Goodness Gracious Me. Review on Mouthshut

First of all I hope that no one is offended or upset by my choice of title, as no offence is intended. For a number of years I have enjoyed a radio programme entitled Goodness Gracious Me and even more so when it was put on television. The two Indian men and women comedy performers have left me aching with laughter as they present their sketches. It is a few months since the last series and unfortunately I cannot remember their names. Maybe a reader will know and let me know so that I can include them.

Intrigued by the fact that MouthShut was in Bombay, I accessed the site with the intention of finding out what it was all about.

Connection was very good and I was confronted with a bright and cheerful home page which although sort of familiar was pleasantly different. Everything is accessible from the front page, which also carries a picture of one of the “Star Writers”.

I browsed around for a while and read the odd review, the Terms and Conditions and details of the MouthShut organisation and found that apart from the number of categories the site was similar to another opinion site. So after I had familiarised myself with the site I decided that I had nothing to lose by joining. Registering was a simple as you would come to expect on such sites and after completing the details for my profile page I was able to become active right away.

By the time that I logged off I had received a welcoming e-mail from Faisal I. Farooqui the Chief Executive Officer. O.K. It was probably an automatic response but it’s the thought that counts.

The next day, to test the system, I posted my opinion on my Kodak digital camera to await results. I opted to be informed when someone read, rated and commented on that review and the next day my mailbox contained over 60 e-mails. A couple of days later I received 152 e-mails. It takes many minutes to download 152 e-mails, time that could have been better spent reading an opinion.

This is my first of three complaints about the site. Rather than sending individual e-mails it would be better if just one e-mail was sent that contained all the information as to who read, rated and commented on the member’s reviews during the last 24 hours. I know that I could have opted for not availing myself of this service but I want to know who is reading, rating and commenting on my reviews. I could find out by looking at my public page and it would be easy with twenty, thirty or even forty opinions but above that figure it becomes difficult trying to remember who read what. So informing a member in this way is Highly Recommended. However there is a plus side to the e-mails and that is on each there is a link to the senders’ Profile page. This makes it easy to return the complement to someone who has taken the trouble to read my review and I can see what he or she has to say and about what.

My second complaint is that there is nothing in the Terms and Conditions about the value of MS-Points. Although the Terms and Conditions do not mention so, I understand that foreigners will be able to cash in their MS-Points at the appropriate time and the Terms and Conditions will be amended accordingly. However the six months time limit before being able to gain access to the rewards seems rather harsh as it could very easily put people off from joining. Some people will claim that the rewards do not matter and that they are happy just to post their opinions but as far as I’m concerned the rewards do matter. Why should someone spend time writing a review about a product knowing that someone else will be making money out of that review? They deserve something for their efforts. Rather than a time limit I feel that a points minimum should have been used but not the 600 points as quoted because that is too low. Maybe 2,000 points would be about right. But that depends on the value of the MS-Points. The English and European market value for opinions seems to suggest that one MS-Point is worth about one and a half Indian Rupees. Thus 5 MS-Points for writing an opinion would be worth seven and a half Rupees which is the equivalent of about 11 pence English. English sites pay 10 pence for an opinion.

I cannot complain about the low number of categories compared to other such sites because MouthShut has only been on stream for about three months and it takes time to build up a comprehensive list. Nor can I complain about some of the categories. It is only natural that being an Indian site it will contain products that are specific to India as well as international products. We foreigners will just have to live with that. Nor can we expect to have products included that are not available in India. Which probably explains why my suggestion of a new product - the Vauxhall Corsa Club 16v 1.2 automatic four door saloon has not, after one week, been acted upon. An e-mail telling me if this is the case would have been nice.

The site is easy to navigate around and it is as fast as any other. Whether this will remain so as more people join remains to be seen. One point that I like is being able to send an e-mail to another member without actually knowing their e-mail address.

On balance I like MouthShut and I Highly Recommend it.