Expired (slicethepie.com)

Member Name: thole09

Product:	slicethepie.com
Date:	22/09/09 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick payment processing

Disadvantages: Often poor quality tracks, "Spread"

SliceThePie.com is a music based website first launched in 2007. It offers artists the chance to become internationally recognized through financing and interested fans the chance to earn money while reviewing their work. For a long period, this website was the choice of many partly due to its high reward scheme but recent management changes have drastically reduced that userbase.

I have been a registered "scout" since November 2008. As a scout, it was my primary purpose to review an artist's work, leave constructive feedback and give an opinion as to whether or not I felt the work heard had the potential to be commercially viable. This was done through clicking on any available "scout room" and receiving tracks at random. These songs could be anything from rock n' roll, hip hop or electronic dance tunes amongst other genres. Unfortunately, many submissions are of low quality and difficult to review due to poor recording techniques or are sounds which generally do not appeal to me. Reviews may be submit only after the first 60 seconds of the track have been heard; presumably to offer the scout an acceptable time frame in which a fair amount of the track can be heard and considered. After the review has been written, a scout then uses a sliding scale to rate the track between 1-10. Clicking "submit" will send the scout's work to the artist and allows one to skip ahead to the next track ahead for reviewing. This continues for an unlimited cycle and gives any scout control regarding how many tracks he or she wishes to review in a certain session.

Upon completion of a scouting session, a scout may choose to withdraw his or her earnings to PayPal or invest it in a highly rated artist who is currently available for financing. I have never experienced any issues withdrawing cash to PayPal and have almost always received payment within three days of requesting it.

In the initial days of my registration, scouts were solely offered cash incentives to review tracks based on a scale of accuracy and star ratings. It was necessary to maintain a high accuracy and this was calculated by comparing the 1-10 rating submit against the current average which a track held. Scouts were to use the numerical rating when considering potential commercial worth, and effectively attempt to predict what others would predict this number to be. As a scout's accuracy increased, so would his or her star rating and thus his or her cash reward. This feature has recently been overhauled completely and now requires the scout to consider his or her "spread".

The spread system was implemented to combat the chronic 4, 5 and 6 ratings which so many artists were regularly receiving, and required the scout to make use of all numbers available. If scouts failed to make use of an acceptable spread then he or she would be penalized by losing a star regardless of accuracy. This system has been widely criticized as many users, including myself, feel that it encourages lying simply to maintain a higher star rating and incentive to review; I was not willing to sit and blatantly lie to an artist just to maintain a rewarding incentive to review. As this system continued to develop, I grew more confident in my ability to make use of the full 1-10 scale effectively while maintaining a higher accuracy. Most users adapted to this change as it became the requirement and the spread was more easily tamed.

As SliceThePie's userbase continued to grow, its cash stores noticeably depleted as presumably many scouts would opt to withdraw all available funds to their PayPal accounts for personal use. The management required a drastic overhaul of the payment scheme and reduced the payment plan severely. A "voucher" system was implemented which severed as credits that could only be used for investment in artists. I also noticed that the spread system became incredibly stringent in requirement. These two factors made it so that scouts would noticeably earn more vouchers than actual cash, and this made my experience of SliceThePie very poor indeed. As not all artists are available for investment purposes at all times, I was not able to find suitable names worthy of my hard earned vouchers and gradually built up a vast amount. I quickly checked on my account at the time of writing this review and found I have "v58.83" not being put to any good use.

The current payment scheme for scouts on SliceThePie is v0.04 (1 Star), v0.05 (2 Star), £0.05 (3 Star), £0.07 (4 Star) and £0.10 (5 Star). With the strict spread requirements and the sea of music which is not to my taste, my will to participate on the website has disappeared and I no longer review tracks. SliceThePie may still appeal to audiophiles but general fans of music may not find this to be worth their while.

Summary: Thumbs down