Here’s an interesting startup. Although I was very impressed by the idea they promote; free music through the support of advertisements. TurnItUp Media works on the concept of their self developed system called Tri Play.
Tri-Play™ is a system where anyone and everyone can enjoy legal, easily obtainable music absolutely FREE, simply by watching targeted video advertisements lasting no longer than 60 seconds. Our friendly advertisers are the ones responsible for providing the necessary revenue to offer free music and to fairly compensate the record labels and artists.
Very interesting, and since it said free music, I hurried up to sign up to use it before I review it. However, when I went through the sign up form, something struck me.
Why is the check box grayed out AND enabled for the newsletter subscription? If it’s that mandatory, why isn’t it mentioned on the form? Why is their even a need of check box when you’re forced to be subscribed to their newsletter? Very annoying!
Then I checked their Record Labels link on their website. It reads:
We welcome all Record Labels to take part in the TurnItUp community. Whether you are one of the "Big Four" or an Independent Label, TurnItUp Media has created an environment where everyone can find success.
We look forward to partnering up with Record Labels as we embark on this new and exciting media revolution. We are confident that you will see the true benefit of our system and realize how valuable our services will be to you and your artists. We guarantee that we will pay your price per download (PPD) so that you can be compensated for your creative works.
Get Legit with TurnItUp Media!
So, this proves how it is more closer to a hoax then a real website. I have no idea what they’re trying to pormote and why would Record Labels come to their website to take part in the TurnItUp community. Big Four? Way beyond your league guys! How can someone claim to have free legal music when they haven’t even partnered with even Record Label yet?
I’ve sent them a mail to get answers of my questions. Till then, I advice our readers to stay away from such websites. Your personal information might be at risk. Stay tuned for more coverage on this one.
For your information it might be more useful to get your facts straight.
Major labels are not out of our league. I will leave it at that. We are about two weeks away from launching our Phase II Beta which is the Media Portal Site in which users will be able to register and see the music which will be offered.
Case in point where insert foot into mouth…if you want to write a news story, do you homework! Any half decent news reporter knows to get the facts from the source before making statements which would make them look unprofessional.
In response to the Newsletter subscription, i give you kudos, we need to put a better explaination on that. To clarify, this is implemented during our beta time frame as a means of communication with our users. All registered users get up to date letters from us so they know what is happening. Once the final beta is launched, that setting can be changed in the users profile.
We will add some text to that fact next to the checkbox though explaining why that is mandatory during beta.
Hope that helps!
William Fleming
Founder/President
TurnItUp Media
Are Your Turned On?
!!Hoax Free Website!!
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Professionalism requires you to put this information on your website and not just make huge claims which are in the phase of implementation. No knowledgable user would believe your site’s credibility in the present state. It’s your duty to provide us with the facts and not just plans of implementation. Anyhow I’ll look forward to the next phase for reviewing.
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It must be the user’s wish to receive newsletter or not. What TurnItUp Media is doing is something very strange.
They should either make it black not grey, so that users can know that they are subscribing to their email newsletter.
Second option is to register with this website anyway, and when you receive their email simply mark their email as spam.
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Its revoloutionary if maintained v.well! can help to reduce piracy, lets see how it goes.
Umair Khan Jadoon
Co-Founder FotoKong.com
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Alright folks,
The real Beta is out for http://www.turnitupmedia.com.
As for the newsletter issue it has been fixed. Meaning that we wont send out any newsletters with out a clear option to opt out of them. The whole layout of the site has been revamped to the users stand point. There is a LOT yet to be done, but the underlying objective remains. We provide free legal DRM-free music with bit rates at an average of 320kb/s. And all of this is paid by video ads. As of now it takes a few minutes of video add viewing for one to get a free song, but we are aiming to get that lowered to about a minutes worth once the ad support and user base increases. The concept is simple and we have close to 2 million songs to choose from. So please check us out now. And please send us constructive criticism.
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I recently registered at TIUM and was very disappointed.
First, you can NOT download completely free music by watching advertisements as advertised. The number of points you may earn per song is capped, thus forcing you to either sign up for shady third party offers (many of which are blocked by Firefox by default since they have been identified as sites which collect private information for resale), or you have to purchase the additional points needed.
Second, I decided to purchase some credits, since cheap music is still nice (and, supposedly, the cap will be removed in the future, so I thought I’d help out). However, the credits never appeared in my account. I contacted support and did not receive any response. Only after I initiated a refund through PayPal did I receive a response from TIUM. They conceded there were errors and that a refund would be issued. Within a few days, PayPal notified me that their attempt to retrieve the funds had failed. So, I lost my money and still have not received any credits.
Third, for some reason, one album was listed as entirely free. I then attempted to download this album, but received an error which still has not been addressed after at least a week. This makes me question whether having credits even matters, since downloading albums does not seem to function at all.
So, my recommendation is to avoid TIUM, as it is a very misleading and faulty venture at best (and at worst, fraudulent).
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Just an update on my earlier post: It’s 2 weeks later and I still have not seen 1) a refund or 2) points added to my account 3) my download is still broken.
Avoid TIUM.
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I hope the people behind TIUM do read you comments Phillip. It sounds pretty confusing that a service is making its users go through this. If you can just email me your issue at mohkim[dot]khan[at]startupmeme[dot]com including all the details about the issue i will see what i can do about it.
Regards,
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