As today’s newsletter is about the European cup, our interview is also related to this subject. Therefore, please find the following interview with petebrolly, an active ciao-user since 2006 and apparently not a supporter of the three lions.

Ciao:  What do you think about the fact that the English Team will not take part in Euro 2008?

petebrolly: Being an Irishman, my automatic response is one of joy. In Ireland we usually support whatever team is playing against England, which isn’t really fair I know, and this time I did feel slight pangs of remorse when England kissed goodbye to their chances, as they were our last hope of someone from our neighbouring countries making it into Euro 2008. Now everyone else in Europe thinks we're all a bit pants at football, which is pretty embarrassing. I suppose you could say that not being part of Euro 2008 could teach the England team a sense of humility, and that they will come back for the World Cup qualifiers with a fierce determination, but then the Irish team have learned such humility for years now, and the only thing it really teaches you is how to get used to humiliation.

Ciao: Which team is in your opinion the most likely to win of the cup?

petebrolly: It’s a tough one to call this time around, I wouldn’t say any country are clear favourites. As much as I would love to see Henrik Larsson guide Sweden to the championship in his third international come-back, I think that would be little more than a dream. The more likely outcome will be between the super powers of Italy, France, Germany and Spain. You might be inclined to immediately rule out Spain as they are the eternal under achievers but when you have a team consisting of players like Torres, Arbeloa, Puyol, Ramos, Fabregas, Iniesta and villa how could you rule them out? So I’m going to say Spain, and hope they break their underachieving stigma this time.

Ciao: With whom from the English team would you like to go out for a beer with?

petebrolly: I reckon Steven Gerrard would be the most down to earth drinking buddy of the bunch. Yea sure, Beckham probably has the most money and would show you the best time and treat you real nice and all that, but you want someone who's not going to try to buy your friendship on this fictional pub session. Besides, you'd probably feel a tad underdressed wherever you would wind up with Beckham, and no-one likes being the scruffy looking guy in the corner who came along with the guy who’s wearing the 10,000 pound shirt made out of actual 10,000 pounds. Gerrard would probably appreciate you more than Beckham anyway. 

Ciao: Which player will be the star of the Euro 2008?

petebrolly: I think it will be exciting to see if Cristiano Ronaldo can take his recent league form into the tournament and possibly come out as the tournament’s golden boot. He may not have some of the class of the other Manchester United players around him but with other Portugal stars such as Deco and Simao to support him, Portugal could do well with Ronaldo as the star of the team.

Ciao:  Are you going to see the games? Where?

petebrolly: It would be cool to see the games live in Austria and Switzerland, both beautiful countries with fantastic stadium names such as “Stade de Suisse Wankdorf”. But in reality, it is hard to get excited about it all really when your own country hasn’t made it. I mean, of course, if Ireland made it then I would have definitely travelled to see them play and would have supported the hell out of them, but unfortunately I can't muster up the same sense of patriotism for whatever team I pick out of the hat in our office Euro 2008 pool. Although of course, that does depend on how much money is at stake. So, whilst it is no match for the atmosphere of being in a packed stadium with your fellow countrymen, supporting your country and booing the opposition, I shall be watching the games in the comfort of my own home or local pub, with a beer in hand and pretending to really care about the outcome of most matches whilst dreaming of what might have been.

Ciao:  Which match would be the perfect final fixture of the Euro 2008 from your point of view?

petebrolly: A final between Italy and Spain would be cool. I would like to see Spain make it to the final (as long as they aren’t playing against whatever team I picked out of the hat at work of course), and I reckon I could muster up some support for them, with them sharing the underachieving nature of my own country’s team (except they can actually get further before underachieving). One things for sure though, Italy would not give them an easy time of it. Continuing on my theme of indecisiveness; a France v Italy final would also be awesome. Bring back Zinedine for a special one off appearance to finish what he started with Materazzi, except, you know, in a more “Match of the day“ way than “Fight Club” this time. I reckon it would certainly make for a high scoring, exciting game, with France seeking revenge and Italy looking to do them over for a second time.

What's on our mind in May...

In today’s edition we would like to inform you on a subject that constantly comes to our attention. In a short span of time, many product reviews – even positive ones- are written by new users.

In the most cases, the reaction of the Ciao community to this behaviour consists in devaluating these reviews as the Community-Members get the feeling that people are just trying to push a product with might and gain.

The Ciao Community Management is strictly observing these actions and delete reviews as well as user-accounts as soon as it’s proved that they were based on Violations like fake accounts through a company.

In most cases, investigations bring up the fact that the procedures are related to the company’s newsletter of the company where the clients are requested to give their opinion about the company on shopping websites after successful transactions. As long as these Newsletters are not asking you to exclusively give a positive opinion, the request is not objectionable.

In those cases it’s obviously understood that we can’t delete these reviews. Because of those cumulative occurrences, we overworked and modified our system of evaluation in order to provide you furthermore an authentic and credible overview of products.

From now on, only reviews with at least the average ranking “helpful” will be taken into account for the evaluation (star ranking) of a product. Reviews with worse evaluations won’t count in the evaluation any longer.

Your community management