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PROVO -- OK, be honest, you've watched those "American Idol", "America's Got Talent" shows on the networks and thought,"I'm as good as they are!" Well, here's your chance to prove it.
A couple of Utah County brothers came up with an online way for you to show off what you can do, and you won't have to face a mean panel of judges.
A woman from Sarajevo, a trio dancing in the street in front of their house, and even a rapper from India, all this and more can be found on the website [www.TopBlip.com](http://www.TopBlip.com). The idea is to give anyone a chance to make a "blip" on the world's entertainment radar.BYU grads Sean and Justin Bingham launched the site this past July.
"It's kind of cool because on TopBlip you give them that opportunity, even if you're a small, no-name artist, you still have an opportunity to be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. And you don't really have to worry about the whole judging aspect of it, you know, ‘hey you're not good enough,'" Justin said.
There are cash prizes for the winners. Once a person sets up a profile on the TopBlip website, he or she can upload a video. Right now, there are just two categories: singing and dancing. There's a contest each week--winners are determined by anyone who sees your video and votes on it.
"And basically how the rating works is, you get one point for every time your video is viewed; and you get another point for every time is rated the highest," Sean explained.
It's a simple idea that's really taken off. Videos have come in from nearly 170 countries. Sean and Justin say they get more than 50 new videos each day.
Besides a weekly prize, there's a quarterly contest and it's run like the NCAA Basketball tournament. The top 64 videos are selected and face off in a bracket format. Those getting the most votes advance to the next round until there's one winner.
"In the last tournament we crashed the servers like four nights in a row because people were just bombarding it, trying to outvote the others," Sean said.
It'll probably be more frenzied in the next contest that begins next month--first prize is $5,000.
So, where's topblip.com headed? Justin said, "Eventually we hope that it becomes a location where serious musicians can be found and recognized. I think the time of musicians being found online is just barely beginning."
Even for aspiring rappers from India!
E-mail: kmccord@ksl.com
