How to Waste 7 Years of Your Life at Epinions!

I was an active member of Epinions from March 2000 through sometime in early 2007. That is around the time I found Associated Content and realized there are better sites out there! Below is my long list of reasons why I would never return to Epinions and why I don't want you to either. These are in no particular order, just as they come through my head. Having been away avoiding the message boards and the site for the past year has helped me really put things in perspective. And I find it hilarious that when I did eventually return to read the message board, I saw a lot of the very same things, just with more newbies mixed in.

1. Payment - First and Foremost, I made $366 in the 7 years I was at Epinions with over 400 reviews posted that received hundreds of thousands of hits. Almost all were rated Very Helpful across the board. In comparison, I made $700 at AC in 6 months with only about 60-80 reviews posted. You do the math. Even if one day AC went under, I still made enough in those 6 months to make it way more worth my time than the 7 years at Epinions!

2. Whining - People brag and complain about earnings on the message board - people who make way more than the majority of us. How is that supposed to make the other members feel? There I was making 4-5$ a month (after 7 years on the site), if that, and others are whining that they made "$50 less this month". I wish I made $50 in one month! If you complain that they are talking about earnings, what is their solution? The members would basically say if you don't like to hear about their earnings you should stay away from the message boards. Now there's a welcoming community!

3. "We Write b/c we Love it!" - Let's face it, we are all in it for the money. Why would you spend hours writing reviews and advice just for "fun". At Epinions many will try to calm member complaints by saying "it's not about the money, but the community". You know what??? I enjoy having friends online and a community just as much as the next guy, but I write for the MONEY! And besides, with some members of the community thinking they run the place, it's not a good reason for me to write there. It also seems like the people who say that the most are the ones making more than everyone else. If it's really not about the money, then they can send their checks over to me.

4. No Paypal - Get with the times! The Epi leaders and members state over and over that they do not want paypal for various reasons. People had told me basically that they've had conversations with members, and no one wants paypal. Are you kidding me? No one wants it? They are basing their feedback on the few active people on the message board (except me, they ignored me) who said they didn't want it. Crazy members even replied that they LIKE going to the bank? Who LIKES going to the bank? I know I don't. I even asked if they ever surveyed the general members about this and they said they didn't have to survey because they know members don't want paypal. AC pays me for paid articles automatically before it's even published. I get hit payments once a month automatically through paypal. The only reason why checks would be better is if you had a crush on your bank teller. Otherwise, checks waste time and effort for people like me who have no other reason to go to the bank. Not to mention all the trees that are killed in the process. The world is going green, but Epinions is not on board.

5. On the Defense - Like it or not, I believe many people in the message boards and beyond are constantly on the defense. When anyone suggests a change (such as paypal) others are quick to jump up and defend why they don't like that idea. Honestly, offering an additional option such as paypal is not going to hurt all the other members who would still have the option to do checks, so why get so defensive? I've seen this happen many times throughout the years as a newbie or oldbie would come in with a suggestion that the message board groupies didn't like. They may say they accept all ideas, but I don't believe it. And if you argue about your idea too much, suddenly you are the bad guy. Really it's not even worth it to suggest changes or improvements over there.

6. Nothing ever gets fixed - Another reason why I gave up on suggesting improvements was because nothing ever comes of it. Nothing ever gets fixed! Honestly they are still fixing the same bugs they had 4 years ago! I also write at Viewpoints and I've sent them notes about bugs... within days a lot of those bugs were fixed! If the bug was not fixed quickly, they would communicate to me what is going on and what they are trying to do. On the otherhand, Epinions likes to leave it's members in the dark just by saying "we are working on it". Whatever!

7. Members in Charge - I disagree with this completely. Members should never be in charge of making decisions such as whether or not other members earn status on the site. If you want to have leads or advisors that give input on assigning members status, that is fine, but the final decision should always rest on someone who actually works for Epinions, not a member. Advisors will not admit it but some of them do play favorites. Some advisors seem to purposely skip over your reviews when rating just because they don't like you. Other advisors seem to purposely give you a low rating even if everyone else (including the lead in the category) thought your review was Very Helpful. There were certain advisors there that NEVER gave me anything but a "Helpful" rating but never left any comment to explain what was missing from my review. Thanks for advising me, that really helped a lot!

8. Rate how you feel... except in that case - This one absolutely disgusts me. If I were to complain about the situation above where I felt unfairly rated, I would be told to get over it because everyone can rate how they feel. HOWEVER, If I downrated a review that truly did not seem up to par with me, my rating would come into question. Suddenly I'm not supposed to rate how I feel? Suddenly they are trying to tell me how I should rate a particular review? Excuse me?? More recently I've heard from friends that still are active on the site that they've actually gotten emails from leads and advisors asking them to change their ratings on certain reviews. Once again, EXCUSE ME? That is just ridiculous. On Viewpoints and AC they have a rating system that does not show member names. This is ideal because then everyone can truly rate how they feel without feeling like someone will tell them their rating is wrong later.

9. Status makes No Sense! - Since members have so much input on the status of other members, the advisor and top reviewer titles that are handed out often make no sense! Even when I focused for years and wrote in mostly one category, getting all VH reviews, I was never even considered for a top reviewer title. I even showed a lot of participation on the particular message boards for those categories and people appeared to like me there as well. Then I saw others who wrote maybe 1-2 reviews a month getting these same titles that I tried so hard for. People would say that the title was not just having to do with your activity and VH reviews, and all that garbage. However if you asked what you need to do to get a title, you are once again told nothing that will help. In fact, if you show TOO much interest in trying to get a title, suddenly YOU are the bad guy. Suddenly YOU are trying to "scam the system" or something similar. On AC and Viewpoints your status is determined by hits and/or number of reviews. I preached that on Epinions many times but they all hated the idea thinking someone would just "scam the system" and write a bunch of reviews. Again I must say... WHATEVER!

10. Searching for another problem with the site - I cannot believe how many years they have been fixing the search engine. I have never seen a search engine that does not pick up a keyword in the title of a product. I have never seen people have to work so hard to find information on any site. I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to design a search engine that works! That's all I have to say about that.

11. Text Editor - The Epinions Text Editor is so outdated it makes me sick. For years I've tried to request the add a more advanced editor like the one AC and Viewpoints has that allows for bold, underline, and hyperlinks. If you are following the pattern here, you can probably guess what the members say about this. They say they don't want it! Why? Once again because they assume people will abuse it and bold too much are underline too much. Well that might happen sometimes, the majority of members would not abuse it. Instead they would save LOADS of time trying to put the tags in the proper spots. BTW - Veiwpoints and AC also have a built in spell checker, something I never even knew could be done, unlike the stupid on on Epinions that shows you all your errors and then redirects you to the form again where you have to try and remember what those errors were!

12. Save a draft - Speaking of the text editor, Epinions also has a problem where you sometimes go to post a review and it gives you an error page and you go back to find you lost everything you typed. I also suggested the ability to save it as we go, but the members would just tell me to go write my reviews in MS Word instead. Ok, so you are telling me I have to go to another program to write reviews? While AC and Viewpoints both let you Save as you go.... so ... what's so freaking hard about that?

13. You didn't talk about this ONE DETAIL, so your review is not Very Helpful - Ugg. One thing I learned ever since I started writing for Viewpoints is how much more fun it is to write a review when you know you do not have to include every mundane detail. On Viewpoints and AC, I write what I feel like telling the reader about and that is it. However on Epinions, you could leave out one detail that you consider minor, and get downrated for it. I've seen people get downrated for not mentioning the pool at a hotel because they didn't swim in it. I thought writing a review was supposed to be about MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with a product, not a guide that lists all the faq. When I write reviews for Viewpoints, I feel a sigh of relief knowing that if I don't look up the movie to find out all the actors names, it is OK! I just write what I feel I want to share with the reader and that is it.

14. The buddy system - Everyone on Epinions complains about what they call "click circles" where they think people just go clicking each other's reviews. The funny thing is that, in reality, almost everyone on Epinions is in a click circle in one form or another! Everyone reads all of their "friends" reviews, and their friends return the favor by reading their reviews. The problem? If I didn't have time to read a lot of reviews, leave comments and rate, I barely got any member hits or rates. Case in point - in the year or so since I've been gone, I've only gotten 1 new rate or so a month on my reviews. In comparison, I write at AC sparingly and I almost never comment on other people's reviews (because my computer has something that blocks me from commenting on AC, dang it!). Even so, every week when they refresh the hits, I consistently get another few dollars from hits. On viewpoints I also consistently get member reads and comments even though I don't often comment on other people's reviews. I like the fact that if I want to be a reviewer, I don't have to go around kissing butt in order to get hits. I just write!

15. They act like giving you their "trust" is as hard as giving you their kidney! - I cannot believe how meticulous some people are there with trusting you. People will read many of your reviews, and even think you are a great writer, but decide not to trust you for random reasons. I've had people take me off their list and tell me it was because I hadn't written in awhile. Wait, so I take a break from writing and suddenly I'm less of a good writer? I've had others tell me they took me off their list because they didn't like someone that I trusted. Wait, so I can't have other friends as well? When I was on Epinions, I trusted people who wrote good reviews, were nice, and were fun, and I never once looked at who they trusted. If I read a good review by a person and really liked it, I never felt the need to go read a dozen of their reviews to make sure they were worthy of trust. It's just lame. Get over yourselves! I don't really care that much for you to trust me, so if you have to put that much thought into it then I don't want to be on your list anyway.

16. Adding products is a pain in .... well you know - I can't believe the lengths one has to go to in order to add a product that is not in the database. You have to send your request to a lead, and then wait. And I also cannot believe how often the Suggest a Product feature is broken and the leads tell you "sorry, it's broken again". On Viewpoints and AC I can review anything I want RIGHT NOW. Sure there are sometimes duplicate products added at Viewpoints, but they fix it quickly whenever you point it out. Members do not abuse the feature because the members at Viewpoints are not looking to scam anything. Sure people make mistakes but noone is purposely trying to screw up the system by adding 100s of fake products. Epinions would never give us the ability to add our own products because they have a problem with "trust" (same problem as above) and they ASSUME that everyone in the world is looking to destroy them by abusing the system.

17. But it's about the community! Don't you love the community? - Honestly, no. After years I started to find this community was more like high school than real life. Members run the site, and that's apparently what epinions want, but that's not what I want. When members run the site there is bound to be conflict. The conflict gets even greater when you realize that Epinions does most of their member research by going to the message board and going to Meet and Greets. So... if you have never been to the Message Board, and have never gone to a Meet and Greet, then how do they find out what you think? Oh that's right, you fill out a feedback form and get a generic response 2 months later.

If you are looking for a site to write at for fun or profit, look into Viewpoints and Associated Content and look no further! Viewpoints only offers a limited number of paid positions, but the site is still awesome and has so many great features. The site design shows real talent, unlike Epinions where the site design shows many errors. Associated Content may not pay you up front for everything, but even the things I post for No Payment still make me some cents in bonus hits. Best of all, I've found the leadership at both Viewpoints and Associated Content to be consistent and fair. When you ask a question, everyone gets the same answer. I could go on all day with this but I think I got my point across.

Reviewing should be a fun hobby, not a job that you keep getting criticized for! I never feel anxious or frustrated when I start to write a review at Viewpoints or AC. I never fear getting downrated or getting comments saying it's not good enough. Instead, it's fun and enjoyable! Check out these two sites today, and put Epinions on your BLOCK list! Enjoy!!