The adbento Help is a user manual that explains to you how to use adbento. Please let us know if any information is missing and you still have open questions.

To be able to enter information into the database and to share recos, requests and messages with other adbento members, you need an adbento account. To create your account you need to register with your username, email address and password on adbento.com. We do not ask you for your real name to allow you to stay anonymous on adbento using a pseudonym. To put you fully into control you are able to delete your account by sending us an email if you decide to stop using adbento.

adbento is the consumer recommendation network for products and services. We believe that recommendations (recos) are a new wave of social marketing in which experienced customers help other consumers to make better buying decisions. The brand name adbento is our invention that mixes social marketing with a little bit of Japan feeling. adbento is a word creation combining ad, short version of advertisement, and bento, the Japanese term meaning lunchbox. Acoustically speaking, bento sounds like benefit, so you can understand adbento as beneficial advertising. Having the Japanese lunchbox in mind, adbento can be interpreted as take away advertising or mobile advertising. To sum up, adbento recommendations are consumer-generated ads of happy customers for products they like.

The adbento engineering team has developed an intelligent system to match adbento members (registered users) with relevant recommendations that we call the adbento News Algorithm. The magic adbento News Algorithm selects relevant recos based on your adbento profile (your brands, products, tags, recos and requests) and displays them on your personal News page when you are logged on.

If your recommendation has a specific location that you want to specify you can enter an address in the address field of your reco. Usually, the address will be the location where the service you like is provided to you, e.g. a hotel, restaurant, club, cafe, retail shop or local service provider. The address will be previewed in the small Google Maps box on the right. Attaching an address to your recommendation helps the follower to better find the product (service) you recommend.

adbento is a free service for all users (consumers). To finance the development and operations of adbento.com we will show you relevant ads on adbento.com from selected advertisers. In the beginning, we will work with Google Ads. In the future, we might cooperate with other ad aggregators or start selling our ad inventory directly using our unique targeting know-how.

In the current world of adbento Bento (B) is a measurement of your user activity and the quality of your recommendations (recos). You can think about Bento as a way to quantify the social marketing karma of each adbento member. According to Wikipedia, karma means "act" or "action" within the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction that governs all life. Karma fits nicely to describe the actions and reactions resulting from your shared consumer lifestyle within your social environment. You can collect Bento only as adbento member (registered user) for making recos (2B), inviting friends successfully (3B), providing (negative or positive) reco feedback (1B) and receiving positive reco feedback (1B).

A brand name usually identifies the maker or provider of a product or service. The brand name stands for either an organisation or an individual person (e.g. an author or artist). Each adbento recommendation, therefore, must include a brand that identifies who offers the product you recommend. The brand name may consist of multiple words. Each unique brand on adbento.com has its own page with a dedicated short URL (e.g. http://adbento.com/b1 for "Apple") on which all available recos are listed. Please make sure that the spelling of the brand name is correct. Once you have saved a reco, you cannot change the brand name. If the brand name has a typo, please delete the reco and create a new one.

The adbento Browser is a small JavaFX applet that enables visual navigation across adbento recommendations by clicking on related brands, products, tags or users. A click on a single brand, product, tag or user shows the available recos below the browser window. The first time you use the browser you may have to allow the installation of the applet with a simple click, depending your operating system, Java version and past usage of JavaFX applets. If you launch the browser via the Browser menu in the orange main menu from a reco page, you can browse with the brand of this particular reco as a starting point.

adbento puts the power back to consumers. We call all adbento users consumers because they are making recommendations after they have consumed, i.e. bought or used, a product or service. All adbento members (registered users) are sharing their recos and their consumer lifestyle in their role as consumers.

adbento is a free service for all its users. We do not charge you for using adbento, i.e. making, sharing or finding recommendations or requests. In order to enable our team to generate revenues, we will display relevant ads and may offer you links to selected online shops that are partners of adbento.

If you want to delete your complete adbento account, we would like to ask you to send us an email as we have to delete your account manually for the time being.

You are able to delete a single recommendation (reco) or request. You may want to delete a reco if you changed your mind about the product quality or if you decide to stop including a brand or product in your consumer profile. If you delete a reco, you will loose your 2 Bento for making it.

You may want to delete a request by the time you have received enough recommendations for the product or service you were looking for. In such a case, the request looses its purpose and it may be a good idea to just delete it.

You are able to edit and improve your recommendation by clicking on the menu Edit Reco on the reco page. It is not possible to edit the brand and product name. If the brand or product name of your saved reco has got a typo, you should delete the reco and create a new one. Please use the edit function to complete or improve the quality of your reco in case you find typos or identified wrong or missing information in the tags, review, price, brand website URL or address fields. You can also change the reading rights of the reco from public to private or vice versa using the Edit Reco function.

You are able to edit and improve your request by clicking on the menu Edit Request on the request page. It is not possible to edit the wanted field. If the wanted field of your saved reco has got a typo, you should delete the request and create a new one. Please use the edit function to complete or improve the quality of your request in case you find typos or identified wrong or missing information in the tags, intention or budget fields. You can also change the reading rights of the request from public to private or vice versa using the Edit Request function.

If you discover any malevolent or illegal reco on adbento, you can report this abuse to the adbento team by using the red button Flag Reco as Inappropriate at the bottom of each recommendation page. A message will be sent to us in the background and we will look into the matter.

If you discover any malevolent or illegal request on adbento, you can report this abuse to the adbento team by using the red button Flag Request as Inappropriate at the bottom of each request page. A message will be sent to us in the background and we will look into the matter.

If you add a friend on adbento a Friend Request will be sent to the particular user. If you are added as friend by another user, you will receive a friend request that is displayed in the notifications box until you answer it by accepting or declining the friend request. If you accept a friend request, the initiator of the friend request will be added to your friends list. If you decline a friend request, the initiator of the friend request will neither be added to your friends list nor be informed about your negative response.

You can see and manage your friends using the Friends menu which is part of the orange main menu. To make friends on adbento you can send a friend request to another user using the Add as Friend menu which is available on each user page, except on your own user page (your profile). A pending friend request will be shown in the notifications box until you answer it by accepting or declining the friend request. If you accept a friend request, the initiator of the friend request will be added to your friends list. If you decline a friend request, the initiator of the friend request will neither be added to your friends list nor be informed about your negative response. All your adbento friends are able to read your private recos. It is also possible to remove a friend from the friend list by using the Delete Friend menu if the user misbehaves or you change your mind for some other reason.

If you enter an address as a service location in the recommendation form, it will previewed in the right column in the Google Maps box. Inside the Google Maps box you can zoom in and out, grab the map to move it around and change the view between map, satellite, hybrid or terrain. If you click on the Google Maps link above the box, you will be directed to the Google Maps website with your address parameters being passed on to.

On your Friends list you have the option to invite another person to become an adbento member by inserting his/her email address and clicking on Invite. The invited person will receive an automated adbento invitation email stating that you invited him/her and explaining the benefits of joining the adbento consumer recommendation network. The invitation email includes a link to the adbento registration page. If you successfully invite somebody who registers as adbento member, you are rewarded with 3 Bento that increase your social marketing karma.

Initially, our adbento recommendation service is only offered with an English user interface. The reason is that we want to reach a broad global audience from the beginning. Consequently, we appreciate if you write your recos and requests in English to enable all users to understand them and to benefit from your shared customer experience. In the future, we may support further languages once we have proven that adbento is a useful tool for many consumers.

If your recommendation has a location that you want to specify you can enter an address in the address field of your reco. Usually, the address will be the location where the service you like is provided to you, e.g. a hotel, restaurant, club, cafe, retail shop or local service provider. The address will be previewed in the small Google Maps box on the right. Attaching an address to your reco helps the reco follower to better find the product (service) you recommend.

In order to become an adbento member you have to register with your username, password and email address and create your own adbento account. As a registered user, i.e. member, you are able to write information on adbento which means you can write and publish your own recos and requests. Each adbento member has got his/her own page with a dedicated short URL (e.g. http://adbento.com/u2 for the user "jan") that can be easily shared via email. Unregistered users, i.e. non-members, can only read information on adbento. As adbento is a recommendation network made by consumers for consumers we assume that all members act in their role as consumers on adbento.com. Of course, brand managers, product managers, marketing and advertising managers of companies are invited to use adbento, too, to find out if and how their brands and products are reviewed and promoted in the social marketing channel called adbento.

adbento offers a messaging system to enable adbento members (registered users) to send messages to each other. The Messages function enables you to start conversations about brands, products, recommendations, requests, tags or other interesting consumer lifestyle topics. To keep the adbento messaging simple and to prevent any spamming behaviour you are only able to define one recipient at a time. If you want to communicate with a group, we recommend you to use email or your favourite Instant Messaging application. Please behave well when you communicate with other adbento members. We have decided not to send you email notifications when you receive a new adbento message to minimise your email traffic. If you are curious whether you have new adbento messages wating for you, just log on to adbento to find out.

You can see if you have received new messages from other adbento users in the notification box. Click on New Messages to go directly to your adbento messaging inbox. You can also reach your inbox by clicking on Messages on the main menu.

In the Settings menu on the top right of the adbento page you can change your password. We recommend to choose a strong adbento password mixing letters and numbers in a random way. It is also a good idea to change your password from time to time.

In the Settings menu on the top right of the adbento page you can change your photo. First upload a photo to adbento (jpg file format with maximum 2 MB file size), then you can select an area which shall be your user photo and crop the image.

You can decide who is able to read your reco or request by defining the Reading Rights. Private recos and requests can only be read by adbento members that are listed as your adbento friends on your friends page. So if you want to share private recos and requests, we recommend that you choose your adbento friends well. Public recos and requests can be read by all adbento users, i.e. registered members as well as unregistered users (guests). Public recos and requests can also be read by Google and other search engines crawling the adbento website. You can change the reading rights by clicking on Edit Reco or Edit Request respectively.

To make a recommendation you have to define the product name which is a required field and cannot be edited. Each product has got its own page with a dedicated short URL (e.g. http://adbento.com/p1 for the product "Apple iPhone 3GS") on which all available recos for this particular product are listed. The exact spelling of the product name is important: "iPhone" generates a different product page than "iPhone 3GS". Please make sure that the spelling of the product name is correct. Once you have saved a reco, you cannot change the product name. If the product name has a typo, please delete the reco and create a new one. On adbento we use the term "product" to describe both (in)tangible products and services. Wikipedia defines product like this: "The noun product is defined as a thing produced by labor or effort or the result of an act or a process. In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need."

You can access your adbento profile by clicking on the Profile menu, on your username or your picture. Your adbento consumer profile is the sum of all your recommendations (recos) and requests made on adbento and stored in the adbento database. Your adbento profile has a dedicated short URL (e.g. http://adbento.com/u2 for the user "jan") that you can easily share with your friends. You can navigate your recos on your profile page by clicking on a single brand, product or tag in the tabs displayed on your profile page. You own your profile 100% and you can change it anytime by editing your recos and requests. If you want to delete your profile and account, please send us an email.

You can compare your own adbento profile with the profile of a second user by clicking on the green Match menu available on his/her user page. On the profile match page you can see your shared brands, products, tags and friends. The adbento profile match quality is described with a percentage score between 0% (nothing in common) and 100% (everything in common). The profile match score is always calculated from your own point of view.

You can decide who is able to read your reco or request by defining the Reading Rights. Public recos and requests can be read by all adbento users, i.e. registered members as well as unregistered users (guests). Public recos and requests can also be read by Google and other search engines crawling the adbento website. Private recos and requests can only be read by adbento members that are listed as your adbento friends on your friends page. So if you want to share private recos and requests, we recommend that you choose your adbento friends well. You can change the reading rights by clicking on Edit Reco or Edit Request respectively.

To optimise the usability of adbento we are using the short version reco for recommendation across the adbento website. To learn more about adbento recommendations, please read the help text about recommendation.

If you have followed the external link to a brand website on a recommendation page, a Reco Feedback Request will be generated and displayed in the notifications box. The idea is to enable you to provide feedback to the reco author whether you followed his recommendation by buying/using the product (service). You can also send an optional thank you message to the reco author. You will get 1 Bento for providing reco feedback, whether it is positive or negative. The reco author gets 1 Bento only if the reco feedback is positive - which means the reco was successful.

To recommend your favourite product (or service) you must register first and become an adbento member. If you are logged in, you can use the menu Recommend in the orange main menu to make a new reco. Please fill in the form New Recommendation. The more information you provide, the more your recos will be appreciated by other users. "Brand" and "Product" are required fields. After saving your reco you can share it on twitter or by email. You can edit your reco later to complete or improve it. You get 2 Bento for every new reco you publish.

To answer a request with your own recommendation, you can choose the Recommend a Product menu which creates a new reco using the same tags of the original request. Of course, you can edit the tags yourself. To complete your reco you must define a brand and product and should add your review, website URL, price or address just like writing a new reco from scratch. The request author will be notified with a message about your matching reco.

With the Recommend this Product menu you can copy a recommendation that you like and that you also want to recommend. The parameters brand, product and brand website URL (if available) will be copied, but you can freely write your own tags, review, price or address.

adbento is the consumer recommendation network for products and services. On adbento.com you can make and share recos for your favourite products and services or search and find the recos published by other adbento members. adbento works as a social quality filter promoting good products and services via recos from happy customers (fans). All adbento recos are positive by definition, bad products and services are considered to be unwanted, redundant offers in the marketplace which should not be recommended on adbento. The key question adbento answers is whether to buy or not to buy a particular product. This simple yes-no decision will not be facilitated if products are recommended half-heartedly with 3 or 4 stars out of 5. Therefore, we have excluded product rating functionality in adbento recommendations.

To make recos, requests, friends or exchange messages on adbento you have to register first. You can register a new account using the Register menu available on the top menu on the right or inside the green adbento postcard in the middle of the adbento News page. Upon registration you are asked to provide your username, email address and a password. Moreover, you have to answer the "Are you human?" challenge powered by reCaptcha and accept the adbento usage terms and conditions. Then you will be sent an authentication email to confirm your email address. If you do not receive the authentication email, please check your spam filter. When registering you do not have to provide your real name, inventing a pseudonym as your username is fine. It is up to you to imply your real identity with a conscious choice of your photo or username that people knowing you can recognise.

A registered adbento user is adbento member and we use both terms as synonyms. Each registered user has got his/her own page with a dedicated short URL (e.g. http://www.adbento.com/u2 for the user "jan") that can be easily shared with friends.

If you need a recommendation for a product or service and cannot find it using the adbento search, you can publish a request for recommendation on adbento. Your request will be distributed by our system to other members with similar consumer profiles. Example: Your request stating that you want "moutain bike" recos will be presented to adbento members that have "mountain bike" recos (tags) in their profile. A request can be answered using the Recommend a Product menu which opens a new reco and automatically fills in the tags of the original request. Of course, the proposed tags can be edited, too.

The adbento search function enables you to quickly find available recommendations provided that your search term matches an existing brand, product or tag name. Please bear in mind that adbento is a new service and that the number of recos in the adbento database is rather small in the beginning. Searching for the tag "Berlin" will produce as the search result a list of all recos tagged with "Berlin" or including "Berlin" in the brand or product name. Thanks to our autocomplete function in the search box a search for "Apple" offers a direct link to the brand page of Apple including all available recos.

On adbento you can recommend products and services. To make things easy we only use the term product in the recommendation form. In fact, you can also recommend services, e.g. a hotel, restaurant or local service provider. Wikipedia defines a service like this: "A service is the non-ownership equivalent of a good. Service provision has been defined as an economic activity that does not result in ownership and is claimed to be a process that creates benefits by facilitating either a change in customers, a change in their physical possessions, or a change in their intangible assets."

You can use the Settings menu to change your password or upload and change your picture (user avatar). If you want to delete your adbento account, please send us an email.

On adbento a tag is a keyword that should be used to better describe your recommendation. You can write tags to specify the product category, the product features and the product benefits. Tags make it easy to search or request recos. A tag can consist of multiple words. Multiple tags should be seperated by comma. Smart tagging of recos helps other users find relevant recos more quickly. Brand names and product names should not be used as tags to prevent ambiguity and to make adbento a better system.

On adbento you can see the Top 10 consumers, brands and products. The Top 10 boxes are shown in the right column on selected adbento pages.

To tweet adbento recommendations on twitter you need an active twitter account. After having saved your reco on adbento you are able to publish it on twitter. First you will be requested to click on authenticate on twitter. Then you will be redirected to the twitter website where you are asked to insert your twitter username and password and to click "allow". If your twitter authentication was successful you are redirected back to adbento on our twitter Authentication page on which you must click again to go back to your reco to write your tweet. The good thing is that you have to do the twitter authentication only once. We are proposing the first few words for your tweet including the dedicated short URL for your reco. Of course, you can edit the tweet as you want. As you know your tweet (twitter message) can only have a length of 140 characters, so we help you with a letter counter to optimise your tweet.

As an unregistered user you can only read recommendations and requests on adbento or browse user profiles. Recos can be discovered by navigating via brands, products, tags or users. The adbento search will help you find existing recos. If you want to share your own recos you have to register a new adbento account.