Ciao - Ranting and Raving For Cash

Ciao.com is a rare gem: a website where I get paid for writing a few paragraphs about how much I hate my MP3 player.

I reached Ciao through SendEarnings or MyPoints (I honestly cannot remember which) about two days ago. I initially joined because I'd seen a lot of buzz about it on MyLot, and some people swore by it. I knew that the payout was fairly low (I later discovered that it was $5.00).

I have read on blogs and heard from members that Ciao isn't as good as it used to be. Apparently, you used to get a flat $1.00 fee for publishing a review. This was changed to .25, and now to the current "incentive" program where you get paid a few cents for each positive rating your review receives. That system still sounded o.k. to me - write a good review, get rewarded more.

I'd choose this system over a flat rate any day. There's more potential to make money this way. I can easily make that $1.00 off of a review over the course of a few days, and after that, it'll just keep making more. With a flat rate once I've gotten it, that's all I'll ever earn off that review. With the current system, my reviews will continue to earn for me (I believe up to $3.00).

In any case, I took the plunge and joined. After staring at the wall for a while, I decided to write my first review on St. Ives Apricot Scrub, a product I had some mixed feelings about.

I looked at my account all day that day, but although I got many comments on my review from other members, the balance remained 0. I assumed that the product I had selected was not one that you got paid for reviewing, and almost didn't go back to the website. However, when I logged into Ciao the next day, I was greeted by a pleasant surprise: 33 cents I had not possessed before.

After this small success, I wrote three more reviews: one for the Sunbeam Bread Maker I own, one for the Creative Zen Micro (a combination rant and funeral dirge for my dying MP3 player), and one for Diesel For Her (a perfume I like that most people hate).

These efforts netted me 45 more cents the next day, bringing my total to just under a dollar. With such a low minimum balance necessary to reach payout, I'm starting to see how one might easily generate a trickle of extra cash from Ciao.

I befriended a few people, and rated a few people (who kindly rated me back). Currently, I'm accepting some Friend Requests, but I'm not going to befriend plagiarists or rate shoddy reviews positively. I'm just not going to reward bad work. I suppose that may not please some people in the community, but they'll get over it.

What I've been up to:
Feb 28th:
I joined Ciao and immediately wrote my first review on St. Ives Apricot Scrub.
It got a bunch of comments and positive ratings, but I didn't see any money in my Earnings section. Discouraged, I logged off and went to bed.

March 1st:
Logged in to discover that I was 33 cents richer. Woohoo!
Wrote reviews on Diesel For Her and Zen Micro 5 GB.
Befriended several other users, who immediately began nagging me to rate their reviews positively.

March 2nd:
Logged in and discovered another 46 cents in my account, bringing me to 79 cents. More nagging "RATE ME" spam. Checked out users' reviews. A few were good, decent, legitimate reviewers, but there was an upsetting amount of plagiarists, people who copy-pasted product reviews, and "Engrish" word salad. De-friended the offenders, reported some for plagiarism.

Wrote a review for Eisbrecher's album, "Eisbrecher".

Recruited my friends Reese and Jaime. Sent my mother an email with a referral link, which she might get around to reading and clicking eventually.

Friended some users who actually wrote coherent and useful reviews.

March 3rd:
I was awake for rollover. Saw my account total go up another 70 cents. Part of this was due to my referrals posting reviews of their own, but most of it was my own work. Ciao is looking good so far.

I wrote a review for The Sims 2 Expansion Pack: "Seasons" and Friended a few more good reviewers.

March 4:
Only made 20 cents. Apparently, I am alone in my awe of The Sims 2. Friended a few more people.

Wrote three more reviews: One for the video game Cubivore, one for Maybelline Purestay Foundation, and one for Clean & Clear Morning Burst.

More RATE ME spam and friend requests from people who don't actually bother to write reviews. I wish that there was an Ignore button.

Doing the math:
At an average of 40 cents per day, I should reach payout in around 9 days. If I make closer to 70 cents per day, it will be around 6 days.

From what I have gathered, you can make a maximum of $3.00 per review, not counting the Premium Fund (which I will talk about in later posts). I spend an average of 15-20 minutes writing a review. If you stop to think about it, that could amount to $3.00, total, for 15 minutes of my effort. Keep in mind that there is no guarantee that I will make the maximum amount of money off of a review. Once it gets too old and nobody reads it any more, it stops earning (except maybe very occasionally). A review might only ever earn me 50 cents.

Still, all said and done, that's not a bad. Still, I do not wish to misrepresent Ciao. Although it's panning out well for me, it seems like it will only be good for a little bit of extra cash. I'll consider myself lucky to make $5.00 a week - assuming I don't have trouble cashing out. Remember: at this point in the course of this blog, I have not yet hit payout.

My observations:
I've noticed that there are a few reviewers who seem to speak somewhat-broken English, but their reviews are still pretty good. Then there are some who write their review entirely in text-message shorthand, which irks me to no end. I know it's a review about a cell phone, but that doesn't mean you need to type out the review AS IF you typed it on a cell phone.

Finally, there appear to be a few who have simply copied and pasted the product specifications into the review box. Nonetheless, there are a LOT of very good reviews and reviewers. I can see how writing a good review that stands out in the crowd could become exceedingly difficult.

I'll write more about how bad the issue of spam and plagiarism is on Ciao, but for now, I'll state this: It's bad, it's annoying, it may threaten the longevity of the website. Still, I'm not having trouble earning money at all so far. Out of all of the programs I'm describing, Ciao may be the best so far.