Voice123 Fumbles, Lets Other People Tag Your Demos
- Written by Stephanie
- 11:37 PM
- Add Your Comments (22)
Since when is it appropriate to alter content created by another person on the Internet anonymously?
To put it mildly, there have been a lot of issues over the last year or so at voice123, and recent shenanigans have given cause to write about it.
What's the deal?
Voice123 has released a new feature to their users that allows voice actors to anonymously "tag" (that means to add keywords to) the demos of other voice actors. These tags will then show up on the profiles of talent whose demos are reviewed and tagged.
Where did this idea come from anyway?
Nearly two years ago, Voices.com introduced the option to tag YOUR OWN demos by adding a few descriptive words to help give prospective clients an idea of what they would be listening to before they click the play button.
How is "anonymous tagging" being embraced by voice123 customers?
The uproar, now 5 pages long in the voiceoversavvy forum, is demonstrative of their customers' disgust and feelings of bewilderment. People are left completely vulnerable to any kind of abuse from other talent who are essentially their competitors.
It doesn't stop there
Voice123 has decided to make a contest out of it. Whoever tags the most demos could be one of five people who win an annual subscription to their service.
If a voice actor's demos are tagged inappropriately they will not be able to immediately delete the tags. Those unwanted tags could sit there for months and tarnish reputable talent for no reason other than the fact that they were placed there in order to win a $295 membership to a site that continues to decline.
Why does voice123 want you to tag demos?
Simply put, they want their customers to do their search engine optimization for them. Do you know how long it would take for them to build up that extra content? If people who do this for a living describe other people's demos using appropriate keywords they are effectively doing all of the work for voice123, potentially at the expense and violation of their fellow colleagues.
One member of the forum clearly pointed out that this is merely a search engine optimization strategy:
"What I think they're trying to do is to use the meta tags to better associate V123 with those terms in a type of referrer URL spam (though it's not actually spam since it's their own site). Now going through all of the talent's sites to add tags which can be used to boost V123's ratings in the search engines would be incredibly time consuming... but if the talent were able to tag on their own, it'd made things much easier and faster, now wouldn't it?"
Predictions
Having a system where people can tag anonymously will only result in hurt feelings and give power to people whose comments cannot be accounted for. On the Internet, accountability is huge and this new feature at voice123 shows disregard for established ethics that are observed by communities online.
Is the incentive of potentially winning a voice123 membership worth it?
At the end of the day, the people who are customers at said service will be the judge of what is worthwhile and what isn't for their careers.
Any comments?
Best wishes,
Stephanie
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Comments
I agree. If the anonymous method stays, and works like any of the podcast reviews I've read on other people's podcasts in iTunes, there could be a lot of hurt feelings, and so forth.
The whole idea just seems bizarre.
Stephanie,
Thank you for giving us a place to voice our concerns on this issue. The official Voice123 blog only posts "good" comments, so no help there.
For me, this is just another in a long list of fatally bad marketing choices (rating system, lowball leads, Smartcast). I can't think of a reason why I would want anybody else to "Tag" my demo. This is not some podcast yearning for an amateur audience, this is my professional VO demo. The placation that we can monitor and remove "Tags" on our demos is hardly an adequate solution.
My (unfounded) suspicion is that this is just another way to get Voice123 members to continually visit the site. At present, the amazing "Smartcast" is designed to create a paranoid need to check the site on a minute-by-minute basis to ensure that we don't miss any of those wonderful "read my audio book for $50" leads... gimmie a break! Now, we'll also have to keep checking to make sure some putz in podunkville hasn't "Tagged" our demo with inappropriate or malicious words. Gee, where can I sign up for that? Oh, and I'd like to pay for the service too - not!
Once my Voice123 subscription lapses, I do not intend to renew. At present, most of what I do is delete lowball, inappropriate, and expired leads.
Thanks again, Stephanie...
Hope your Sunday is relaxing,
Joe
When I received notice of this new twist, I didn't go to the forum, but rather sent my questions/comments via their internal customer service email. Come to think of it, that was several days ago and I still haven't received any response...... This sounds like just as bad an idea as "Smart Cast" and allowing potential clients to "rate" your audition. I remember when voices.com used to have their feedback open to any and all to rate other performers. I, personally, experienced some abuses there from other voice over talent. In a competitive business, unless you're just asking for an honest critique of a new demo via a friendly forum for your own personal information, allowing ones peers to rate or tag your work is risky business.
Hi Stephanie,
How insane is that!? I know that I would be very upset if I was not in complete control of my profile, and that is exactly what voice123 is doing... removing the control from its members. Why would someone pay $300 for a membership where they don't have control over their own profile? It make no sense at all. It's good to be a voices.com member... that is for sure!
Tom Conklin
Just a follow up. I guess I did respond to the new "tagging" via voice123 blog rather than to customer service! I just checked their blog and it looks like I was the first to respond. I don't recall saying anything awful, just expressing concern that "unscrupulous talent" (one of their favorite terms - however I didn't use the quotation marks!) might tag in such a way as to negatively affect our demos and work.
It was removed by the blog administrator......
Wow! First time I've been directly quoted in the blog (though not the first mention of my comments).
I'd like to point out though that IIRC you can tag your own profle at V123; at the least your own statements and description is used by search engine spiders when they make their way through the sites. Might not be as efficient as a meta tag, but it still works.
As for the hurt feelings. When you're dealing with people online, you'll always have that contingent of people who use the "anonymity" of the Internet and their own personal issues/agenda to go out of their way to put you down. It's the mark of a professional to be able to critically listen to one's demo, and then tell you what you're doing wrong, sometimes quite bluntly, but to also explain what you're doing right and more importantly, what you need to do to get better. The hardest thing I've ever had to see a professional VA do is to tell someone that their talent just wasn't for voiceover. Frankly, it hurt them to say it more than it hurt the person they were saying it to. In some cases, that professional was wrong and it steeled the person receiving that comment to become a great voice actor. In others, well you know the story...
What I'm getting at is that people who are true professionals in this industry will put much thought into their critiques, and they'll rarely do it anonymously. Those are the people whose comments I'm willing to listen to (even if I sometime disagree, though usually I don't). The rest is just chatter.
Bob Bergen has made the comment "if you're looking for acceptance, or praise for your work, voiceover will often leave you disappointed." I agree, and people who fall into that trap are always stuck in their head. The only person you should be looking for satisfaction from is yourself. That, and the critiques of professionals is what will drive you to be better than what you currently are, and even then you have to take it with a grain of salt.
But that's just my opinion =-)
Thank you for clarifying this! Now I am worried that someone has tagged me wrongly!
Debbie
I agree with all that has been said. I had a very long online chat with V123 service rep - who could not answer how this benefits me or deal with my concerns other than suggest that I try it and see. (Time suck)
To make it more ridiculous - I listened to some of the demos - how do you put 3 keywords to a demo that may consist of a dozen different reads and styles. Or what about the one that had 2 voices, male and female? Or how about the one that was totally unprofessional, poor quality? I don't care to say anything bad about someone, but what about the "honest reviewers" who can't help themselves?
Voice 123 presents a lot of time sucking activity, which is annoying, but now we see potential to damage. As well as more time sucking - where do I have to chase around to REMOVE comments? And just where do they show up when my name gets Googled? Let's face it Voice 123 pages rank high in searches.
I find the whole thing disturbing. If anyone is interested I can post my online chat with the rep from Voice 123.
While this issue is, no doubt, a very important one to those effected, I am saddened by the frequency with which the blogs here at voices.com tend towards putting a spotlight on the bloopers and wrinkles of the competition - or, for example, fighting back at the enemies of "pay-to-play" websites by attempting to limit their vocabulary.
By letting us in on the rivalry and animosity that so clearly is going down behind the scenes, you are giving them free press, tarnishing your own pristine image, and generally giving off bad vibes.
Stephanie, this is a great site! The services provided here and the resources available are top notch. I'm sure as far as most of us are concerned, there IS no competition. The sprinter in the lead never looks back to see how far back the losers are...doing so only slows one down.
Hi everyone,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for commenting.
I'd like to address why we chose to bring this particular issue to the attention of the industry.
John, thank you also for commenting and sharing your thoughts. I don't relish writing posts such as these, but they are necessary at times, especially when there are still people out there (I know from your comment that you are not among them - thank you!) who still lump our company in with voice123 regardless of the fact that we are entirely different minus the ability to search for and hire voice actors.
What's going on is unfortunate and both David and I felt strongly that this issue should be addressed publicly and give a means for those whose voices are quieted to express their concerns openly with the community and come to consensus.
It is rare that Voices.com acknowledges our competition, but when things like this happen, we need to be on our toes and be sure that differentiation is maintained as believe it or not, there have been people who confuse our company with theirs or worse yet, think we're one in the same.
Marti, I hope you were not treated very poorly. It would be interesting to see what was said to you, and if it is anything like what has been posted in the forums, I am truly sorry.
If anyone else would like to add their thoughts or feelings about what is going, please comment here on this post.
Thank you,
Stephanie
Stephanie,
I'm going to sit on this one for a while and see how it develops. If it turns out to be a serious problem, a serious negative problem, I'll just pull my listing from V123, eat the remaining months on my subscription and not renew.
MLF
Stephanie,
There they go AGAIN.
I was shocked and surprised when this "tagging" thing popped up at 123. What NERVE they have, to implement such an intrusive policy. And then throw a CONTEST in to boot????? Ya know, it's funny... I actually started to 'tag' a demo... and then it dawned on me, what I was DOING, and how wrong it felt.
Thanks for bringing up this very important topic!
JC
This is a slap in the face to every VO out there, and I hope they wake up and squash this project before it kills them, and makes them the laughing stock of the industry. As a member of both sites, I will also make my voice heard at 123, since I'm very disappointed in their new policy.
Or perhaps they should change the policy to have the voice talent APPROVE any tags, before they're put in place???
John has a good point, and I agree with his sentiment. I also feel that this particular issue is worth stating.
If I recall Voices.com tried something similar about a year or so ago and quickly recalled it. I think that is where the blog post should focus on things... but it's not my blog, so my opinion is just that, an opinion.
What I'm enjoying right now is the number of people who are stating that the tags won't affect outside search engine queries, or SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I'll be honest in stating that I'm a skeptic and paranoid by nature (comes with my training and experience in both Physical and Information Security environments). The other site has made several comments in the past and it's turned out to be inaccurate information (my personal favorite being the "vetting" of seekers and talent; there have been a few dogs I know of who were listed as talent... one is still there as a premium member the last I checked, not to mention the number of 12-year olds who were allowed to post up jobs for months, despite the complaints of the paying talent).
Anyway, I could be wrong on this, but if you use the search engine for the site, you'll quickly realize that the search queries (SQL queries) are all based on the information put on a talent's page. Even the query results are based on the meta tags (which is why the phrase which contains the phrase is used). Unless V123 has decided to use a labeling system, split the tables and normalized them, or taken another time consuming process, their search engine is set up to only grab information from the talent's page. This means that odds are the anonymous tags will be there as well. If that's the case, then it won't be long before the urchin.js file referenced in each page (it's an SEO traffic applet) will link your profile on V123 to that tag.
Even if they've put this information in a separate table within V123's database, they're going to have to do a lot of work to allow their search engine to reference the table for a Web interface, yet keep the search engine spiders from accessing it. It can be done, but it's very time consuming and potentially cost-prohibitive.
And if you think that they aren't concerned with SEO, then please look at the source code for your page (just go to the VIEW menu of your browser and select SOURCE). Please note (at least on V123) all the additional meta tags in the page description near the top that are used to gain a higher page count. Also ask yourself why there are so many URL references to the home site, where a fraction would have done the same job.
I'm sure someone with more DB experience than myself can either confirm or refute this statement, and I'll bow to their wisdom. This is just from my own experience as an infosec professional that such things aren't normally done properly.
Anyway, just wanted to make that particular issue as clear as mud for the folks at home =-)
Hi all. I'm back after actually checking this thing out. I went to the area where we can post tags. I hadn't actually visited it before. I agree with Marti (Hi Marti - long time no chat!) that it's really impossible to put 3 helpful tags with each demo - and what should you do with totally unprofessional demos - list the best keywords you can think of in a positive manner, be honest, or just "pass" on that demo?
When posting demos, each talent is able to list their own tags on their own demos which would be so much more helpful - although, I don't believe "Smart Cast" actually uses them to determine which auditions to send you.
I just don't get it. Although, I must say, that I'd actually sent an email to customer service quite awhile ago indicating that in order for Smart Cast to be more accurate, we should be given more specific items and/or keywords to list, check off - something! More importantly, I had suggested that clients should be required to list or check off boxes on a predetermined list of vocal and style attributes when posting a lead so that they would get auditions that more closely matched what they were looking for. Am I making sense?
Both clients and talents should be using the same list of terms to help match voice quality and style. There'd be a lot less wasted time for the talent by not recording inappropriate auditions and a lot less time wasted for the client by not having to wade through a lot of inappropriate auditions and either being frustrated enough to give up, settle for less than a good match or having to repost the audition!
Maybe other talent have suggested something similar, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that they'd come up with "tagging" by others thing in answer to that!
I haven't looked at my V123 profile to see if any descriptions have been changed at all, but I have reviewed some of the demos offered and tagged a few. Where I felt it appropriate to make positive tags, I did so. If I didn't like the demo or couldn't think of a positive, I left it blank and went on. I do see the potential for sabotage, but I don't think it's likely. The vast majority of participants in the V123 forums have been very supportive of other atrists in their comments and kind when it comes to criticism. Are there a few pirates out there? Of course, as in any profession. All of that being said, I'm not sure of the real value of this tagging exercise anyway.
Hi Stephanie
Shame on Voice 123 for that practice. Or should I say "malpractice".
Last one out of Voice 123, please turn out the lights.
Chet Kelley
They just published and update.
I can't agree more with most of you guys... What's wrong with V123? INSANE.
Makes me REALLY glad I didn't renew with 123.
This latest "feature" of theirs just shows what they really think of the people that have paid their bills.
Moving on...
DC
Well Jorge,
I've long since learned that V123 has a habit of declaring success regardless of whether or not it is. More often than not, it's obvious that the idea wasn't well thought through, but considering some of the rantings that their Customer Service department upon their PAYING customers, I've found that their priorities are a bit skewed (to put it mildly).
What I've been finding most troubling about this situation is that there seems to be little to no security regarding this new feature. A knowledgeable person will have little trouble in using it to search their database for vulnerabilities.
Though I'm sure that a strongly worded e-mail to the entire client base will put that problem to rest (can't help but to roll my eyes at that comment, lol)
Risks far out weigh any benefit as best I can tell.
While I certainly have had my share of issues with Voice123, to be honest, I'm a little surprised to read this blog entry, considering voices.com and voice123.com are direct competitors to each other.
Each site has its own strengths and weaknesses.
In my opinion, the strategry of promoting one's own strengths and how they're beneficial is always better than deriding the weaknesses of a competitor.
It may seem silly, but it's why, since a young age, I was always partial to McDonald's and Coke rather than Burger King and Pepsi. The first two typically ran commercials that were all about fun. The second two often ran commercials that basically said "They stink - we're better than them!"
For me, that's just kind of a turn-off.
I think voice123 has their hands in too many pots. I'm not renewing and don't think the client even gets a fourth of the auditions submitted. The smart cast is admittedly designed to give jobs to a few and after the buddy buddy system has had its way, if there is any meat on the bone it is thrown to you and now this new stuff of messing with peoples demos,"I OUTTA HERE like 123.