Proposed new Taxi review policy:

[euromantix]

Hi all, I wanted to share with you something I recently proposed to Taxi, and which has been forwarded to the top for consideration. I strongly believe it would solve almost all member complaints about reviews, returns, and other issues such as screeners 'appearing to' use copy & paste, or hearing problems that most would say are not there.Here is the new proposed policy. This would be (at first at least) an optional new policy. For example you could go into your account settings and choose to tick a box marked 'Use Second Opinion Screening'. You will see below what I mean by this, and how a second opinion is always a very sensible thing when your health depends on it, so why not when your livelihood does too?How 'Second Opinion Screening' works:You submit your track to a listing as normal. The cost is $7.50 instead of £5.00.A screener reviews the track as normal. If they think it is a forward, then it is forwarded as normal - end of story. (You have paid over the odds as an optional gamble for the following benefits...)If however they reject it, it gets escalated to another screener for a 'second opinion' .This second screener receives the song 'afresh', and has no knowledge if they are the first or second screener, nor do they see the first review.If this is also a rejection, your song is rejected - end of story.If however the second opinion thinks it is a forward, then you have 2 contradicting opinions. Only then is the song forwarded to a third screener (or possibly the head screener) for the 'casting vote'.Look at something like Britain's/America's Got Talent - they have 3 judges for a reason. If only Piers Morgan was the judge, then some past winners of the entire series wouldn't even have got through. I have always believed 1 person's opinion is too subjective for me to risk/waste $5, and my future livelihood, upon.This is a win-win situation. If it is an option, anyone who doesn't like the idea and wants their future determined by just one subjective opinion can continue as they are. Others however such as myself who at present will regrettably not be renewing their Taxi subscription due to too many returns lately for great songs, would rather pay $7.50 or even $10 for this. It is win-win because Taxi make more money, have to handle less complaints, get a better reputation out there for people who think it is a scam, and the member gets a more accurate review. People may even be forced to make more accurate submissions due to the price tag - great.The bottom line for me is that 99% of the regular public would never in a million years hear the things that the minority of audiophiles at Taxi hear, and return tracks because of. We need to get real here - music is for end consumers most of whom couldn't even tell you which tune the bassline was playing, they are not music experts who can hear if the singer has a hair out of place during his performance or the high end frequency was 0.1 dB too quiet.I'd be interested to see how many users would opt for this new 'second opinion' review policy and would be happy to pay more per track to get a fairer, more balanced, less subjective review in return?

[sgs4u]

Have you noticed that no one has responded? If you want to get 2 opinions, send in the same song twice.

[billg]

Jun 6, 2009, 10:04am, sgs4u wrote:Have you noticed that no one has responded? If you want to get 2 opinions, send in the same song twice. I would think if you did that the odds are pretty good that you'd get the same screener twice.I would say that the third screener shouldn't be needed. If it's a 50-50 tie then it would clearly be a subjective choice that could go either way so why not forward at that point?I don't think this would happen for two reasons . . . 1- might create flack in the ranks if a screener's decision is questioned2- there would be the chance of two screener reviewing for $7.50 instead of $10. Now . . . if it were $10 then Taxi would make more money because some of the $10 submissions would be forwards. If #1 isn't a problem then this would be a good way for Taxi to make more money (maybe a lot more money) & I don't see why they wouldn't be up for that.I really don't think you'd have many people willing or able to cough up $10 for a submission but maybe I'm the only poor person around here.

[euromantix]

Quote:2- there would be the chance of two screener reviewing for $7.50 instead of $10. In my proposal this would be balanced by the chance of only one reviewer forwarding the song first time round, therefore Taxi would make $7.50 for the same work, instead of $5.

[billg]

But there are way more returns than forwards so I'm willing to bet that they vast majority of the "double up" submissions (probably like around 98%) would be returned twice. So with your proposal at $7.50 the majority of the time a song would be screened twice for $7.50 and maybe around 2% of the time Taxi would gain $2.50. That wouldn't make very good business sense.

[jay10music]

Hi Euromantix,I won't be around to participate in any debate on this as the Nashville seminar is coming right up, but I'll throw in the official TAXI response early in the game anyway.This isn't the first and it won't be the last time somebody has suggested a two or three tier system of screening. I really DO appreciate that our members take the time to contribute their ideas. There are many reasons we've never done this one.1) The submission fees are not much of a profit center for us. We've had years where we've made some money and years when we've lost some money. It's essentially a million plus dollar wash. So, to add $2.50 to the current fee, while adding another $500,000 to the top line, would cost us far more than that in essentially doubling up the screener costs. It would also nearly double the turn around time, which is something that we're always trying to improve without sacrificing quality.2) People have been complaining about the $5 for 17 years, so I'd be more than hesitant to raise it.3) While I'm sure that every screener isn't right 100% of the time (no human could be), we've seen hundreds of examples on this forum over the years where somebody displays the listing, the critique and the song and asks for support in showing that the screener was wrong. Far more often than not, the community votes agree with the screener. And that's even taking the kind hearted and supportive nature of this community into account.4) You will get more than one screener's opinion over time if you submit the song for other listings, and you'll certainly get some differing opinions -- could be that the song is perfect for one listing and not for another. One screener might point out a structure issue, while another might have an issue with the lyrics. They are ALL trying to help you, and the smart thing to do is look for common threads in the critiques. That's where the pot of gold lies.5) When you play a song for an A&R person, publisher, etc., you typically only get one person's opinion, and in MUCH less time than you get from our screeners. When you hear a song on your car radio, it's only you in that moment that decides if you're going to stick with it or change to another station. I can't think of anywhere else in the process where a NO vote seeks another opinion. Conversely, it's when somebody says YES, that the song or artist goes on "trial" before the A&R committee, the president of the label, the artist and his/her producer, radio promoters and program directors as well. Good luck on getting all of those ducks to line up. We've tested the multi-screener system and found that LESS gets forwarded because of lack of consensus. Our screeners are actually predisposed to forward you because we want to keep your business. But as much as I'd love to have a private jet (one can dream), you would legitimately be able to call us a scam if we forwarded music to keep customers happy and delude them into renewing. We WANT you to get forwarded and get deals and have hits so we can brag about it and slap your face all over one of our ads. We want that for EVERY member. It's great for business. A hell of lot better than NOT forwarding people!But alas, we hire carefully selected screeners, we train them extensively, we monitor and re-train them very consistently, and we fire them when they get it wrong. They aren't perfect, but I'd make a $10,000 bet any day of the year, that in a truly blind test, our screeners would get get it right 98% of the time. Come to just one Road Rally, and you'll know exactly what I mean.I KNOW that the letters A&R have always stood for "keep you out," but not at TAXI. What business would be crazy enough to intentionally piss off its customers? Hang in there, notice how many of your fellow forum members with 5 stars are signing deals, and in time you'll realize that they felt exactly like you in the early stages of the game with TAXI. At some point they figured out that we're on your side, and learned to use us as the tool box that we are intended to be, not the gatekeeper that we're often PERCEIVED to be. I hope this helps,Michael

[k o star]

Thanks Michael for constantly taking the time to explain & answer our questions & suggestions...and in Australia, sometimes US$5 = AU$8 =(so US$7.5 maybe AU$11Luckily the currency is high atm... so I'm submitting more tracks this month Kel

[celeste]

I sent the same song in to two different listings. I got the same reviewer both times. It is interesting that the critiques didn't seem all that similar. They may not like it, but it sure flies when I do it live.