Interview With Neo From 8Box.cn

Written by Tangos on June 21, 2006
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8box.cn8Box.cn is a newly-launched music sharing and discovery community, it looks like a Webjay plus Last.fm. Users can create online music playlists and get system recommendation automatically based on your favorites. You can also make friends and create various groups for discussion. I recently conducted an email interview with Neo, a founder of 8box.cn.

China Web2.0 Review: Can you give us a brief introduction to 8box.cn?

Neo: 8box.cn is focused on personalized music sharing and social recommendation services. Backed by our innovative technology, we are poised to deliver unique music experience to our users.

The website is completed with most of its core features and is in limited beta test now. To the best of our knowledge, 8box Music! is the first in China market to provide personalized music sharing and social recommendation.

The target markets of 8box Music! will be those who consume music, include music fans, and mobile users. According to a new Jupiter Research study, 48% of music discovery occurs between friends. 53% surveyed also discover music through video and 87% still sometimes find new music via the radio.

CWR: Why you will be interested in online music community?

Neo: We are all music fans that often face the problem of finding new music to listen. Other people should have the same problem. An online music community where people can discover music from others will thus be fascinating.

CWR: Do you host the music files of the playlists by users in your server?

Neo: No. We only store the urls of music files shared by users. This is also due to our concern of copyright. So 8box is actually an aggregator of online music files, like Webjay.

CWR: Will copyright be a major obstacle to your service?

Neo: Yes. Copyright is a problem we must deal with. We are planning to partner copyright-owners to provide a new level of legal music experience. Not only a new way to discover music, 8box is also a new way to promote music.

CWR: Would you pls. introduce the background of team of 8box?

Neo: The 8box team is composed of three professionals with the business and technological experience in multimedia and mobile entertainment. Claire, who is taking care of our marketing isssues, has worked previously in public mobile service provider and internet portal companies. David has strong experience in research areas of information retrieval and collabrative filtering and once worked in IBM’s software labs. I was working in a software company to lead projects for Fortune 500 companies and key players in the field.

CWR: What’s your plan in next 6 months?

Neo: Finish the Beta testing, and launch the service with completed desktop plugin. We will also build our affiliate program with indie artists and retailers.

CWR: What is the greatest challenge to 8box’s development?

Neo: Time. 8box have to be very agile to implement the most requested features from our users quickly.

CWR: What’s the business model of 8box in your plan?

Neo: 8box will get revenue from connecting the needs of music fans and artists/record labels successfully.

CWR: Have you considered cooperating with music labels?

Neo: Definitely. What we do is to connect right music with right audience. We must involve the source of music.

CWR: Who do you think are your major existing and potential competitors?

Neo: Last.fm could be the major existing competitors worldwide. Baidu’s zhangmenren, a music list sharing service, could be a potential competitor to some extent. Moreover, I think in China, there might be some other new services of music sharing community in next six months.

CWR: Have you got venture funding?

Neo: It is on the plan.

CWR: What’s your favorite Chinese web2.0 service?

Neo: Of course 8box Music! Well, besides our service, we are also fans of many others: dianping, douban…

CWR: What do you think is the most important feature of web2.0?

Neo: Interconnection of people.

7 Responses to “Interview With Neo From 8Box.cn”

  1. Andy on June 22nd, 2006 10:19 am

    Weazone.com will be launched soon…

  2. jimmy on June 24th, 2006 11:34 pm

    I like 8box

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  4. Audrey on July 6th, 2006 4:32 pm

    Awesome….

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