New T2W Reviews Section

After several months of work, I'm pleased to unveil the first of a series of major updates to the T2W website that will be rolled out in 2010 - the new Reviews section.

What's New

Below you'll find a summary of the changes between the old and new versions, but if you'd prefer to jump right in, then you can access it at it's new address here: http://www.trade2win.com/section/reviews/

Apart from the visual differences, it's worth mentioning this whole section has been re-coded from the ground up by a new team of in-house developers, this means that we can roll out updates and changes much easily now, and we already have plans to roll out a further set of new features, this time next week.

By far the easiest way to see how reviews have changed, is to compare old with new. So I've attached various before and after screenshots along with some commentary to hopefully give you a better idea.

Screenshots: Reviews Home (Old/New)



Before, the old home page for the reviews was fundamentally broken; it didn't list the latest reviews as the title on the page suggested, but instead listed the latest products/services added. Since we haven't added any for some time, this page would always stay the same

Now, apart from the new look 'n feel, the first difference you'll notice is that we display a list of the top rated product/services across all categories (eg. books, brokers, data feeds etc). You can easily re-order these by number of reviews, and most recently added products/services. We also display a selection of the most recent reviews in the sidebar, and feature the most helpful reviews voted for by members.

Screenshots: Reviews - Brokers Category (Old/New)



Before we had a simple listing of all the brokers in this category, unfortunately the re-ordering wasn't working.

Now it's identical to the new Home page with the same features outlined above but the scope of the information displayed is now limited to the category you're in ie. Brokers.

Screenshots: Reviews - Search Results for 'FXCM' (Old/New)



Not real difference in features between the two, but now the information is more clearly displayed.

Screenshots: Reviews - FXCM (Old/New)



Again, not much difference in terms of features except that you can now re-order the reviews by how helpful members thought they were. But again, the design is much cleaner and easier to read.

Some known issues (due to be fixed in next week's release)

Coming soon

Part and parcel of the whole upgrade to the Reviews section is to reorganize it and to add many more companies, products and services. We've completed this process with the Brokers section and, consequently, it's more than doubled in size. Any of you that have a broker - please add your review and also say whether or not you found any existing reviews helpful or unhelpful.

If there is a particular broker you wish to review, just key their name into the 'Search Products' box and hit 'Go'. Alternatively, you can scroll through the pages of all the listings either by 'Highest rated', 'Most reviewed', 'New products' or 'Alphabetical'. (The same principle applies to all the other product categories.)

Although there are now over 100 brokers listed, it's just possible that yours is not included. That's not a problem - just let me know and I'll add especially for you! The T2W Reviews section has the potential to become a fantastic resource for the benefit of the whole community - but only if you use it! So, c'mon folks, do your bit for the site and get reviewing!

We've just completed a second round of enhancements to the T2W Reviews section here:
http://www.trade2win.com/section/reviews/

Some of the highlights include:
* Re-categorisation to make it easier to browse.
* Visual enhancements
* You can now sort by rating, # of reviews etc in sub-categories
* New integration into the T2W Forums, now all reviews are automatically posted into threads in the new T2W Reviews Forum here: http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-reviews/ (Now you shouldn't miss a new review again!).

Hi all,
Your thoughts and impressions of the numerous trading related products and services out there are really important to T2W. Please post them where they belong, i.e. in the Reviews section and not in forum threads where they will get lost. Please note that members who post a review that T2W suspects may not be bona fide could be asked to provide evidence to show that it's genuine. Additionally, T2W reserves the right to remove any review that it believes not to be bona fide.

If you read any reviews, be sure to click on 'yes' or 'no' at the end of the review to indicate whether it was helpful to you - or not. If you find a product or service not listed which you'd like to review, contact timsk, Content Manager, and it will be added. But be sure to include an URL!

Here's a simple set of 3 DOs and 3 DON'Ts to keep in mind when writing reviews . . .

DOs
1. Only review something that you have firsthand experience of and have used yourself.
2. Put yourself in the shoes of the person reading your review. Try to answer the types of questions most people want answers to, e.g. write about: A) quality, performance and reliability. B) ease of use. C) novel features and benefits. D) client support. E) value for money etc.
3. Make your review fair and objective. Just because the product / service didn’t turn you into a star trader overnight, doesn’t mean necessarily that its poor quality or has no value.

DON’Ts
1. Don’t post positive reviews for products or services in which you, your friends or family have a vested interest. Conversely, don’t post negative reviews about a company, product or service if you’re a competitor, a disgruntled employee or harbour some other grievance.
2. Only post a review if your experiences are reasonably current. In other words, writing a review about a spread betting company you used five years ago that had wide spreads at the time is unlikely to be relevant and useful today.
3. Normal T2W Site Guidelines apply when writing reviews which include standard ‘netiquette’. Please don’t use abusive language, shout (i.e. type in ALL CAPS) and only post original material based on your own experiences etc.

Please go to the Reviews section and write a review now!