Ciao consumer matters - is this site better than Dooyoo? (ciao.co.uk)

Member Name: chrisbrn

Product:	ciao.co.uk
Date:	21/06/01 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to navigate, More money issued out of the premium fund, costs you nothing

Disadvantages: Premium fund has a lower payment than Ciao, but this is made up of better payment from reads., Not as easy to navigate round the site., Ciao rarely check all opinions unlike Dooyoo.

I have been with Ciao.com since 19/11/2000 and I have found this site quite rewarding, not only do you get paid for things that you love doing, but for also telling people about them. If you get people to join ciao through an email, then you gain rewards through their earnings as well.

The aim of Ciao and Dooyoo is to pre-warn people on what they should avoid doing and buying, and advise them on whether it is a good buy or not.

I actually came accross this website by shear accident, and then came into Dooyoo by reading other articles written by others. I cannot remember how I came accross the site (I think though it may have been through ipoints.com). At first, I thought it was a big con at the beginning, as who in the right mind will pay people to view their own opinions on a web site and still make money themselves. Since starting with Ciao, I have found that payment is prompt, but I am still to find this out with Dooyoo.

I was actually in two minds whether to sign up for this web site as you write a article and you get paid? So what is the catch? There is none. I have earnt enough for a couple of payments (min £10) so far which I have requested to be put into my bank account through BACS and all I have done is write a few articles. Compare this to dooyoo, you must have at least 50,000 dooyoo miles or £50.

*Financial matters*

Both Dooyoo and Ciao pay about the same per article. For both sites, they pay 10p for every new article. The difference comes to the amount per article read. Dooyoo pays 5p and Ciao 2p although the Premium fund pays better with Ciao, but then you dont get the same recognition.

*What are your motivations for writing?*

The evidence of how dangerous financial motivation can be is everywhere. Members join every day who churn out ten or fifteen opinions that aren't very useful - short, lacking detail, bad grammar - you've probably seen a handful today already.

Bick
ering can break out - revenge ratings (when somebody has rated an opinion down and then receives a poor rating in return). All this behaviour is bred from the fact that this site primarily motivates its members financially. It could be managed in many ways - but this all incurs a cost that the site simply cannot afford to stump up. So the cheats and churners keep joining, keep writing, and keep spoiling the whole thing.

*So how do I make Ciao to be really worth the time and effort?*

This bit is easy as you can normanly tell if the person that is writing the article is telling the truth or not, and how realistic and honest you are throughout the article. The better the opinion the higher the rating, the higher the rating (in theory) the more visitors you get to your article which then increases your earnings.

Earnings however can only be earnt when someone is a member of Ciao or Dooyoo and who is logged into the site at the time, otherwise it is another person added to the statistics of your article and no payment. There is a lot of people however that just read your articles and do not log in or are not members. If they were all members when they read your article, we will all be very well off. You tend to get a lot of this on Ciao.

You can also increase your earnings by encouraging people to join by sending them a standard email through Ciao. This has a link on it which refers the person from you to ciao, so that when they start writing articles and when they are being read, the person which refered his / her friend will also get a share of their takings.

There are insentives to join as you get 50p for joining and 10p for writing your first and every other article, which is the same principle as Dooyoo, then leave the rest to your readers. For every read, you get 2p which does not sound much in relation to 5p with dooyoo, but in the long run, the amount totals up quite nice, however, you could be waiting a long time
for your first payment if you do not write adequate enough articles which are not honest which does not draw people into reading the article.

*Article writing*

It also helps with having a good catchy title for your article (somewhat better than this one). The more you write, and the more depth you go into the better. You can read some articles which are about 20 lines long which says nothing, and you get those which goes into a lot of detail.

The good thing about it is that if you make an error on your article or if you want to undate its contents, or even change some spelling and grammer, then you can do by the edit botton on the top right of all of your articles. You also get some feedback from certain people about the artilce, so if it is too long or short, or if they want to find out more information, then they can comment on your article. This is also the same as Dooyoo, but with Dooyoo, if there are too many spelling or grammer errors then the article is frozen. So watch out and double check your work!

On Ciao if there is not a option title in which you want to write a article about, still write one, and refer it onto Ciao. They will then check out its authenicality and will then publish the article. ometimes, they will email you for further information reguarding the new option or product that you are requesting should be on Ciao.

Ciao do get alot of members compared to Dooyoo, but this is probably because Ciao site is easier to navigate round unlike Dooyoo. Although at the end of the day, people will disagree with me. It all depends on what you are used to.

*Why I joined Ciao then Dooyoo*

I am a student at the moment until June this year when I graduate, so every penny that I can earn is a grate help, as for everyone else who has joined Ciao. I now write opinions more for a hobby and when I have some spare time rather than do it for money. This way, my opinions are of better quality and are in
more detail.

*Advantages and disadvantages*

The advantages to Ciao are of a adequate level, which I think I have covered in this opinion. As far as the disadvantages goes, you only get paid for member reading only, and not non members.

*What's Ciao all about then?*

The purpose of Ciao is to provide a means for Consumers to exchange experiences and views on a vast array of products in order that we can make more informed buying decisions. Personally, this sounds like a very powerful tool to me - now, if I go in a shop and have a dreadful experience I can tell loads of people about it and hopefully limit the revenue of that shop in future - or until the shop changes its ideas. On a suitable scale, the potential for this is endless - if thousands of people were reading these views, then imagine the speed with which word of mouth could spread. There is no doubt about it; this is a fantastic opportunity in the long run.

*So where does it all go wrong then?*

Initially, it's the scale of the operation. Ciao states to everyone that you are part of a community of over 30,000 consumers, but is this so? I doubt there is even a tenth of that number who are active Consumer writers and readers. If there were 30,000 active members I know for sure that even based on random readings my opinions would be getting read a lot more than they are currently (and the same for Dooyoo readers).

Ciao's membership is limited - I see the same people reading, writing and rating day in and day out - there are new members coming on board all the time, but not on a terribly grand (or good quality) scale. For articles to become better, you must read other articles and learn from how they write them. You can then write bigger, better and more in depth opinions.

Disregarding the number of members, the next downfall is the motivation of members. When I joined Ciao in November 2000 I had followed a link from one of
those free stuff sites as previously stated. The idea was "Get paid for producing and writing opinions". The pay scale and the motivation to being with Ciao and now Dooyoo is still overal essentially the same - money!

I'll be totally honest and tell you this - if I was not getting paid, I would not be writing as many opinions and them being as long as this now. Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with rewarding members for taking the time to write honest, factual, lengthy opinions - it can be a mutually beneficial relationship.

*What motivates you?*

Why are you reading this? How did you find it? Did you log on, select the category and find the most recent opinion about Ciao?

Or did you go to the Ciao 20 Most Recent Opinions and see this review was about a subject you were quite familiar with so you thought you'd have a quick look? Or worse, did you access this through my name because you are in my Circle of Trust and you read all my opinions? (which is the unlikely bit)

This doesn't support the aims of Ciao - if you're not reading because you have a genuine interest in the subject matter, you are hardly likely to fully absorb what you're being told. Ciao is listed as a discussion forum along side Dooyoo - but there is only very limited interaction between members. This is because you submit your opinion and people can leave comments on it. There's no point leaving a reply to their comment - they are very unlikely to be coming back! What sort of interaction is that?

What other incentives are there?

Members can be nominated to become Most Wanted. For this, the member will receive a £10 bonus, and a photo link on the home page (rotated with 9 other members). I am still awaiting to be on the mmost wanted for my acheivments in opinion writing, but there are a lot of good writers out there.

Ciao should work harder to recognise singularly good opinions - not me
mbers. If you take a look at Dooyoo - their system of crowns is many better - great opinions are marked with a crown that means that they can be clearly identified and recognised.

Ciao has, of course, the Premium Fund - a different version of Dooyoo crowns where great opinions are rewarded with payments from £1 up to £15. Fantastic idea - except you never get told which opinions were your Premium Fund earners so other members don't have the benefit of being alerted to the Premium opinions.

*What about the Community Spirit?*

I have become friendly with quite a few fantastic people on Ciao who make me laugh, make me feel valued and generally make things very worthwhile. I cannot say that there is no spirit of community.

The Community Spirit also breaks down because Ciao cannot communicate clear, rational information to its members. The current state of affairs is a splendid example. There have been "technical problems" which have delayed the April bank credits and have delayed requests for all new categories etc. It took Ciao at least a week to publish this information, and here we are a week or two after the initial message with no further update - and no further progress.

*Attention from Ciao to articles*

The lack of attention from Ciao to its members is simply disgraceful customer service. Members have had offensive comments on their opinions for two weeks - and Ciao has done nothing to remove them. Payments are not being credited to bank accounts. New categories are being suggested but not being implemented - so members can't even publish their opinions. The first rule of business - keep your customers happy!

The attitude towards new categories is very poor. How many members would like to write about Food and Drink? Ciao will not set up a category - but they will let people churn out opinions about every single football team around. Personally, I know which one I think would be m
ore useful to Consumers.

Just think how can football effect consumer behaviour. At the end of the day football will have loyal fans following them reguardless of standards. Consumers want to know about products that are purchased on a day to day basis - dont they?

*So what is the future for Ciao and Dooyoo? *

I'm really not sure. As with all dot com businesses Ciao is fragile - I've never really understood how it can afford to keep going. How does it make its money? Without a suitable volume of members to read, write and rate, the big businesses won't see Ciao as a financially viable means of gathering Consumer's views. Conversely, Ciao won't get the members without attracting them financially - which ultimately leads to all the problems with abuse.

I'm afraid I can't help but think the whole thing is doomed in the long run. It's a fantastic idea, but it can only really work if members are motivated by its aims - not the cash, and that the sponsors are getting business out of sponsoring the sites.

*Evaluation*

Once again, Ciao motivating and rewarding on a purely financial basis. Ciao have stated that they will not disclose the means by which Premium Funds are awarded because this may influence people's behaviour. Is this not a good thing? If they change their behaviour to write more Premium opinions, that would lead to an overall increase in quality surely?

Overal, Dooyoo and Ciao are about the same, both having different qualities and target markets. These sites are becomming more frequent but as time goes on, the same is being repeated for every consumer issue and then may result in members and non-members becomming bored of readings.

Both sites are doing well with probably Ciao having the more readers, although Dooyoo getting the most reads.

Thumbs up to both sites.

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