39 reviews, thousands of reads, hundreds of comments—all these have made me wise—the credit of course goes to Mouthshut and its members....so why not a review on A-Z of Mouthshut? Read on....this review takes you through the journey which has got 24 stops, while some are rated, other connect me and my Mouthshut together....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aarti Kapoor and Faisal: No, it had to be them—the people behind Mouthshut, who have made this creative site happen. This whole site, every review, every comment, every member are a tribute to the hard work they have put in of bringing together creative people from all around the world to share their opinions, views and interact with each other...We all thank you from the bottom of our heart!!
Best Debut and other Awards: The first award that every dedicated newcomer gets is the Best Debut. The other awards being Star Writers, Review of the Days, and Hall of Fame—churned out by the SORT technology, which actually lists reviews and members by the amount of traffic they attract. As every award the member gets goes miles in encouraging them to reach new zeniths of review-writing, I would love to see more transparency in the technology, which leaves out 6/10 good reviews.
Community Center: The part of the site where you get to see everything from contests, member news, to awards, to letters from CEO to some cute messages from fellow members. Although fine by concept, if there would have been a common message board or a chat room here, it would go miles in registering the site’s impact.
Comments: A feature where the reader lets the reviewer know what he feels about the review—from encouraging newbies to giving support to veterans, comments do the impossible by connecting the reviewer and reader to a new level. Though usage of this feature is increasing day by day, placing the comments section on the same page as the review will ensure quadrupled usage.
Dislike/Like lists: ** A feature in the personal profile that lets the fellow members know of your likes and dislikes, but because it is prioritised from member to member, most of them are hidden and I am seriously confused if they do solve any purpose.
Email Alerts: An extremely helpful feature which can be personalised to alert you everytime a new review is posted in your favourite category, or by your favourite reviewer. It goes miles in registering the fact that you don’t miss out on the most interesting bit. Individual opinions can also be emailed and alerts can also be set on readings, ratings and comments on your reviews. A wonderful and a near-perfect feature. Keep it up!!
Flagged and Sealed Members: The dark side of Mouthshut. Situated in the Community Center, lists out all those members who continually breached Mouthshut’s integrity. Keeping their reviews intact as a proof is fine. That the number hasn’t even reached 30 says volumes on the restraint and the responsibility the whole community at Mouthshut has shown.
Gifted Writers: These are selected by giving the crowns of Star Writers. Though the concept is good, how they are selected is a mystery. No, the guidelines and the selection procedure in the Community Center is fine, but then why so many good writers have been left out?
Help Center: Mouthshut’s help center is very precise and to-the-point. Site tours, tips on the top of every review are fine, but a more detailed version of what the site is all about should be emailed to very new member. For now, it is highly recommended for evry aspiring writer to follow the tips written by members in the Community Center.
Items /Products/ Services: The commodities that we all review. Even before we start inking, we think—Which Item? Thankfully, Mouthshut has an ever-increasing database of over 82000 (correct figure, courtesy faisal) products and with each member possessing their individual sets of interests, no category of products has remained untouched. Of course, new products can be added by a very functional MouthPad feature. Entertainment remains one of the most popular category while Government is the least written about.
Jan 13th 2003: The wonderful day when I joined and posted my first review on the site—it’s the day that I’ll cherish all my life.
karana23: My ID. My identity at Mouthshut. It took me 3 days to get the perfect user ID, but at last I had to settle for a tame and an easy to remember one—Karan is my name, the added ‘a’ is the first letter of my surname and the digits add up to my birthdate—5th of April.
Login/Logout: This is what every member does scores of times everyday. Mouthshut’s login facility is perfect, but care has to be taken as you get logged out even for 10 minutes of inactivity—all for security reasons.
M2M: stands for Messages to Members (or Member to Member—as you wish!!!). True to its name, this feature allows fellow members to email messages to you via the site without you disclosing your email ID to everyone. A cool feature, but is bogged down a bit if you need to send the same message to more than 1 member—and that it is only accessible in the member’s profile and not in his/her reviews only worsens the matter. Proper placing and the option of sending out same message to different members will ensure better community building.
Net: Without the Net or the Internet, this whole site wouldn’t have been possible. I bet after the introduction of Mouthshut, ISPs all over the world have been benefited—what with every second member spending most of their time on the site using the Net. My phone bills quadrupled in the first month itself—signal enough to move to broadband, which was certainly good news to my ISP.
Opinions: ‘Your Opinions Matter’ is the tagline of Mouthshut.com, and as it is self-explanatory, every review written with the right intention and dedication matters at the site. Almost every third review at the site stands apart thanks to the amount of research and innovativeness that the writers put into them. Some rib tickling, some innovative to the core and some just a bag of general knowledge, while there are a handful which can’t be categorised at all---but yes it is the quality of the reviews that has helped Mouthshut retain its shine all through the three years that it has been around.
Profiles: One page that gives every member at Mouthshut the opportunity to tell everyone at the site about themselves, their likes/dislikes, and it also serves the purpose of listing out each of the member’s opinions together—making it more of a homepage. This more accentuated by the fact that you can hide members you trust/distrust, your likes/dislikes; though why anybody will do so is out of my imagination—but its your page, your priority. Mouthshut’s profile pages are one of the most uncluttered profiles amongst other opinion sites, hence the 5 stars!!
Quantity Control: ** Though quality control is mostly taken care of, courtesy ratings and distrust lists, quantity is one area where Mouthshut seriously needs to buckle up. There needs to be a restriction places on the number of reviews posted by each reviewer each day.
CONTINUED IN THE COMMENTS SECTION
