Advantages: Instant access to people whom you respect, a nice, warm glow
Disadvantages: It is an easy system to abuse, not everyone gets it...in both senses of gets

...What is the Circle of Trust? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well…on the face if it, it’s a list. It’s a list of user names (complete with links to the appropriate profile). In fact, it’s actually TWO lists – members you trust, and members who trust you. It provides, if you like, bookmarks to, in the first instance, people who (hopefully) think you’re a good, honest, trustworthy writer, and in the second instance, people whom YOU think are good, honest trustworthy writers. Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? You can add someone to your trust list by simply clicking the link that says ‘Click here, to add (member name) to your Circle of Trust.’ You can do this from either his or her profile page or from an opinion he or she has written (you can also remove an existing ‘trustee... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Trust comes with knowing people.
Disadvantages: Trust is not to be played with.

...What prompted me to write this review is that recently I have had a lot of new people on Ciao asking me for my trust, and you know this is a little like walking down a street in a new town, and walking up to a stranger and saying "trust me". Of course they are not going to trust you, and even if they said that they were then you can bet they have their own hidden agendas. True trust is what happens with time. For all new people on the site that have no one that trusts their reviews, do not be concerned. The more constant you are with your writing, the more you listen to advice and use it to improve what you write, the more you earn people's trust and it takes a while because trust is like in life, not given easily, but earned. Since starting on here, I have now 203 people that trust me, and I am proud of that. Those people stick... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: when buying products, a limit
Disadvantages: absusing it

...You may notice if you look at my profile that I signed up in September, but I actually did not write any opinions until December. Ciao did not look too appealing, but when I got an email in December telling me about the new look of Ciao, one of the things that did impress me was the circle of trust. Basically, if you agree with another member, you can add them to your circle of trust. Well, you don’t have to agree with them, but that would seem a bit pointless if you added someone you disagreed with to your circle of trust. I will be honest in the rest of this opinion, as I know how easy it is to lie just to be seen as not abusing the circle of trust. So, who do I have in my circle of trust. I have people like Manx who are in Ciao’s most wanted, as I have read a lot of his opinions, and I believe he is an intelligent... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: See text
Disadvantages: See text

...It was the Victorians who first thought up the idea of Investment Trusts – in 1868 to be precise. The Foreign and Colonial Government Trust was launched as a way of allowing people who didn’t have an awful lot of money to be able to invest relatively small sums and get all the benefits of having a large and diverse portfolio of shares. The Trust held 18 foreign government bonds. The word “government” was dropped from the title and the Trust began to invest in companies as well. Foreign and Colonial Investment Trust now manages assets of £2.8 billion. In total there are more than 300 Investment Trusts with combined assets of £60 billion. The name “Investment Trust”, though, is misleading, because an Investment Trust is not a Trust but a limited company, quoted on the Stock Market and shares can be bought and sold through... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Increases reads
Disadvantages: Cronic abuse

...Your friends, my friends and their friends. The COT the community of your account. I have only just realised a really quick method of keeping track of your COT, so I thought I would write my next opinion on it, and share it with others. Of course most of you will be well ahead of me and already doing this but still. -~’Introduction’~- The COT, Also known as the Circle of Trust, is a very important aspect to building your “profile” on the site. You will find, the COT can increase your reads dramatically. The COT, is a list of people that you have decided to trust, or people that have decided to trust you. -~’ Trust ‘~- What is meant by trust is, either you have read many of their opinions and you like their writing style as it might amuse you, or you find it interesting. So you trust them... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: helps to find more useful reviews
Disadvantages: not many (some misuse)

...useful opinions, some very short and useless ones, as well as some that had been copied from other sources or from within Ciao. Last week, someone has even copied one of my own ops! At the beginning, I spent most of my time reading ops from the Most Recent 20 List, and then I started reading ops of those people who have read my opinions. Over time, reading more and more, I have found a number of members, who continuously write excellent reviews on interesting subjects. It's those members that I have included in my Circle of Trust, and quite often I return to their profiles to see if they have written any new ops. From time to time, I still read through the Most Recent 20 List, and now after the recent change, I also like to read through the Most Recent 20 Travel ops, and I also check what new members are writing (via the Community... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: serves various purposes.
Disadvantages: open to misuse

...The Circle of Trust has great potential to be used and abused. However, people's abuse of it is perhaps one of the best ways of showing up who is a bona fide Ciao user and who is at best a churner, at worse a plagiarist, clicking cartel member or self rater. "Harsh words and allegations!", I hear you say, but the Circle of Trust gives you quite a good idea of who is where is the general order of things (or pecking order of esteem). I admit that for newbies getting into the CoT of a Ciao monolith who has written xxx Ops and been read yyyy times might seem a very daunting task. However, even when you are not in their circle of trust, this doesn't mean that you aren't being read by them, and indeed they may well be using other mechanisms (e.g. a Ciao e-group) to recommend you as one to watch (for positive reasons as well as negative... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: diversification, set your own guidelines, spread risk
Disadvantages: risky, poor investments, bad management

...Before I start this opinion, I would like to clarify that I am not an expert on Investment trusts and I am just sharing the knowledge that I have upon them to hopefully benefit some readers. An Investment Trust is a form of managed investment, investors buy units in the trust and the trust manager invests the money in shares or any other form of asset which is set by the trust's objectives and guidelines for-decision-making. The good thing about investment trusts is that an investor can spread relatively small amounts of money across a wide range of assets, securing the benefits of portfolio diversification. If the trust's money is invested wisely, the trust's capital will grow along with the price of its units. Normally these trusts will specialise in a certain type of asset, such as equities or a certain industrial sector... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Community, functionality, it's a 'nice to have'
Disadvantages: Can't trust enough people, what's the point of ranking opinions on COT when there is no chance of a COT opinion appearing

...I personally think the circle of trust doesn't work. Why? Let me try to explain and if you don't agree, then comment! Firstly when reading opinions you can order them by usefulness, date or circle or trust. Now if I ordered any average product or service by circle of trust then the chances of one of my 50 favourite bookmarked users coming up is unlikely bordering on the negligible. Now if my 50 top users wrote an average of 50 opinions each, than this makes only 2500 opinions out there for me to really trust. Now if Ciao has say 100,000 opinions online (and growing) than there is only a 2.5% percent chance of these 'trusted' opinions ever coming up. This doesn't take into account the fact that maybe many of my 'trusted' users have written on the same product, also they would have written on products that I have no interest in or I... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Can create more money in account, find new categories, things that interest you
Disadvantages: Some people abuse the system

...The Circle of Trust is one of the most important features on ciao, and yet many people choose to abuse and ignore it. The idea behind is it to make you realise who uses ciao to their highest potential, who really writes and reads their life away, and who is honest in all that they say and rate. There are ways of using the Circle of Trust to its optimum, some of which I will try and talk about in this opinion, although some you have to use as only you can. There is a personal way of using ciao for everyone. Since everyone is different, everyone has to use it in a different way. However, I am going to talk about the ways that work for me, and how I imagine most people use the system. Of course, to see what works for you takes time and can take practice. The Circle of Trust can have many advantages. Use it correctly and your reads go... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful