I’ve been active on Mouthshut as well as blogosphere for quite sometime. In this review I compare my experience in both platforms. Both have their own pros and cons as explained in the review.

          

                    Mouthshut:
          

          

                    Pros:
                    
1. Instant readership (At any point of time there’ll be some members live on MS and your review and in all probability you’ll get some rating and comment within initial few minutes or first hour itself. In blogging it usually takes much more time (say few hours to few days) before someone comes, reads and comments.

          

2. Quality contents and well designed CMS (Content Management System). Best place to know about a specific product or service.

          

3. Excellent member base who provide quality inputs and comments for your writings and write good reviews of their own.

          

4. Huge collection of products and services.

          

                    Cons
          

          

1. MS doesn’t share adsense revenues with its members. (Earlier they had a scheme of allowing members to exchange MS points for gifts. With the IT slowdown earlier this century, they cancelled it) Now that things are gaining momentum it is time they restore it.

          

2. MS hasn’t fulfilled its promises and commitments. I was supposed to get return airtickets from MS partner flightraja for writing an award winning review earlier this year, but never got my prize. (Full details in this review : http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Flightraja.com-128348-1.html ) Both MS and flightraja CEOs read that review and commented that they’ll resolve the issue but nothing has happened after that. Couple of air tickets is not the reason why I’m here so I’ve decided to excuse them, nevertheless I don’t trust their schemes anymore.

          

3. I don’t have a motive to update previously published reviews in Mouthshut. In blog, if I update previous posts,  a widget tells my readers what all posts have been updated recently. In mouthshut, whatever comments/ratings I get, I get in first few hours or first few days max. Chances of getting a comment on an earlier post is very very low. Not that no one reads the post after few days. Only MS members can read and comment and most of them visit only during initial few hours (or as long as it is in latest 50 posts list). Many readers do visit our reviews from search engines, but since most of them are not MS members they don’t comment/rate the review. (No one will have the patience to sign up just to write one comment). (Example: My article on Club Mahindra got around 88 comments till date in my blog while same content secured only 15 comments in Mouthshut)

          

                     Note: There may be exceptions to this-earlier posts do get comments if it gets selected as review of the day or when a member is searching for the product on which you’ve written the review. Such probability is very low. There’s no mechanism to tell others that so and so post has been updated recently.

          

4. Not much options on formatting: You cant change font colours, embed hyperlinks etc. On a blog you’ll have much better control over how you want your content to be displayed.

          

5. Poor Search Engine optimization: MS site design is not SEO oriented. My blog has a pagerank of 3 while MS has much higher page rank of 6, I’m still able to beat MS for most of the contents. (Example: My club Mahindra article is published both in my blog (http://www.enidhi.net/2007/02/never-go-for-club-mahindra-membership.html )as well as on Mouthshut (http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Advice_on_Time_Share_Membership-118913-1.html).
  (Note: keyword Club Mahindra missing in URL and title in later case) You search for Club Mahindra in Google, my blog post appears right below Club Mahindra official website)

          

Similarly, search for rejection handling in Google, My blog post (http://www.enidhi.net/2006/06/rejection-handling.html) is there on top 5 (even top1) beating 2 million sites identified to have information on rejection handling)

          

6. Cant write multiple reviews on same product. (In blog there’s no such restrictions)

          

7. Not enough visitor stats shared with members (At my blog I can see Google analytics report to study and analyse my readers, like with what keyword they came to my blog etc. In MS I don’t get such information.

          

8. No. of photos and videos that can be included are limited.

          

9. Restriction on minimum and max no of words-for both reviews and comments

Blogging:

          

                    Pros:
                    
1.Can be used to make money. (My blog is non commercial though)

          

2. Excellent control over blog layout, design, formatting, widgets etc

          

3. Easy to track visitors

          

4. Gives sense of Ownership. In MS you’re just one among millions of users.

          

5. You can give hyperlinks, include as many photos, videos, slideshows, javascripts, widgets etc as you want.

          

6. Options to moderate comments

          

                    Cons:
1. Reader base will be very less till you build up sizable number of readers and accumulate some popularity. While your first review in MS itself can get you hundreds of comments.

          

2. Some of your posts may never be read by anyone. In mouthshut, however worst post you write some people will definitely read and rate)

          

3. Search engine based traffic will be very less till you build up decent PR

          

4. You may not get instant feedback like what you get in MS.

Just my observation and opinion. let me know what you think...