~~~A journey called Mouthshut~~~~. Review on Mouthshut

Mouthshut.com. Yes, it is time to write a review on my favorite website where I have spent the best of my virtual world time with this website nearly 6 years. Dissatisfied with rating given by many websites on a good movie according to me, I didn't waste a minute when I found a web site where my opinion too is matter. The result is that I found Mouthshut.com.

Mouthshut.com is the most popular and most participated consumer website in India today. It is a platform in which you can search and share opinions about products and services. Ideally, this is best for quality conscious consumers and companies alike. It definitely is bad news for low quality and less user-friendly products and institutions.

The major hurdle in the road of this consumer awareness is willingness from the part of individuals to share their opinions in a public platform for the benefit of others. The general public psychology is that they will not care. More than that, there are only a smaller number of people who are consciously search for opinion before purchase of a product instead of fancy advertisements.

Mouthshut.com tries to spread the shared opinion by making it available with all search engines and if you search for products reviews in net, you will often find mouthshut reviews in the first 20 website listings. Lately, the star rating in mouthshut is displayed in the google search etc to attract consumer attention.

Though it is a consumer based web site it has the features of a social networking web site as well, where with or without sharing your opinion about products, you can interact with other members, post your blogs/diaries, post photos, visit other people's photos etc.

Being a member, I have now posted 500 reviews, out of which probably 15 or so is of advices or on community activities but otherwise my focus was on reviews on movies and books say 90 percent of my reviews. This is based on my dreams I carry where books and cinema shares that. I wish to be a known writer one day and if god willing in films as well. Writing in mouthshut is helping me considerably in achieving this goal with my continuous interaction with many in MS. This definitely is a motivation for me to watch more movies, share my views, read more books and share it with others and in the process I am feeding the basic requirements for a writer, i.e. reading.

What I noticed generally is that when you write on not popular items, you get more general reader attention. I mean, if you write on movies even if it is the most awaited one it has only a short span of life where on product reviews or book reviews your reviews are wanted for longer and in turn get more readership. There is another factor as well, say, when a movie is released there are many people writing reviews and lately many websites are now following mouthshut.com in India and permitting user reviews but for product reviews there are less platforms and not many reviews are available. For books, especially of Indian books, Mouthshut.com is the only wide source and I hope the web site use this as their strength and spread its wings fast.

One problem for mouthshut.com reviews is that there are many reviews which are not that useful mixed which got mixed with useful and very useful reviews to create roadblock for the useful one to reach the consumers. A thorough house keeping is required for deletion of not helpful reviews from the website. Probably a listing based on the useful status will help to present a better list to the searchers.

I have witnessed many a talent pool coming and going from Mouthshut. At times I get a feel that the web site is super good and how well the site is working for writing and interacting. At times however I also felt that the web site doesn't care for the members. Personally, I am happy for the website and I am getting better rewards for the time spent on it, though it reaches to me indirectly. Then, I felt many of the situations faced by the website could have been better handled. As a rule, nobody will be coming to a web site and share their opinion to make other consumers aware. There should be some kind of incentives. Being a free web site, the site has its on financial obligations and limitations and may not be in a position to give financial dividends. Then, assuring 10 comments on a genuine review is the best incentive one can expect in such scenario. There should have some kind of schemes to keep the writers keep on writing. Say, getting a star status is one, for sure. Then what? Probably one different colour of star can make it to special stars. Then? Probably few gifts like say if you finish writing 10 book reviews, one book free, after 10 movie reviews one movie ticket free etc (not that writing 10 plane reviews and get one plane free...Lol!!) This will prompt the talented writers to keep writing in Mouthshut.com.

Virtual gifts are one fine thing happened in MS. Unlike in some other social sites, you don't have to risk your identity and credit card to show your happiness to a friend. Sharing it, even when it is virtual images is giving happy feel and from the day it was introduced I never left of giving it or receiving it. Only wish for some new items in the store with less MS points. I too have a consumer mindset...

Sharing pictures in MS is very helpful for it makes people and places cloer. Each picture in MS is like a diary post where you can write and read comments. I have made best use of it by posting around 6000 photos and conducting some competitions for good photography and good comments etc. Believe me, it is fun!

Blogs is another feature I enjoyed thoroughly in the early days. The blogs are affective than the blogspot or wordpress for its probability of getting immediate responses from members. A field of reader count would have helped this feature which is yet missing.

Getting response to member requests will find some delay for sure. Then, mouthshut is one website where the management can be contacted directly. Whether your requests are met is the secondary question but getting a link to contact the administration directly is something I like with MS.

I wish more and more people who have writing talent will join MS and spend their time creatively in this space instead of many meaningless websites. I also wish the MS management take more clear steps to better the customer care protecting the writer base and reach to new territories and levels so that they can reward the better writers and serve the members and consumers in general in a better way.

I am not a mouthshut family member, but a friend of mouthshut, a well wisher who took some benefit from it and gave something back. Probably I have more points to share but later. Wish mouthshut goodluck where let me continue the journey!