Product of the week competition

Has anyone else noticed the new product of the week link on the members page. They are going to be selecting a different product each week and giving prizes for the 3 best reviews on it. I think they have been spying on the Dooyoo site and getting some ideas from them. Do you think they are getting paid commission for rising sales of that product?

I think it is a good idea as long as they give a good selection of products and at least it's a bit of an incentive after all the bugs we've had to put up with lately.

What does everyone think about this competition?

Belinda

It sounds a good idea. You can bet they'll pick products like PS3, phones and highly popular goods in the hope of getting click through sales via the site.

It's a good idea for driving traffic to the site. It's a bad idea for rewarding quality.

If you're looking for something that will reward quality writing, then it's as flawed as the PF system and will end up rewarding the 'popular' members rather than the talented ones.

To be honest, I've never heard of this week's product (I think it's shampoo) and I'm not going out and buy it just to review it.

I've never heard of it either. I'd laugh if it was a product only available in the States.

I imagine the competition is the reason why they fixed up the site.

Agreed with CFM, it allows Ciao to expand their product catalogue but it won't bring quality to the table.

MM I get that feeling too...

I think Ciao realise that they have to put something in given that they are taking out their video reviews.

Where does it say that they are taking out their video reviews?

If they choose the selected works of Rene Descartes or the Only Ones seminal first album, I'll be ready. Cant see myself reviewing phones and the like though, I'm happy being a ludite.

Is it me or have they deleted the video review competition page? Maybe they actually watched some of those videos...

I think the video comp has ended, could be wrong. Lisa x

Perhaps it has, knowing Ciao, you don't what will happen!

Ciao? Full of surprises?

I do not like the idea of this at all. it's reviewing for the sake of reviewing.

The problem with this kind of thing is that if people are reviewing some product for a competition you get reviews that are being done specifically for money rather than because it is something you want to write about and that is never a good idea, all you will end up with is mostly trash or people writing about something they have little experience of as they only bought it day or so before so they could write about it

I just think it's a laugh and fun to enter, who cares about the why's or wherefore's, it's a fun thing for me!

I think it's a bloody cheap way for manufacturers to get quick, fast feedback on their products. The prizes are a joke and doing one every week suggests that we'll seldom get reviews based on extensive experience.

Should Ciao provide a rolling list of every 'product of the week' for the next three months, thus giving members a chance to try out these products and write decent reviews?

It's not as if these products are expensive eletronics or whatever, so if you see they're offering some kind of shampoo at the start of may (as an example), you can go out and buy that shampoo and use it... if you're that way inclined.

Well, so far we had some obscure shampoo with only a handful of reviews and what a surprise, Ciao changed to more popular products the next two weeks, beer and pizza (how very healthy) and reviews keep flooding in for those.

No wonder they haven't got money for more than 10 diamonds, rubbish weekly competitions and video reviews swallowing up good money. Some members must have got hundreds of pounds for their video reviews, I see the same names over and over.

It will be the same for the weekly competitions, the same people over and over who don't use the product pretending they did. It's been made worse by Ciao announcing an overall winner, the more you take part and win the weekly ones the better the chance to win the big price at the end.

Did anybody we know actually make a review ? The only ones I saw were the original guy that I figures worked for ciao.

I've watched a few.

They're as bad as the diamond reviews. The technical one I watched was 80% listing of features and description and about 20% experience/usage.

I watched a few and while one did manage to amuse me, the others I found were poorly filmed indeed. While I certainly wouldn't be any good at doing a video review, I do feel it's important to be able to hear what's being said, to put feeling into your review, and to show the product clearly.
With regards to the 'product of the week' reviews, I doubt I'll enter unless I already own the product and have enough experience of it. There is no way I'll be rushing out tomorrow to purchase the latest product just for the sake of. Also I don't like my guestbook being filled up with messages of "please can you take a look at my latest review" i.e the product of the week. If it's a member who's reviews i read anyway then I'll probably check it out, but I don't want to be bombarded with pleas. Lisa x

I've seen a couple and there are videos which are almost devoid of usage. It's a crime that these are being paid for.

To think, I should have used my bandwidth to watch more 'interesting' videos - some of these are just terrible!

Anyway, Ciao should provide a rolling list, but there is no quality control so I doubt it will happen.

Would a rolling list make any difference? I know it would give members a chance to gain experience of a product, but since when have ciao been concerned about that? I can recall a number of reviews that have clearly stated the product has been owned for all of 2 seconds and still gets rewarded. Lisa x

This really seems to be a bad feature. i had a look at some of the erecent reviews and all we get aew very short, not useful reviews from whitre dots or reviews on basic products such as peanut butter and ice creams which are epics at 2000+ words and longer than my first year university essays. I think i agree with a suggestion the category should be for something more topicl or useful such as an album or film that had been out a month etc.