Surveys And Community Points (ciao.co.uk)

Member Name: kornkid2001

Product:	ciao.co.uk
Date:	01/03/02 (121 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See Op

Disadvantages: See Op

Im going to write about ciao surveys and ciao community points in this op. It will be in two sections.


Ciao Community Points
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Almost 3 months back now, Ciao introduced some changes to the site. They thought they were doing a good thing. They changed the whole reward system by screwing us all by lowering the money we get for the reads, submitting ops and the premium fund. Among these changes Ciao introduced a new community points system, which was already introduced into the European Ciao sites ages ago. They explained by putting in these community points, people can distinguish who are the " Top Dogs " and " Newbies ", so that people are recognized better and that the newcomers can get advice from the veterans.

Of course i was optimistic before the changes came into effect. I read the email that Ciao sent me thoroughly looking at the details for the new structure. Of course, Ciao said that no member is better than the other just because they have a higher rating. I waited until the monday and when i logged on to Ciao in the morning the community point thing has been initiazed. My colour was a little Blue dot. Yay! The whole site now had a spurt of colour in and everything looked fine and nice. Now everyone had a little colour next to their name, the colour shows how much interaction the member does within the community. Looks nice you say, but what is all this for you might ask....

Well, No reason! There in place so that members can be distinguished so you can tell who rates the most and who writes the most opinions within the Ciao community. Ciao community points cannot be exchanged for any reward of some kind eg I Points, Cash or various vouchers. When the new system was put in place people were going berserk about why they have done this. They complained that it was open to abusing, and that the old system was much better. I think that is wrong, if you can find out who is inter
acting the most, then you can focus your readings and ratings to that people. It also shows who is the " Churners " on the site. The new system might make people go out and rate more so that they can be a well established member of the community.



Ciao Community Points Levels
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When you write and rate other people you get award community points (See how to gain community points for details), once you get over a certain amount of community points the colour of your little dot changes. Here are the levels,

Level 1 - White - Over 0 Points

Level 2 - Green - Over 1000 Points

Level 3 - Blue - Over 5000 Points

Level 4 - Purple - Over 10000 Points

Level 5 - Red - Over 20000 Points

Level 6 - Orange - Over 50000 Points



How Do I Gain Community Points?
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By Writing A Opinion:
30 Points

By Commenting On A Opinion:
3 Points

By Rating An Opinion
1 Point

By Recieving A Reading
2 Points

By Recieving A " Very Helpful " Rating
6 Points

By Recieving A " Helpful " Rating
3 Points

By Recieving A " Fairly Helpful " Rating
-6 Points

By Recieving A " Unhelpful " Rating
-12 Points

By Being Added To A Members Circle Of Trust:
80 Points

By Being Removed From A Members Circle Of Trust:
-80 Points



Pros
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- Can Distinguish whether someone interacts with the community fully, therefore you know who to rate, and also shows you who are new so you can give them advice as you want.

- Will make people go and rate people more, therefore a lot more reads, but under Ciaos new reward system, will that make a difference?

- Makes the site look a bit nicer, a bit of colour here and t
here cant do anyone any harm, rather than the stale black and white.

- When you start getting the top notch colour, you might start to think your king of Ciao.

- Helps me get over 70+ reads an op, somthing that i found very hard to do before the new system was implemented. If only still had that 2p a read going, and pay in every category we would all be laughing.


Cons
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- Abusers can go around various members and rate all their ops " Unhelpful ", Therefore that member will loose community points and then he will loose his colour he has worked so hard for, all the readings and ratings will go down the pan.

- Benefits the top people more, as everyone will be voting the orange dot people as they know they are the best. (Although ciao said no member is better than the other, how can they back this up when they are categorizing people?! weird!)

- Still not made a big impact on " Churners ", as I see them everyday busting out around 4-8 Opinions a day. Thinking that they will make a fortune from the site, Plus they dont even rate and read other peoples work. Stupid!


Conclusion
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On a whole, I like the induction of this Community point system. I like it a lot. It has made me higher my goals and go out and rate people, just so that little dot will change colour. Maybe most people think this, Ive noticed a lot more people going and rating other peoples work just so they dont have that white little dot hounding them around and being classed as a newbie. Overall, The system will work well and i dont see a reason why they should take it away, Ciao should be focusing on paying the members more money for their time and effort that they use to put into this site. Ciao has done well by implementing this, and it has improved the site well.



Ciao Surveys
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When i first signed up to ciao in September, I was l
ooking forward to earning a little extra cash. The fact that getting paid for opinions was good enough, but they also had the feature of getting surveys which could be a nice little earner. Ciao new changes state that members will recieve more surveys as time went on, well before the changes i never recieved any, and even after the changes i still havent! " Fill in all your personal details in your personal member area, it will make it easier for us to send you the surveys" . Well ive done everything it said and ive still not recieved an email, yet a few people have recieved a lot of surveys for around 60p-£3.00 each, and a lot of people i know have recieved none. Surveys are good because you will need around 300 hits to gain the amount of money the surveys generate, just imagine the hard work going in to get 300 hits. I find this very apalling, Ciao made changes and people werent happy, but most stayed because they thought their income would come from surveys.

My Experience Of The Surveys
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Well due to my lack of surveys, i have actually recieved one, but i was to late to fill it in as the maximum number of members had already beat me to it. I was only 20 minutes late though so maybe ciao should put a bigger limit on as everyone cannot check their email every second. The survey was about computers and video games, and that would of netted me a cool 60p! Damn! That means i would had to gain 60 hits to earn that, maybe i will get some others soon, time will tell!


What are Ciao Surveys?
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Ciao surveys are a easy way to gain quick and easy money into your ciao account. Ciao sends the survey to you via email. You then follow the link in which the email supplied and then you enter your username and password in which the email contains. Then you take the survey (The survey will be given to you on the subjects that you like as you have completed it in the member a
rea). Once the survey is completed, you submit it to ciao and then they will grant you the money around 2 weeks after and it will be placed into your ciao account. The surveys vary in price, People can get a 60p survey for which will last no longer than 5 minutes, 5 minutes for 60p! not bad! Thats equal to 60 hits which will take a long time to generate. But then, Theres £3 and £5 a survey, which will take around 20 minutes to complete. How generous, money for nothing. Thats the only good point about the surveys is the money it generates in a small period of time.


How Do I Sign Up?
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Signing up to these surveys is easy. In your personal profile it should have a little check box down near the bottom of the page where all your details are stored. If you want to recieve surveys then you will check the box, after you have pressed send you will be given another page with all your intrests. The colums will have various tick boxes asking whether you are intrested in the certain category. You click them all in which they are applicable. Once you have filled that out, you click the send button and your details are submitted to ciao. Alls you have to do then is wait for a email asking you to participate in a survey, it could take a long time or you could get one soon. For me, I have been the unlucky one as most people have.


How Do I Complete Surveys?
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Once your invited to the survey, you log in. Then you answer a few questions on it, if you dont do well then it will tell you that you are not suitable for it and that you should wait for another, if you are suitable then you will have to complete the survey and then the money will be awarded.


Pros
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- Easy money (Anything up to 60p to around £10)

- Money for doing nothing ( Someone i know done 2 surveys in half an hour, it came to £5.60, thats £11.20 a hour)

- The surveys can be based on
somthing fun, like computer games, internet etc. Ciao have made it so they are based on your certain taste.

Cons
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- You hardly recieve any emails at all, You might get one a week or one a month or you might be waiting a year to get one.

- Surveys are limited to so many members taking part so you have to hurry to fill it out or you will be to late.

- Half way through a survey, you get be disconnected or your computer could crash, then you will have to start the survey again, by this time all the places will be full.

- Ciao have introduced a new tab bar on the main page of the site inviting more people to sign up for surveys, surely a bad idea because they dont have enought surveys to go around as it is.


Conclusion
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I know ciao isnt a survey site, its a consumer site but they still made a promise to give us more of these surveys so people can benefit from the pay cut. Even though ciao send out surveys to target your criteria, they still should send you one a month because most people have the boxes all clicked. My experience of these surveys is very poor. Although they make a lot of money in such a short space of time, i think ciao should be doing more things so people recieve a survey on a regular basis, this will make everyone happy after the recent drastic changes which a lot of people are unhappy about. Ciao assured us that they will do their best to make sure that more surveys are sent out to everyone, but i they havent done one thing except put up a new tab at the top of the site asking people to sign up for more surveys. I dont know why they are doing this because if more people sign up to them, well other people will get less and less surveys. What a stupid choice once again by ciao!!! if ciao dont buck up their ideas and send more surveys out soon, i can see a lot of people leaving.

Summary: