My review is 222, that is some number!
I have been on MS since 3 months as a non member and now around 4 days as a member, I came to know about this site via Google while I was searching for a product review on a mobile phone, it doesn't matter how we came to know about a particular thing but what matters is the thing worth it???
Well talking of Mouthshut I think the site is worth it, but I won't hesitate to opionate that the site has loopholes which I am really surprised to find. Well I will cover the site loopholes in reviewing the website in the near future. Right now let me give a general opinion on MS itself.
Its a free forum to express opinions but how free we can be, Start serving obscene, free lings approach in our reviews, start abusing members, start rating you with an intent to settle personal scores, start calling names, hurting them in more ways than other. I know its an offense on this site and MS does take care of it promptly but how prompt are they? I doubt , because the time the review is deleted it has already been read min. 50 times or max 75 times, so the word already gets spread.
Figure this
ICICI BANK: 2 star rating (Recco)
Times of India: More then half of reviews not recco it.
HDFC Bank Credit Card: 2 star rating
A movie named Chalte Chalte *ing SRK: 2 star rating
Kyunki Saas and other Balaji Serials: Mostly they get one and a half stars
The point I need to bring in here is, do our opinions really matter or do they make somekind of difference, with 2 star ratings ICICI Bank is the second largest bank, TOI is the largest read English daily in India, HDFC CC is a name to reckon with, Chalte Chalte was a boxoffice hit and these serials are the Chart busters topping every list with highest TRPs. See does our opinion make any difference.. I saw guy being robbed off Rs.37000 by the HDFC expressing his opinions on MS, what happened? No whereabouts of him, only few 115 reads, 6 comments of solace and nothing else.
Atleast MS can send a print out of such reviews to respective concerns and let them know that they should improve or in this case to the adequate authorities for taking a look in the matter
The crux remains that MS is a good site no doubt but it is not influencer of a mass opinion by any means, thanks to lack of internet reach not many people are aware of it, infact just have a look for urself that howmany reviews you get from small towns like Lucknow etc mostly the members are from bigger cities proving my point.
My suggestion: If at all MS will consider this, how about a newspaper in near future, start it in english but altleast it will spread the word :-), this might sound like a throw in the dustbin idea but atleast it will trigger some brainstorming that will help no one else but MS and us.
Its for intellect or a novice: With no lack of respect to the so called star writers but on MS they take it as a platform to exhibit there amazing writing talents, that might turn even a simple product review into a epilogue of a book, on MS if a avg. internet user without much knowledge of Hi-Fi english will seek in for an opinion on a movie all he might get it is extreme lingos and difficult to crack vocabulary. All I mean to say is please tone down a bit so the reach of the reviews get extended and your gracious opinions are read , rated and commented well......
On MS its more of a plain speak rather than actual reviews, you like SRK that means the movie is good, you like the author that means the book is good, trust me people this happens and I might also do the same, its human tendency. Some RRC for the sake of getting more nos. , Infact I won't mention names but a member enjoys giving his number of ratings in his comments and is proud of it, Its alrite with him but I don't extract much sense with that, can I ask him how many does he read with glued eyeballs.
Way we rate reviews is another cause of concern, Like I said if you like the movie then rate the different point of opinion as NU, no matter he/she has justified it well, You like the movie and the star you might rate it VU no matter the review was utter crap. As members we should get over this.
I think new members aren't encouraged well or if I put it in other words they get lost, I saw when I made debut 78 reads and 12 member ratings in 4 days. Same happens with many newbees, and many a times a Gender bias also settles in but I wont prolongate that. What's MS actually doing for that. In this case I like the real RRC freaks like rohitthebest, Cousin2, Cticize who keep on praising the newcomers and encourage them. Thats really good and one should learn something good from them.
Problem for MS: It should not forget that its afterall a site, whose success gets measured by the no. of hits it gets, I will bring it to attention, like what happens to reviews that are posted at 1:00 am from 3:30 am, infact its like 15-20 reads for a fresh reviews in these 3-4 hrs, and expecting members well thats too much, I mean its alrite that Indians sleep but there aren't many Non US members that I see with few expections.
Coming on to Star Writers and M2Ms, well I think I see some shortcoming in the way a star writer is created, I can name a lot many members with a bigger trust circle and hefty VU ratings who deserve to be Star writers but actually don't get the due,if at all you go by criteria that MS proposes to make one.
I read a review from Amit MSId: Main_Chup on this he really made a strong case on it. But on the whole the concept is good and it will help to upgrade the quality of reviews that we get.
M2Ms a great tool to communicate with fellow members but its scrutinized and I have been facing a problem of not actually getting my M2Ms reach in time or sometimes even worse.Member Banning and flagging, well we have a topic on that so we should leave it for that.MS is unneccesarily adding categories which won't help its prospects, I find some categories useless.
Concludingly, I find MS a move, infact a out of the box thinking approach which is really working, its treat to read good reviews, expressing yourself freely and let know what other people feel about your thoughts, but as always nobody's perfect and MS has a long way to go, I hope I have made some point.
Thank you for reading, you can comment.
