Long reviews.

What someone could do is write a review on ciao, ask people to give there comments on the site and then add that to the review. I wonder how quickly that review would be removed from the site, lol.

helencbradshaw wrote:

It depends what I am looking for.

Hotels/Travel - need expedia or tripadvisor to make a purchasing decision (sorry Sascha...trivago is not there yet..!)

electronics, technology etc - I would probably google and find a site that looked promising for reviews (could be any in theory, but I dont have that many purchases of this type)

I agree with you, Helen. When doing my research (for costly items), I tend to hunt out the 'specialist' sites for my information before checking out the consumer review sites where I hope to find experience and opinion.

I do exactly the same with higher purchases as I really need to know the product inside out. Lisa x

Saying that a specialist site will only give THEIR opinion of the product, and many people might have had very opposite experiences.

But that's also true of Ciao. I trust specialist sites usually because they understand the core topic better than anyone else and having done my research into a DVD player or a camera, they tell me more than someone on Ciao who barely understands the product themselves.

There are some authors on Ciao I just avoid because they can't write reviews of any description, never mind getting into a piece of equipment that costs a couple of hundred quid and then don't even offer any personal experience or insight.

Interestingly enough, I searched long and hard for my computer, and then got someone I trust from a review site to check it out, and to tell me which was the better of the alternatives available. With film and music, I do buy things based on reviews from writers that are fluent enough to describe the package well, as with smaller consumer items.

I think electornics/technology specialists sites are much better, even if they only help you understand the key differences in functionality, which many members who simply desribe goods and their purchasing experience miss.

For example someone complained on a sat nav review recently, that it didn't have the feature for full postcode lookup. Well that's not a fault as such, that to me would be a key factor on the shopping list (providing you can afford to pay for it), or if not you accept what you buy (mine doesnt have it either..). If this writer had visited a site with a better understanding of the technology, then s/he may not have been so disappointed.

But ciao doesnt have the ability to search for products with features like this, which of course many other specialist shopping/product sites do...and that is where the advantage comes in

That review might have been very helpful though to someone as shortsighted as they were. It may not be something that someone would have thought of before buying. I wouldn't have thought of that, but I find sat nav irritating to say the least and prefer murmurs from my husband gazing at a map.

It's like me, I'm looking to buy my first digital camera and have found that the specialist sites go into all of the aspects and functions more throughly which is what I need.

With a digital camera, I read up on sites, eliminated those that I thought didn't cover my needs, shortlisted items, and THEN read reviews on ciao and dooyoo about the ones on my shortlist.

The only time i find ciao useful in these cases is when someone has written a decent review but in language I understand. so many of the specialist sites use jargon that means nothing to me.

Thingywhatsit wrote:

That review might have been very helpful though to someone as shortsighted as they were. It may not be something that someone would have thought of before buying. I wouldn't have thought of that, but I find sat nav irritating to say the least and prefer murmurs from my husband gazing at a map.

Nope they might not have thought of it, and if they actually manage to hit that one review...yes they might then think of it.

But how, if you do a search of SAT NAV on ciao, would you EVER make a decision, there are hundreds of products, all with reviews, and no way of classifying them.....

I agree with your later point that you may shortlist and then check ciao for reviews. I would do that too I guess.

Lunah_c wrote:

The only time i find ciao useful in these cases is when someone has written a decent review but in language I understand. so many of the specialist sites use jargon that means nothing to me

I think it is a misnomer that all specialist sites are technical. Not true at all, just a more knowledgeable understanding of the product and a more "professional" reviewer. This has to be better than some of the reviews on Ciao on servers and other computing components such as processors/memory/graphic cards etc...

Quote :

But how, if you do a search of SAT NAV on ciao, would you EVER make a decision, there are hundreds of products, all with reviews, and no way of classifying them.....

Then their database needs sorting in a better fashion so people can find information better. My first port of call when looking for info is Google as I would imagine millions of peoples is. Then I take the search through the things I find there, and many would lead me to ciao or dooyoo reviews.

But does their database need sorting? I don't think it does. When deciding on what you're looking for, you don't need to read reviews, you say to yourself, I want a digital camera with at least 5 megapixels, 1GB of memory and red eye reduction.

You don't come to these conclusions based on reviews, you find relevant reviews based on your own decisions.

Actually Aaron that is not strictly true. Without reading reviews in the first place, I would not have learned what megapixels were. Sounds dumb I know but reading reviews has been a learning experience for me. Yes, now that I know what they are, I would seek cameras on a site, chose the nearest to my requirements, and then read reviews

If you went to Ciao looking for digital camera reviews without knowing what to look for, then you deserve everything you get, IMHO.

I didn't say that. Read my lips LOL

I read about megapixels and how they increased the quality of image in a review.

Google might find you a site that can help you classify goods. (I would just probably go to the big retailers first e.g. comet/currys or whatever, as they all have search criteria e.g. price, functionality etc....)

It will not help you on its own, unless you know what you are researching as it will pull up specific reviews yes

for example google "navman 520 reviews"...

you will get dooyoo and ciao eventually, but will also get pocketgpsworld and globalpositioningsystems.co.uk first.

These reviews certainly give good information (helped with the use of text and pictures...arguably they might not be perfect in every way but they are specialist and easy to understand and I would spend more time here reading about once I found them.

this is what I meant by "specialist" sites, nothing frightening about them at all.

No, you implied that Ciao told you something useful when you had no knowledge at all of a product. You would then have gone off thinking that the number of pixels is the be all and end all of image quality. A specialist site would have been far more informative and a more trustworthy source. You might even have typed "what do I look for in a digital camera?" into a search engine.

The number of megapixels can increase the quality of an image, but they are not the only factor involved. Lens quality is another, equally important factor. CCD speed can also have an influence as can other factors.

Edit: posting as Helen was. She's quite correct, of course.

I came across a really good one for explaining software to idiots by typing the name of it and something like "how to use..............." and it really does help more than reviews do.

Thingywhatsit wrote:

I came across a really good one for explaining software to idiots ......

(I could have done with that in my last job.... )

Write about a product because you have something to say about it, not because you need to cash in I say.

scream4bruce wrote:

Write about a product because you have something to say about it, not because you need to cash in I say.

I tihnk we have all figured that out by now...anyone got rich on Ciao yet

Yes. Most of the stuff you have to say about it isn't going to be technical... it's going to be common sense stuff.

It makes great coffee.
The picture quality is excellent.
I really love their customer services.
It was really difficult to use.
The clock speed of the front side bus really enabled me to push the PC to its limits and by applying some clever over-clocking tweaks, I managed to squeeze out an extra 8.23% performance for my rated CPU and memory speed.

Well, maybe not that last one.

Quote :

The clock speed of the front side bus really enabled me to push the PC to its limits and by applying some clever over-clocking tweaks, I managed to squeeze out an extra 8.23% performance for my rated CPU and memory speed.

Glad you separated that one as I didn't have a clue