My Ciao'ing

...with something to write for my 250th review I was stumped, even with the help of some brilliant friends on the site, I still had no idea what to write. I even started to write a review for the Product of the Month and call this my 250th review, as this is the best summer I’ve ever had, however it just didn’t seem to work. That review was written and discarded to the side. I then began to think, I have never written a review about my time on the site. ...
...this is Part 1 of my 250th review.

==Why I joined Ciao? ==

Back in the day when Ciao surveys were good, a lot of my family members were members of Ciao. As a bored teenager just coming out of a very long illness and have just finished my GCSE’s, I wanted something to get some money into my pocket. My aunt told me about this site, and from August 14th 2007, I was hooked.

==First Reviews==

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When coming up with something to write for my 250th review I was stumped, even with the help of some brilliant friends on the site, I still had no idea what to write. I even started to write a review for the Product of the Month and call this my 250th review, as this is the best summer I’ve ever had, however it just didn’t seem to work. That review was written and discarded to the side. I then began to think, I have never written a review about my time on the site. With it being my 2nd year anniversary on the site recently, why haven’t I done this review before I kept on asking myself? I hope it’s good and I hope you enjoy it.

As I couldn’t decide what to write, I did end up writing two reviews, both of which turned out alright, so this is Part 1 of my 250th review.

Why I joined Ciao?

Back in the day when Ciao surveys were good, a lot of my family members were members of Ciao. As a bored teenager just coming out of a very long illness and have just finished my GCSE’s, I wanted something to get some money into my pocket. My aunt told me about this site, and from August 14th 2007, I was hooked.

First Reviews

Everyone has to begin somewhere, but I really do wish that Ciao would let me get rid of the reviews I did in the ‘early days’. I have not only found them embarrassing to look out now, every time I have a disagreement with someone, or if they want to revenge rate me, they go straight to those reviews and really give it the rating that the review deserves.

I am pleased to say that it took only a little while for me to realise that my reviews were not really good enough and I started to read and rate other peoples on the site.

Diamond Number 1

On the 28th of September 2007, I wrote a review on Guitar Hero 2 on Play station 2. If I remember rightly I was a blue dot member by this time and was shocked to suddenly see £15 extra into my bank account. At this point I had no idea what a diamond was, so when people kept on writing ‘congratulations for your diamond’ in my guestbook, I was confused to say the least. After doing a little bit of research I realised I was being awarded for a good review. I think this was the kick in the bum that I needed and from then on, I made sure my reviews were of good quality.

Diamond Number 2

For my second Diamond on the site, I found myself reviewing Sky Plus, which is one of the best things that we have ever brought before. I think I’m going to miss this more than I’m going to miss my home when I get to University, well maybe not, but I will miss it a little bit.

This diamond came at a fantastic time for me, I felt that I was really just beginning to realise that I could write reviews on electrical items and make them interesting and I hope good. It was also one of the highest rated reviews I had on the site.

Diamond Number 3-4 & 5

For my third diamond I reviewed another CD. I had by this point, gone through every one of my CD’s and had reviewed them, and was given a diamond for in my opinion one of my weaker music reviews. I don’t have the same passion when it comes to writing reviews on things I hate, and I did feel this review was lacking, but hey, I shouldn’t really complain, and I was very grateful for this.

For my fourth diamond I reviewed another electrical item, this time it was my camcorder. Unlike the previous one, I felt the fact that I wasn’t too happy with the camcorder meant that a lot more passion was put into the review and the fact that I was bummed about losing that much money on a item I might not really get my worth out of. After winning the diamond on this review though, I did find myself really using the camcorder, it was fantastic and a great help with the main assignment I had for college, considering out teacher provided us with piece of crap camcorders.

Finally, my fifth diamond was on my review of Professor Leyton’s Curious Village, it is one of my favourite games that I’ve ever played. I made not look it, but I do like puzzles and I do have a brain rolling around their somewhere, and this game challenged me, but if I did get stuck, it wasn’t too important to solve the problem which I liked. I wrote this review on the 13th June 2009, and by the next month when the diamond was awarded, I hate to say it but I actually had forgotten writing this review at all.

Short Stories- 100th review mark

I have always had a passion for film, for as long as I can remember I wanted to do something to do with film, however I was never sure what I wanted to do. I still don’t now and I’m going off to University to study it, however for my 100th review, I decided to do something I had never really done before, I decided to put all of the practise I had in the past of reading and writing fan fiction stories, and decided to write my own, short story. It was based very loosely on the show Criminal Minds, however the story and cast were completely my own.

It wasn’t perfect to say the least, I still look back now and cringe when I read bits of it, as they don’t flow as much as I would have liked, however I did receive a few requests to carry on the story, and actually wrote two more short stories within the Bend and Break series.

I think this was one of the biggest changes for me on Ciao, I finally began to really enjoy my writing and realised I could push myself to do things I didn’t know I could do before.

Film Reviews

This is what my main ‘passion’ is in, it is impossible for me to watch a film without analysing every last bit of it, so it’s only natural that you get film reviews from me. I have to say a lot of my film reviews don’t get posed on this site, I don’t think they are as well received and I think if I did post every film review that I’ve ever written I would already been on the 350th review mark.

Music Reviews

I had always had a little dream of becoming an amazing film reviewer on the site; however that did not really happen. It took me a long time to find the balance between too much or too little within a film review, and because of that I knew I had to find other things to write about, so I thought, why not try a music review.

The first music review I did was on Amy Winehouses’ album Back to Black, it was poor to say the least, barely any information on each track and in hindsight I have no idea why I posted it. It broke my confidence a little bit, I wanted to be the best I could be, so gave up on music reviews for a little which and went back to what I knew.

Then I wrote a review on a new artist that I heard in an episode of One Tree Hill. Writing about her album Don’t Look Away was the turning point for me, and not only did the review get an overall rate of exceptional, which at the time had only happened to me a few times, but it was well received by my peers on the site. I’m afraid then however, every night for the next few months almost, I went through every CD in my collection and reviewed them all, however now, I seem to have reviewed every CD possible and only write a new review on an album when a new album comes out.

Favourite Review

I think my 200th review for me was probably one of the best reviews I have ever written, a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into that review, and it was nearly 10,000 words long if I remember rightly when it was done. It was the longest review I’ve ever written and probably one of the longest I’ve ever read on the site. For this review, I asked ciao members to ‘ask me a question’. Then in the review I would answer it. It went down a storm and I believe it is one of my best rated reviews to date.

The next favourite review would have to be my Oscar review, I enjoyed every minute of writing it and because it’s something close to my heart, it was lovely to see how well it was received.

The next review would be my review on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. It was a fantastic and enjoyable experience to update this review as the Olympics was going on however it was tainted by a member, an annoying little turd of a member telling everyone that my review was completely copied from something he had written on Wikipedia. Luckily I was told and dealt with this member, however Ciao did take a while dealing with him, especially considering how many people actually reported him to Ciao. It was lovely to see the ciao community stand up for me and it was the first time that I actually felt a proper part of the community.

Memorable Members

I’m not including everyone in here, so please don’t be hurt if you are not included, I am writing mainly about the people who have done something or have helped me along the way during my time on Ciao. I couldn’t include everyone, I would be here for weeks.

RICHADA: What an amazing man huh? I know a lot of people will agree with me here and say he is one of the most influential reviewers on the site. He was one of the first to befriend me and give me advice and I really do cherish that he has put up with all my little moans over the years.

SweetTooth93: She’s not longer on the site anymore, but I do seem to find myself talking to her often, as we started talking outside Ciao. A great girl who is amazing at writing reviews and she’ll be sorely missed on the site.

karimkha: Like RICHADA, she was one of the first to befriend me on the site and I cherish her friendship. She is a lovely young woman and she has helped me a lot throughout my time on the site, she has moaned with me when I needed a good moan and stood up for me, when I needed a little bit of help. So thank you hun.

Amy69: Amy, Amy, Amy, well first things first, she’s destined for greatness, even despite her questionable taste in television shows :D She is a brilliant friend, again outside of Ciao and I’m very pleased we met on this site.

Olly_Plimsoll: I have only recently befriended this member, and we talk daily outside of Ciao now. He is an amazing man, and like with Amy, is destined for greatness. I’m just amazed he’s still talking to me, I’m a bit of a randomer I have to say.

muttleythefrog: He was one of the first people on the site to tell me off and I’ve been great friends with him ever since. An amazing bloke and whom I cherish to call a friend, he is hilarious and has offered me a lot of advice on how to get into as much trouble as possible at University :D

MizzMolko: She’s helped me calm myself down with University as she’s been through it before. She is a lovely young girl, who is an amazing talented writer, who has what you need to do good on this site down to a T.

Scotlandizdabest: A fantastic girl, one of the best young writers on the site in my opinion.

What have I learnt?

That I can write, and that you are always going to find people wherever you go that you will clash with. I have found members on the site, mainly white dot members who do not agree with the fact that I am just trying to give advice. Personalities clash and there are always people who will not like you in life.

The site for my confidence has been amazing, I started off on this site quite a depressed 16 year old who has just come out of a horrific illness and from doing very badly at her GCSE’s. I am now 18 years old, way to confident and cocky for my own good, and have turned those terrible GCSE grades, told my school where to stuff them and am not off to Uni. The people on Ciao have allowed me to realise that I do have a little bit of a talent when it comes to writing, despite what some people might say, and that I can do a lot if I put my mind to it.

How far I’ve come?

It’s now sounding a little bit big headed, but this is aimed at the newbies on the site to prove that you don’t have to be the best at English and you don’t have to be the best reviewer to get very far on the site.

It has been just over 2 years now, and I have written 250 reviews, I’m a bronze dot but MILES away from a silver dot, 173 members trust me and I am number 2 in the best performers in the premium fund.

I am not the best at English as you can probably tell from this review, I don’t have the best vocabulary in the world, however I enjoy what I write about, and I hope that comes across in my reviews. Work hard, enjoy yourself and try not to get yourself into too many confrontations on the site, this is something I have yet to master.

Ciao Community

Okay, I know most of you joined to make money, come on, don’t lie now, I know some of you might have come in for the community and the joy of writing, but the money really is a lovely little extra, however once you begin to earn the money on the site and it does take awhile, you will begin to find out what a wonderful community this site has.

99.9% of the members will be willing to help you if you have a problem and they will always be polite to you, of course like in any situation you do have people who disagree with everything you do, but you can please everybody.

To all of you new members on the site, post one review a day, of good quality and you will find yourself becoming apart of this amazing community.

Money, Money, Money... Money

Don’t worry I’m not going to go into how much I’ve earnt on the site, it’s a little bit too personal and I’m sure it will offend someone on the site, but probably one of the best things on the site, other than the brilliant community has to be the money that you earn on this site.

I have been talking with some members recently, and they have complained that the earnings on Ciao are nowhere near as good as on Dooyoo, however I have to disagree with this. To earn money on ciao, you have to write good reviews and you have to get people to rate your reviews. I probably get around 40+ rates on each of my reviews that I post, and still I get quite a small amount from each review I post.

Without the premium fund however, I think a lot of us would not earn anything on the site. Ciao divide a very large sum of money between the members on the site, I think the lowest I’ve ever had was £2 and the highest was... well a lot of money. Without the premium fund, I’m not sure how many people would still be here.

Ciao Surveys...

Suck. Back when my family members used to be members of the site, my mum was getting £3, £4 per survey, now, I’m lucky if I can complete any of the Ciao surveys not only without getting bored but without them kicking me off half way through.

Comments

I know I’m not the only one who does this, as me and Laura (SweetTooth) have had many conversations, complaining that we only have a small number of comments on our reviews. To see how good my review has been accepted, I don’t look at the rates on the review, I know a lot of people on the site just click very helpful and run onto the next review and do the same. When you receive a comment however, it shows that people have taken a little bit extra of their time on your review, and it means an awful lot more.

I did once do a little quiz in one of my reviews to see who actually reads the review and who doesn’t. I was really surprised to see that a lot of people did not bother to read the last two paragraphs of the review ever, where the little quiz was. I never did it again after that, but it was a nice to see who actually read it.

Ciao Competitions

I have found myself screwed over quite a few times during these competitions however I still find myself entering them as they are quite fun to enter. Especially the product of the month, as there is only one winner. I think in my time on the site I have entered about 5 of these competitions and have won 3, which is also a lovely boost to my confidence on the site.

The product of the week is a lot of fun, especially because you are writing reviews on a product against a small handful of other members and it really is a brilliant competition. When I say I was ‘screwed over’, I do mean with the product of the week, and have wrongly missed out on the first place a few times. Did you know that it is not based on how many higher rates you get; it is based on who rates your reviews? I bet you didn’t know that, and when I was told this by Ciao, I decided to write down every rate I had and what colour dot rated me, and then did the same for the review that beat me. I proved that even if they go by this rule, then it is not true within this occasion. I never heard back from them after I sent this email.

I think this is the only time I’ve really ever had a problem with the Ciao team, I was shocked to see that they were not going to admit that they were wrong. I had a lot of Ciao members helping me, and proving that there logic was not correct in this instant.

Even if you are miles ahead of the next member in the product of the week, never expect to win unless it is written down on the product of the week page.

Ciao Gremlins

These little things are famous; I have never been a member of a site with so many gremlins before. The most recent gremlin seems to be with the IPhone 3G ad that they have on their page. I have heard that a lot of people have complained to Ciao about this, so I have not done so, but it seems to have taken weeks for them to sort it out and it doesn’t look like they’re going to do it anytime soon.

I think the most popular little gremlin is when the reviews disappear and reappear in the new reviews list, some nights no one writes a review, and then suddenly when I check in the morning, thousands of peoples have reviewed a product. They are very annoying, but hey, nothing we can do to stop them.

Final

I have been on the site since I was technically a child still, I started when I was quite a quiet (surprising I know) young girl who had no idea who she was, I’m now very confident, I’m now an adult, and have hopefully actually found myself. I love writing reviews and I love reading people’s comments on my reviews. Ciao is an amazing site and it has been a constant throughout the last two years of my life. Sure I do seem to attract the new idiots on the site, who are looking for trouble. There must be a forum somewhere, telling them to join and have a go at me, because it always seems to happen, but the Ciao community usually comes to my rescue and helps me get rid of these idiots.

There are some amazing and kind people on this site, a small handful of whom I’m proud to call my friends. I love this site I really do, I have used the money for some great little things in the past and I’m looking forward to writing a lot more reviews in the future, and hopefully one day I will be reading a review of my own film on this site. That would be very cool.

Thank you for reading. Please comment and rate.

Thank you to everyone who has made my time on this site so memorable.

And a final thank you to Andrew (Olly_Plimsoll) who read this review in advance to make sure it was perfect for you, thank you hun.

Part 2 of my 250th review will be up soon. (Technically my 251st review ;-)

(C) Kirsty 2009

 

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