Invite extended longer than 21 days — any examples?

[[Member Duet…]]

You’d think I’d know by now not to open my big mouth, but … nope! I contacted Smule support to complain after seeing an invite that has been extended by Smule long term. Now, they are asking me to send them links to such performances 🤦‍♀️ The one I sent them is the only one I have at the moment. It’s not like I’m sitting around all day looking for this? This is what I’m talking about:

So if you know of any such performances, please share the links here. Thanks! 

Otherwise, I’m probably going to have to just suck it up and drop my argument against Smule, because they obviously have some kind of plan and they’re sticking with it.

[[Member Wish…]]

I'll add this one from the other thread. Good idea to start a new thread on this. This one has been open since June 2021, over two years now.

 

I remember in another thread, someone posted three different regular (ie "non check mark") users each showing 7 months left on their invites at the beginning of August. By the end of August, each of their extended invites had expired for some reason.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Wishchip

[[Member Wish…]]

This was opened 12 months ago, with 2 months left:

5 months ago, 2 months left:

3 months ago, 2 months left:

5 months ago, 2 months left:

Edited November 8, 2023 by Wishchip

[[Member open…]]

I know people used to set their phone clock to a day in the past to join expired OCs. Maybe that also works (or worked) for future dates to create these long-lasting OCs. At least that would be my guess. Sounds more reasonable to me than these guys having special privileges from Smule. 

[[Member Wish…]]

When Smule took away non-expiring OCs earlier this year, many people reported that the "time travel" trick stopped working. So I'm pretty positive that's not it. Given Smule's obvious preferences to certain popular users, it's far more believable that Smule would simply bend the rules (as they're already doing with the checkmarked users) to allow some of their favourite users to have extended OCs. 

"Rules for thee and not for me."

[[Member Wish…]]

The first one (along with 12 other invites!) was opened in June 2022 and still has 2 months left.

The second one was opened in June 2021 with 2 months still to go.

[[Member Duet…]]

22 hours ago, opentype said:

I know people used to set their phone clock to a day in the past to join expired OCs. Maybe that also works (or worked) for future dates to create these long-lasting OCs. At least that would be my guess. Sounds more reasonable to me than these guys having special privileges from Smule. 

Nope. Some people totally have special privileges. I’m going to attach what I sent to Smule.

[[Member Duet…]]

Sorry guys, I had turned off follow topic on everything. Thank you @wishchip for the examples! Since I feel they were being deliberately obtuse, I decided to go full Karen on them. And no, I’m not a Karen. I worked in customer service for 11 years, so I’m generally overly kind to customer service people.

But then, something amazing happened! I found more examples of invites being extended longer than 21 days with seemingly no rhyme or reason. I’m going to put my rant to Smule in a separate post, because it’s rather long. I don’t want anyone to feel like they really have to read it if you don’t want to lol 😂

[[Member Duet…]]

Warning: This is my long-winded rant to Smule. Read at your own risk 😂

Are you seriously asking me to do your job for you? Admittedly, this is the only one I’ve seen where the singer is not checkmarked. It’s not like I sit around looking for this? 

https://www.smule.com/recording/lewis-capaldi-wish-you-the-best-instrumental/611926271_4675775037/ensemble

But quite frankly, it doesn’t really matter to me if a singer is checkmarked or not. I can see leaving the celebrity and original singers at the top of the search results, but anyone else? No. 

Any song I want to sing, I look it up and see the invites of at least two “special” people at the top. I’ll give you some examples. And it’s different in the iOS app than it is on the website search, as it only shows the top three invites. Until recently, More Than Words had the three top results as: 1) celebrity, 2) official Smule account, 3) checkmarked singer. If I open that song, no one is going to see my invite. So it’s not worth having VIP if my invites aren’t getting out to anyone. Apparently, Smule only wants to have a few elite VIP singers for people to join. Personally, I think having MORE PAYING subscribers would be better. But if you guys want to watch your app continue to die a slow, painful death … um, you’re doing a good job.

https://www.smule.com/search?q=More+than+words

https://www.smule.com/search?q=Chandelier

https://www.smule.com/search?q=All of me

https://www.smule.com/search?q=Flowers

Oh, and would you look at that? I found more long term extended invites in that search:

https://www.smule.com/recording/miley-cyrus-flowers/2290255522_4633899274/ensembles

https://www.smule.com/recording/miley-cyrus-flowers/299617946_4638338740/ensembles

https://www.smule.com/recording/miley-cyrus-flowers-dynamic-doodle-lyric-animations/1571256186_4593986493/ensembles

They all say they are running for six months, two months left on the invite. Much longer than the 21 days max that myself and other non-special people are getting. I’m going to reiterate this: please stop extending random invites, or give back non-expiring invites to ALL VIP subscribers! 

Thank you for your time,

DW_Alli

[[Member Wish…]]

I asked about this very thing on the FB Singtopia page back in August. Curiously enough, the mods and admins didn't have much to say other than that the examples I was seeing might have been because of some "Smule led initiatives" across the app, and that I should take it up with Smule directly. Frankly it seemed a tad disingenuous of them, considering at least one of them had (and still currently has) some non-expiring OCs on their page. My bet is they know how these things work, and rather than advertise the special treatments some people get, the line to promote is "Smule led initiatives" and then to quickly drop it.

When I sent an email to Smule about it, their language was virtually the same, saying "the invites are extended by Smule representatives as part of different ongoing programs." The "representatives" in question were Smule Amabassadors or those in the Creators' program. 

[[Member Duet…]]

On 11/9/2023 at 12:45 PM, Wishchip said:

I asked about this very thing on the FB Singtopia page back in August. Curiously enough, the mods and admins didn't have much to say other than that the examples I was seeing might have been because of some "Smule led initiatives" across the app, and that I should take it up with Smule directly. Frankly it seemed a tad disingenuous of them, considering at least one of them had (and still currently has) some non-expiring OCs on their page. My bet is they know how these things work, and rather than advertise the special treatments some people get, the line to promote is "Smule led initiatives" and then to quickly drop it.

When I sent an email to Smule about it, their language was virtually the same, saying "the invites are extended by Smule representatives as part of different ongoing programs." The "representatives" in question were Smule Amabassadors or those in the Creators' program. 

Yes, that sounds about right. I assumed that when I actually gave more examples of extended invites, I wouldn’t hear back from them. They were probably counting on me to drop it and go away. 

Of course the people who benefit from Smule’s favoritism aren’t going to do anything to lose their advantage over the rest of us. They must be the same people who Smule runs their stupid ideas by in the first place, knowing they’ll like whatever Smule is planning.

Thanks for digging into this, and sharing all of the information you’ve found. In the unexpected event that I do hear from Smule again, you’ve given me plenty of additional ammo. If my vip doesn’t run out before I have a chance, I’m thinking of opening a song with a long intro, or making an informational video to share with my followers, in hopes some of them might complain to Smule. I’m highly annoying, but I’m just one little person who’s easy to ignore. I still like to believe that if enough people complain, we can get back non-expiring invites for everyone. But I’m probably just being dumb, as usual.

[[Member Duet…]]

They actually answered me. But of course, they just repeated what @Wishchip already said. Smule Challenges and initiatives and whatnot. I have no interest in any of that. So I guess I’m just giving up. I usually cancel my vip this time of year anyway, and by the time I pick it up again in January, I’ll probably have forgotten about all of this 😂

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by DuetWithAlli
Fixed my image

[[Member Duet…]]

Since I’m always slamming Smule, I do want to share that they actually sent a very kind response to my last message, when I wasn’t expecting one. I’m kind of embarrassed to share it, because it’s probably like how you tell a Karen to have a nice day as she’s leaving, just to piss her off more. But here it is:

It doesn’t change anything for me, because I know I’m right haha. But at least you can see that someone is listening and at least pretending to care.

[[Member Wish…]]

On 11/11/2023 at 6:44 PM, DuetWithAlli said:

Of course the people who benefit from Smule’s favoritism aren’t going to do anything to lose their advantage over the rest of us. They must be the same people who Smule runs their stupid ideas by in the first place, knowing they’ll like whatever Smule is planning.

And that's the thing. I mean if I were a Smule Ambassador or in one of their private groups like Frontman, I wouldn't want to rock the boat either. If you start standing up for yourself or the rest of the normies, you get knocked out of those clubs pretty damn fast. So it's in those people's best interest to shut up, always be pro-Smule and just go along with whatever Smule says.

I'm actually surprised at the amount of sass you received from the previous email @DuetWithAlli, with the emphasis on "a huge EXCEEHHHHHHHPTION from the general rule." They might as well have said "so we let a handful of our friends and favourite singers break the rules now and again. What's the big DEEEEEAAALL??" Even their "very kind" follow-up still pretty much blames you for not seeing things their way.

[[Member Duet…]]

Well, I really wasn’t expecting an answer to either of those messages. I kind of feel like I deserved a little bit of sass in exchange for my sass on the first one. But it doesn’t matter if I was sassy, because I’m right and they should know it! They shouldn’t be sassy because they still don’t get it. It doesn’t matter if those few invites are the exception when those few invites are the first few that show up in the search results on every song for months at a time, especially when they claim they got rid of non-expiring invites to bring people the freshest material. The freshest 6 month old material? Um, ok …

And yeah, that second one was a little … weird? Hehe. I am positive! Positive that there is no way in heck Smule would ever let me win (or be one of a few winners — there must be a lot of winners) in one of their challenges. They probably have me on some kind of blacklist because I complain too much, and I would never just blindly go along with whatever half baked idea they’re trying to hatch.

And there’s no way I am paying extra to extend my invites. The idea is kind of insulting, actually. Like, if you’re not good enough to be one of our special people or win one of our challenges, you can pay extra to extend your invites longer, even though they still won’t be seen because the challenge winners’ (and the ambassadors, power users, verified users, official Smule account, etc etc) invites will be up there. Did those people pay extra to be in your little club or have their invites extended? No? Neither will I.

Sorry! Thanks for letting me rant though! Anyway, they win. I’ve given up.

Edited November 15, 2023 by DuetWithAlli

[[Member Duet…]]

Actually, I wasn’t done. I did go in and change my app review.

Smule still doesn’t get it!

As far as technical aspects of the app, the video and audio recording … Smule is the best. My personal recommendation is to get Smule, but don’t sign up for the free trial, and don’t pay for VIP.  

That’s all you need to know, but if you want to know why, or if you work for Smule, please read on.

If you have VIP and make invites, no one outside of your current followers will see them. Smule presents challenges, and the winners invites are extended for six months. So those invites appear at the top of the search results for six months. And there must be a lot of winners, because every song that I want to sing, there is at least one invite, and often two or three invites, extended long term.

Next, we have invites from official Smule accounts that are also extended and appear at the top of the search results. Then we have the countless ambassadors, power users, Smule stars, checkmarked for whatever reason singers, whose invites are also extended and appear at the top of the search results for months or years at a time. Lastly, we have the original singers, who I can actually understand having forever at the top of the search results.

So I complain to Smule, asking them to stop extending the invites of singers they think are special enough, and what do they do? Coming soon, the option for VIP users to extend their invites by paying with coins … coins that cost real money! So they want me to pay for VIP, and pay on top of that to have my invites extended!? Did these other people pay extra to get into your special little clubs or win your challenges? No? Well, I’m not either! Why would I pay extra to have my invites extended when they’re not going to be seen by anyone other than my followers, who already receive them anyway?

Smule wants everyone to pay for VIP, but they only want a few elite singers to get all of the joins on their invites. And don’t bother complaining to Smule support, because this is how they want it.