Ciao and run, you need to be prepared to spend a lot of time reading and rating other people's review. Churners will soon discover that Ciao is not a lucrative option! The problem that I find is that it's far from easy to see who has actually rated your review in order to return the favour. There isn't any system to show the latest rates you've received so returning rates is a pretty labourious and tedious process of going through every single review you've written to see if any new ratings have been received. I really think more thought needs to be given to the layout of the site.

There are also lots of 'glitches' where a blank page appears fairly frequently, often apart from a particularly irritating 'You have won' online advert. The layout of the site makes the reviews themselves much harder to read, again making for a tedious and difficult to navigate site. I also dislike the actual system of rating. Giving any review an 'Exceptional' rating means that you have to include a comment. Often when I nominate a review on Dooyoo I will write a comment but sometimes I really don't have anything of interest to add and resent being forced to leave a pretty inane 'great review' comment over on Ciao to justify my rating. 'Exceptional' reviews over on Ciao tend to be the size of a rather short novel so a bit of patience is required when reading some of the more weighty tomes over there!

Community-wise, I've found a lot of familiar faces from Dooyoo over 'on the other side' which has made it slightly easier. The site runs a seemingly complex series of coloured dots to differentiate between new and the most active members on the site. New members start off with a white dot and move up to green, blue, violet and so on. I've got confused with what follows what so I really don't feel that the colours help to confer status on to members, although I confess to being very pleased when I changed colour recently! Changing colour doesn't have any monetary benefits unfortunately.

The only reason that I've stuck with Ciao despite its awful site layout and regular glitches is because of the rather mythical 'Premium Fund.' This is a pot of money that is distributed amongst the most highly rated reviews that were posted during the previous calendar month. PF payments are issued towards the middle of the month, although it isn't indicated which reviews have been awarded money from the PF on site, over than a few of the 'Exceptional' reviews which receive Diamonds. During my first month I submitted 21 reviews and received £19 from the Premium Fund which was far more than I had been anticipating and made me feel that navigating the site had been worthwhile after all. This was in addition to the £7 I received in ratings too. Payment level is much lower than Dooyoo with the minimum level for withdrawal via BACS set at just £5. This seems an achievable level for new members and isn't as daunting as the £50 level set by Dooyoo. I've claimed two lots of payments so far and my initial payment went into my bank account without any hitches.

This month (September 2009) Ciao is offering an additional incentive. New members receive a payment of £1 for the very first review they produce. More importantly, all ratings are worth twice as much as normal throughout September, meaning, for example, ratings on a first review for a high-end technical item could be worth 8p per rating. Even if you've tried ciao in the past and thought it wasn't worth the effort, I'd recommend giving it another go for this month at least! I'd also be more than happy to refer any new members to Ciao for which I will receive (I think) a bonus payment as well as extra community points. Otherwise, please look out for me as jo-1976 over 'on the other side' where we can wander around the site as lost as each other!

Summary: Give Ciao a go in September