Round 1 is in the Books
Well, Round 1 of the Next Internet Millionaire web reality show is …as they say… in the books. Although I see that you can still vote, my understanding is that the Voting is over as far as it will impact anyone’s Round 1 score. The show producers put out an email yesterday saying that they would announce the Top 50 who make it into Round 2 in a few days. I hit their help desk and asked for clarification, since the rules clearly state that they will announce the semi-finalists on June 7th. And the semi-finalists will need the full five days before Round 2 kicks off to do their updated video. They responded to let me know that the semi-finalists will be notified on June 7th but the list will not be made public for a couple of days. I guess that is a decent compromise.
I also asked the producers why they allowed several videos on the Featured Auditions list that were in direct violation of the rules. Some are way over 2 minutes, some have more than 1 person in the video and some were not really family friendly. They did not answer that question.
My Round 1 tally was at around 580 votes. I did not find out until the last day that it was OK for people to cast multiple votes…at a tune of 1 vote per hour. So that is why so many people had a few thousand votes. I wish I had known earlier. In one of my emails to the producers early into the contest I was alerted to the fact that some people appeared to be voting down certain contestants videos (like mine) and attempting to game the system. Well, my thinking was that multiple votes was a similar method of gaming the system. So I did not encourage that and it really cost me a lot of votes in comparison to the other videos. But I am hoping that my creativity and professionalism will put me into Round 2.
Only time will tell.
Best wishes to all involved in this history-making adventure.
By the way, you can still find my Next Internet Millionaire Round 1 audition video at …