Beat 100 - www.beat100.com

I won 2nd place on the "Worldwide Chart" list, and was given NOTHING as promised on the "Rewards" page! I also never got a response when I called or emailed! When I called (England!), the phone just kept ringing and ringing (and I tried on more than one occasion, at several different times of the day). When I emailed (several different email addresses), I never got a response (from any of them!). Very disappointed, and a lot of money was wasted in promoting and marketing my video to reach the top of the charts. Stay away from this site!

In today's growing social media frenzy that is growing like wildfire, many disturbing and ripoff Internet sites are raking in millions of dollars by preying on the desperation of young aspiring talented people who are trying to look for any angle to get noticed or get a break.

One of the biggest scam music social sites out there, unequivocally, is a site from the UK called Beat100.com. Alexa, the giant search engine that keeps statistics on all registered sites ranks BEAT100.com as the 53,029th most visited site in the world. To give you a perspective of how bad that is, well respected Reverbnation.com, which has over 2 million registered musicians' pages is ranked 1,537th in the world. Thus, the odds of even getting any ounce of attention on such an obscure site as BEAT100, whose major traffic source is India, of all places are smaller than the proverbial saying "when hell freezes over." So what is all the fuss about this scam

operation called BEAT100.com if it is so obscure, and why is it so important for the truth be told about it, and many others like it?

It is estimated by popular media giant Pandora, there are over 80 million aspiring musicians in the world today. Most of them are young girls ages 13 to 19 who are desperately trying to make it in the music or entertainment business by doing anything and everything possible. All have YouTube channels and other social pages such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others. Unfortunately, the YouTube craze which has over 4 billion views a day, and over 60 hours of video uploaded every minute has created a fallacy, not only in the USA, but around the world, that anyone with a decent voice and a nice digital camera can all somehow become superstars. Parents are spending millions and millions of dollars on managers, voice coaches, music lessons, talent agencies, recording studios, expensive equipment music video productions etc etc, all believing their talented kid can become the next Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift. Singing competition shows such as American Idol, XFactor The Voice Ryan Seacrest Online, Vube and others similar shows around the world have become the darling favorites on a Sunday night for the average television watcher and Internet user. Sadly, all these shows perpetuate this myth. Thousands and thousands of young people each year enter these competitions all believing they have a real chance at fame and fortune. But sadly, these young people have become slaves to their so called "singing careers" instead of concentrating on basic educational fundamentals. Kids, not old enough to even drive are removed by their parents from traditional schools and instead are enrolled in "home schooling" so their child can work on their "career". There is definitely something wrong with that premise! Social Media is definitely sending the wrong message to almost everyone out there. The reality remains that not even 1 in a million of these so called talented kids has any chance of any type of music or entertainment career. Statistics prove over and over that the old fashioned axiom of, "go to school and get an education" still remains as the best opportunity for success in life. But the trend to dump school for a "possible career" or some other money making scheme is growing and this trend is too large to ignore! The trade off is immense as more and more young people are opting out of continuing their education. The major problem is that young people and their parents alike are all falling for it like fish grabbing bait on a fishing pole, and companies such as BEAT100.com are the beneficiaries of this big dilemma. Parents and their kids have a right to know about these ripoffs and time wasters. They need to understand that there are evil people out there that will rip you apart and waste your valuable time and money on the Internet, and you won't even notice it.

Beat100.com runs its ringy dingy operation from parts unknown in the UK. If one tries to locate where exactly this privately held company is they will find no information. There is no evidence anywhere, from where this scam physically is operating from. There is no physical address. There is no phone number. The only way to get in touch with these crooks is by some obscure email

This virtual company started doing business in 2010. Under its own admission in the fine print,it is a company of no more than 10 to 15 people. But if you go through the site, you will read claims of professional A & R's and music people all working together to get aspiring musicians the exposure they so desperately are seeking. Through slick pages by well designed and crafted software, any normal person not having the right knowledge could easily be made to believe it is a music company with

thousands of people working for it and all for a great and ethical cause.. How sad is this deception?

BEAT100.com boasts on their page, "a chance to be seen by millions" and also have the chance to get connected with industry Record Labels such as Universal Music and Sony Music. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that none of the Record Labels I got in touch with ever even heard of this social site.

But many young people desperately seeking any type of break are falling to these egregious claims and ripoff artists which are sprouting all over the Internet.

The scam is very well orchestrated, and upon joining, you would think you were in on a singing competition show like XFactor. But when you look deep into how it operates, it smells of deception, fraud, and out and out lies.

The premise of the scam, is that you upload your favorite video and create a social page just like all other social media sites. You then link your Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and all the other social media sites and have a chance to invite all your friends from these other sites to also join, which is basically part of the scam. You also have a chance to make friends of other music lovers and artists already registered, thus, creating the illusion that people are really listening to your music.

There are no cutoff points with this scam site like Facebook, for example. You can have thousands and thousands of friends and followers, if you have the time to sit there and click away that is.

Your video is then placed in a chart that runs for 4 weeks. Every seven days the 1st 2nd and 3rd place winners with the most votes are "awarded" a "worldwide press release", whatever that means, and also get the chance to meet with high end executives of the Big 4 Record Labels such as Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music Group and EMI. But for some odd reasons, views don't count. They are not even calculated as a portion of your own YouTube views You could, theoretically have 1 million views. But if

you have less votes than another video that has 1,000 views, for example, guess what? You lost. All contestant videos are categorized and ranked by the amount of most votes. The scam boasts that big time A & R's will listen to your music and try to hook you up with a record labels. Sounds exciting doesn't it?

The way that the scam makes money, because this is nothing but a ripoff and a huge money maker is that you can "promote" your page to "millions" by buying one of their promotion packages. You can buy their platinum package for approximately 65USD or their Gold package for approximately 20 dollars. By buying their promotional package, they claim your own Facebook or social media pages will be "seen by millions across the world" and you will soon gain popularity and major exposure.. In reality, your social pages get redirected to their own Facebook page and Twitter page. which are paltry. I have just as many Twitter followers, approximately 30,000, as BEAT100, and I do this for fun.

The scam boasts they have 135,000 likes on their Facebook page. It makes sense they have even that many! You have to buy their promotion in order for their page to be liked. It is so cleverly orchestrated, that any person with common sense would want to vomit in the faces of these crooks whoever they are.

But the biggest ripoff that will have anyone shaking their heads and would want to scream to their polite British ways "bloody murder", is that you can actually "buy votes!" Imagine that? A singing competition, which by all singing contests standards are purely based on merit, can actually reward you votes if you hand over your credit card!

If you promote your page by spending your hard earned money,for example, the scam will award you with up to 125 votes a week. .

A typical example would work something like this. If your video has 1000 votes and is in first place thinking you are on your way to fame and fortune, and on the last day of the competition, someone who is in fourth place with 80 less votes, goes out and "buys" 125 votes at the last moment, you just lost! Now how absurd and ridiculous is that? This site is more crooked than the video games my 11 year old plays on his PlayStation.

But the one dimension of this scam that breaks the camels back that is so utterly absurd and preposterous

is that a large percentage of the musicians that already have a presence on this scam site are perpetual contestants well into their 40s and 50s who churn their videos month after month and trade votes back and forth on a "buddy system." In reality, nobody watches your video. You spend all day clicking on the vote button of video after video with the hope that those people that you voted for would turn around and vote for you back. The scam continues as you start getting votes, and at some point you are

very tempted to pull out your credit card and buy may be 125 votes for a "few dollars more." After all, the big Gold Prize is waiting for you at the end of the rainbow and a chance at glory and fame from a big Record Label like Sony Music. This, in essence, is the lure of the scam.

The moral of this absurd story is that if you are a young person that has dreams of becoming a famous star, chances are you won't. There are definitely some emerging artists out there for sure. But the amount of young people that have a chance at a show business career can be counted on one hand. YouTube won't

make you a star either. It is over saturated with millions and millions of channels. The days of Justin Bieber singing Michael Jackson on a small channel network in 2007 are over. Plus, if you are a young female, your chances are reduced tenfold. The music and entertainment business's only objectives are to make money. It is also a very fickle business where timing, knowing the right people and having immeasurable talent and a lot of luck are all prerequisites to success. But this is for another time, when I will break down how the real music business works.

For now, just be aware and conscious of unethical and deceptive Internet sites such as BEAT100.com that will rip you off before you even know it by promising you the blue sky and the stars in heaven. Keep your priorities straight. Stay in a real school.Work honestly and hard, and go out with your real friends and have fun. And if you have any ambitions at being a star, first, head over to your summer block party and get in front of everybody and sing a song and see how many rounds of applause you get.

Beat100.com offers really good opportunities to have your music heard. It's a social space.

Ideally it would be great to have the the Beat views reflected in the YouTube views. I got over 4,000 YT views directly from being with Beat100 ... but my Beat views are upwards of 50,000 ... too bad for me they don't ALL count on YT :). It's a mystery how this is recorded.

I won top prize once for $400 for my song 'Dancing with the Dark' and second prize once for $200 for my song 'Crooked Lullaby'.

Truth be told though ... honestly ... IT ISN'T ABOUT THE MUSIC. It's about how many friends you can get to vote for you and how many votes4votes you can muster with the other players. It's a game. It's fun. You meet people from all around the world. You can post videos, mp3s and photos. It's worth the time.

There is room for Beat to improve an already interesting space.

They need to ditch their new "buy votes" scheme. There are other ways to make money that doesn't cheapen the game.

Beat crew should look into ways of making it about the music as you climb the charts. One idea: once in the top 5 ... the voting structure should change. Right now everyone just votes down the line (vote4vote, though not 'said' is an underlying expectation). Voters should only be able to put ONE vote in on the top three ... choose who they think is best between 1, 2 and 3. The bonus for an artist to make it to the top? People will more than likely listen to your song in order to 'chose'. Having lots of friends will still end up playing a role in winning ... but in reality ... music is about popularity ... how much is your music loved!! How well can you market yourself. Once the chart roles over and the top three are 'selected' they should not be bumped out of that top spot. The money round will be about the music!

This then makes position 4 and 5 work harder to build up supporters. They also know that spot #4 gets 100 votes and spot #5 gets 50 gift votes but they no longer have to 'hold back' so not to get into the "third" position which is how everyone is playing ... get your maximum 41 days, get it the top three.

Also the love medal should be EARNED based on the number of likes and not 'awarded' randomly as Beat crew do now. For example my song Crooked Lullaby had over 400 viewer likes and the winning video which had received a 250 votes value love medal from the Beat crew only had a bit over 100. Opening this up as "earned" will give more interactivity for the players, and again, make it about the music. The idea is that the likes will hit milestones and gather earned votes. For example for the first '100 likes' the artist gets '50 votes', for the next '100 likes' it's '100 votes' and when they get '500 likes' it's 350 votes. A people's choice type of earned award that makes it fun for the players too ... best part ... you can only "like" it once LoL.

Then there's the dreaded 'mute' thingy ... twice as i was gaining popularity i got MUTED!! Argh, babysitting and so obvious that i was actually lynched by the competion, yuk. I truly did not break the rules of spamming ... if a player can get 30 friends to vote for them ... they can get a few to complain against you. Presently the comments are very stale, and boring ... [voted + happy face] ... no personality and doesn't encourage intelligent conversation. Yes, there needs to be some ground rules but it should not be a competitor tactic for winning the round.

And this is my last suggestion :). A common complaint from players is that Beat is too time consuming ... EXHAUSTING. If players were limited to let's say 250 votes per day they would use them more strategically. There would be a ticker tape on your page showing you how many votes you've used or have left. Those people who vote exesively would be limited, those who don't vote a lot will potentially be encouraged to use up their 'bank'. Like currency votes can add up but by the end of the 7 days ... the vote bank goes back to zero ... use it or loose it :)

Megan xo

awesome site but can always better and so much potential!

This site is fantastic, I am not a musician but I still love using the site, there is so much talent on BEAT100 and I love the social side of the site that youtube lacks.

BEAT100 is an amazing site, read this from one of the winners. Dave is currently funding the recording and release of his debut album "Love, Life, Loss and Tea" which will be released later this year. The money received these last two months from the Beat100 chart will be a big bonus. To celebrate the launch of this album he is putting on 4 London shows in 4 days at established London venues, with over half the tickets already sold for these events, its looking like this is going to be a big year for Dave and his success with Beat 100 shows just how dedicated a fanbase he has built up over the last two years."

Rock on

Wild and Welsh Finished 2nd in the video charts:

We would recommend Beat100 to any striving Artist.

Beat100 is without doubt one of the best if not the best musician friendly web sites on the Internet. It offers a chance for Musicians /Artists to showcase their talents, free of charge. There is even an award system to encourage artists to present themselves in the best light. So many new friends to make its just superb, and to top it off a cash prize and press releases to the top 3 positions. All you have to do is bring in the votes for you track/video/act.

What a relief BEAT100 is to use, other social sites have lost any personal touch these days and with beat100 I can actually connect with other musicians and my friends without being bogged down with other stuff.

The music video chart is great fun and although I've yet to win a prize (so many great artists on there) I've had a couple of top ten finishes and a mention in one of the press releases which felt really great to be recognised.

I stumbled across beat100 as one of my friends in a band had a video over on there and ask med to go check it out, must say after checking out his video - i found myself spending a lot of my time checking out the other other videos on the site.

Overall a great experience - and now have downloaded their app for my iphone so i can watch videos when im stuck on the bus.

I've been a user of beat100 for about a year now and I absolutely love it. I have made so many new friends and connections using the social aspect and live chat feature in beat100. I have arranged to collaborate with new artists and the likes on my fb bandpage have gone up by 200%!!!

I couldn't be more grateful to beat100 for all they have done for me and my career.