Mouthshut - a Centenary Review. Review on General Thoughts About MouthShut

Well I tried my best - a genuine, sincere effort to stay away from my hedonistic vibes and concentrate more on what'they' call Life. Yes, I had my own reasons - Exams, but it meant only two weeks. What followed was a nightmare - several barbarians riding on mean black horses with swords aimed in my direction - my bosses with a truckload of files of pending work! And like the 13th month in a poor mans life, it descended and crawled all over me - YEAR END. Yes, ask any responsible guy working in an MNC what year-end is all about and watch his blank eyes probing you with an unasked question -'Why did you have to ask this of all things?' But yet the mail box kept reminding me with frequent'Member Support - Your review has been commented' mails and Aarti - the temptress, using her charms on my controlled self, luring me to MS again with new year contests -'I am sorry O' Lord, forgive me but I couldn't resist. I am STILL addicted.' So here I am - back again.(Feels like Arnie). But the visionaries knew it all along like Suyog for one.

So I present my centenary article to Faisal and his MS team, as a response to one of the mails asking for'suggestions to improve mouthshut.com'.

The one aspect that was disturbing was'Does MS need to improve?' It is one of the fastest loading website, the'search' is powerful feature and the site is'for members and by members', plenty of categories and a huge range of products are covered. The'social' aspects nurtured by community feelings and attachment is very much existing. The voluntary efforts of members to contribute their thoughts, efforts and time for the sake of sharing views are admirable - like the'Open Source Community'. But then there needs to be some change, some spice with a dash of lemon and the aroma. to bring the Taazgi ka ehsas, the excitement that adds a flurry of fresh thoughts, reviews and enriches a consumer experience.

Did I say consumer.? One look at the site and the consumer is left pondering.is this the right site? While MS is virtuous in offering consumers an unbiased view on a given product, it limits itself to just that. The site seems more oriented to the member writers than any consumer. How many of the book lovers on MS has surfed MS rather than Fabmart or Amazon for making a buying decision? Well yes, a certain review on Abdul Kalam's book encouraged me enough to go to Fabmart and place an order, but then why switch to any other site at all? Yes, a certain review tells me that Sony Wega is worth buying but then what are the best prices or deals? Would an LG flatron be more value-for-money proposition as compared to Sony? These are some basic questions in a mind of consumer. MS can but adopt certain measures to add these elements. A few things that come to my mind are:

«« COGNIZANT TOUCH: »»

Since MS has a login feature, it can adopt their web pages to learn the browsing practice of a logged member and create dynamic customization of what links it displays or what reviews are splashed up for that particular member.

Eg.: If a member is reading/writing computer reviews frequently, see that the links related to computer magazines, websites, OS, Internet, software, hardware etc. are neatly arranged on home page(after he/she logs in) without sacrificing the ability to change to any other category. Thus in effect, different users have a different MS home page with some common items like recent reviews and some uncommon items based on customization.

«« CONSUMER FRIENDLY: »»

Eg: A consumer surfs for a refrigerator.

MS currently displays links to various brands available, then some links classified on price ranges and some links to advice categories. It also shows a high ranking and another low ranking review. Though not a bad approach, it would bug me to know that LG 250L is under high ranking and Allwyn 175 L is under low ranking - what are we comparing? Would a buyer straight off be interested in a'not-good' product? Would he rather not be interested in some best products by different brands? How about a page that shows some statistics like,

LG(HR - 55%, R - 40%, NR - 5%).based on 20 member reviews

Godrej(HR - 60%, R - 35%, NR - 5%).based on 18 member reviews

Kelvinator(HR - 40%, R - 50%, NR - 10%).based on 6 member reviews

Say a user clicks on Godrej Pentacool, he/she is then taken to a beautiful product page that has an

• Exclusive photo

  
  




• Reviews that are tabulated and which can be listed(in both ascending and descending order) based on recommendations or date of review or most read review or most commented review or star review or hot review. The reviews can be listed as'recent reviews' in descending order by default.

  
  




• Add a smart element(combo box) somewhere on the page that says:

  
  

'Other Refrigerators from Godrej'

'MS recommends users to also have a look at Other brands of Refrigerators'

• Slightly less smart element such as:

'Would you also like to know about Godrej Washing Machines?'

'Would you also be interested in other home appliances?'

• Links to relevant official site: https://godrejappliances.com(a feature existing in MS)

Best deals: updated on date: ##)

Rs. 15, 500 - EPRODZ

Rs. 15, 800 - REDIFF

Rs. 16, 000 - INDBAZAAR

Of course, this may call for certain tie-ups and is a business decision. Expand the frontiers!

«« MEMBER FRIENDLY: »»

• I feel here there is no need for a public profile and a private profile as separate elements. There can be only one profile.

  
  




• The members can be given a rating such as star mark, 1-stripe, 2-stripe, star and stripe or some colour bands. These ratings can be based on calculations or weights given to number of reviews, quality of each review, comment ratings, other reviews read/rated/commented i.e. whether active on site.some such mechanism that is not aimed at differentiating members(the classical open v/s SC-ST debate) but rather to self-motivate one to reach the 1-up rating.

  
  




• Develop creativity of members by triggering debates or discussions through reviews such as'Should liquor be banned?' or imaginative reviews like'What if the gravity pull on earth gets reduced?' or chain stories where a member begins and ends half way and any other member continues and leaves it and a third picks up from the where the second ended etc. These reviews may be part of'Community Centre' and not a part of mainstream reviews. Link can be included on home page.

  
  

«« eXtreme Policing: »»

This is an area of concern for MS. I do not know what measures are taken currently but I have seen several abuses and have reported them. Most often multiple ids etc have been caught but then I have come across some FX** guy who had copied several reviews from MS and pasted it under his ID - 50 reviews in 2 days time - word to word! Nothing short of hacking, I guess! There have been derogatory comments - often too personal by members who haven't written a single review to date and between members. One glaring example is in my review on Scorpio - it is still there!

Though'report any abuse' is always an option, some intelligent measures need to be adopted to increase policing.

«« My from the heart suggestion: »»

Kindly allow more than 1 review per member per topic, so that any length review can be made more readable and in parts. What if I want to write my 150th review on MS again?