Ciao comes a distant second (ciao.co.uk)

Member Name: davey_26

Product:	ciao.co.uk
Date:	22/09/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Diverse range of opinions, lots of members, paid double for unreviewed products

Disadvantages: Very low remuneration, my circle of trust is pitiful

I started using ciao some time ago but due to lack of time and pretty much expecting the money to simply drop into my lap, quickly dropped the idea. However recently I have found my second wind, rekindled the idea of writing reviews and am now an active member again. So why ciao? well ciao is a paid review site which is estimated to have a members list of 59.000 people in the UK. This means that not only from the perspective of writing reviews but also reading reviews there is a huge array of opinion and huge catalogue of products and services to review.

The reason for this huge range of reviews is simply because ciao is making it's money mostly from non members who are using the relative merits of given reviews to base their buying decisions on. Therefore when people then click on one of the hyperlinks and presumably make a purchase, ciao get rewarded. The members themselves help to drive the traffic with the quality of their reviews.

Aside from being paid to review, you can also take part in some of the surveys which ciao conducts and once again you will receive a small remuneration for each of these which you complete. This is something which you will have to weigh against the time it takes to undertake one of these because the rewards for doing so aren't particularly impressive.

Like this site you can add dozens and dozens of people to your trusted list and keep in contact with them either through the public guestbook or private. As well as written reviews you can also submit video reviews to which will then allow you to portray some of the things written about. Ciao also likes to encourage people to participate heavily in the community by awarding members community points, you will be allocated these on a number of criteria including each review written, ratings you receive from others, referrals and of course those who choose to add to their trusted list.

Although financially it will directly benefit you, the higher your community points, the higher your visibility is on ciao and therefore with it, will come more reads and ratings. Now as for remuneration rates are concerned, well these are very low. The actual rate you will receive is based upon the value that product or service is deemed to have and in some cases you won't receive any financial benefit!. However in general terms you can be awarded one pound sign which represents 0.5p per rating, two pounds 1p per rating or 3 pound signs which give you 2p per rating.

As an added incentive to the users those who do a review of an as yet unrated product will receive double whatever value the item it deemed to have. However this incentive will only last for one month and after that, will revert back to the stipulated value.

What to make of it

Well in some respects I really like ciao since there is a massive number of users giving you a diverse range of opinion. I have messaged some interesting people on there and they were very helpful with regards to giving me points and general advice. I like the fact that reviewing not yet reviewed products carries with it a reward of double the remuneration and I like the fact that it's easy to use and navigate.

However there are some things which really frustrate me about it. Firstly despite reading fairly good reviews, only 3 people have seen fit to trust me, perhaps I am deluding myself regarding the good or they are just ignorant. I would like to keep it's the latter but hey you never know. The second aspect is that although authors who are deemed to write stellar reviews can be rewards with a premium monthly awarded which essentially amounts to about 10.00 perhaps for the best reviewers, it doesn't seem a lot of recognition. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly every review which dooyoo deems to be of a good standard receives 50p, whereas on ciao, there is no direct money reward.

Instead for most people the only money you will receive is the mentioned 0.5p-2p per rating. It is a little perplexing that ciao would adopt such a low reward policy when you consider that member reviews play an integral role in their income stream. The other method as mentioned are the paid surveys but they are usually rewarded with pittance and therefore I stopped bothering to even looking at them.

I will continue to write reviews on ciao but can understand how people can become extremely disillusioned by ciao. Dooyoo is definitely the best review sites I have come across and hopefully my "decent" reviews continue to be rewarded/

Summary: Good in some ways but doesn't offer the rewards of dooyoo