SubscribeDola (aka LazyFM) Facts Checking
Riku has found a new music service that looks like Pandora, and with a name sounds like Pandora’s brother – Dola.
The company behind Dola is MusicGene, a Shanghai based startup. Some readers have pointed out that their website is much like MusicGenome, an Israel company.
Dola originally was LazyFM. Here’s one of their presentation on a venture conference by the end of last year. You should scroll down to find them, since there’re several companies.
From the report: 1. Their service launched in July 2006. 2. Two main founders, Victor Zhang is responsible for technology, Cao Zhifeng is responsible for marketing.
As of this writing, I have received a mail from Cao Zhifeng, CEO and co-founder of MusicGene. I have written back to ask for more details other than those publicly available.
Of course I remember Yobo is doing similar thing. So I asked Yobo if they have heard of Dola. I expected an answer sounds like no comment. But Allen, CEO and co-founder of Yobo kindly typed more than two words, so that I have something to share with you.
Music analysis is not an easy job. We should seriously treat it. It requires professional teams with enough hard working and passion. Dola is an early project, probably we are both targeting similar market. It’s not suitable for us to comment it. It would be better to leave it to our users.
In this stage, the important thing is doing, with the right attitude and approach, not talking. Yobo is also an early stage project. We are learning while we grow up. It’s inevitable to learn from advanced products and technologies from other countries, but we won’t feel lucky to skip any necessary fundamental steps. Chinese users need someone devoted to work out products they really want, not merely concepts.
Hat tips to Yobo. Yobo’s brand has suddenly risen up in my mind.
I also asked Yobo about the recent “per play per customer” royalty rate proposal. Yobo’s answer is:
Will Chinese authorities make the same policy? I am not sure. But they seem to have too many things more important to deal with. They even haven’t nailed down all the cases with mp3 search engines. On the contrary, we are doing with legal approach. We will become a promoting platform for copyright holders.
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With regards to Dola aka LazyFM aka Music Gene, all I can say is that they are serial rip-off artists. LazyFM was a copy of LastFM, MusicGene is a total rip-off of MusicGenome (www.musicgenome.com) and Dola, as anyone can see is a blatant copy of Pandora (www.pandora.com). If that doesn’t show the total lack of integrity of founders Victor Zhang and Cao Zhifeng, their marketing descriptions of their company’s music analysis approach is a shameless misappropriation of Pandora’s own description.
And Cao Zhifeng has shown that he can follow up with his lack of respect for intellectual property with a well placed lie quoting an entirely fabricated endorsement by the Pandora chairman – while he did happen to meet the Pandora chairman in Nov 2006 while trying to hawk his wares, Pandora did not endorse Dola/LazyFM and Zhifeng has audaciously manufactured the quote. (http://www.aypwip.org/webnote/keso.xml)
VCs beware of this company – if they are allowed to thrive on such deceit and plagiarism, how can they be trusted for the long term? This also casts doubts on their technology claims and I wonder if their so-called gene analysis technology is nothing more than a glorified random play function!
[Final Note: both Pandora and MusicGenome have stated that Dola is a rip-off of their respective sites and is not related to them]
Very interesting comment, Aletheia.
I’m personally well acquainted with Allen Guo (Guo Chunlong) of Yobo. He was a member of the early team that created dating site Baihe, and he has some very interesting ideas about how to incorporate psychological profiles, like those that Baihe uses, into a recommendation engine. I introduced Allen to Brian Steel, international chairman of Pandora, over dinner last fall. It would be nice to see these two companies work together.
Yobo is not without its problems: there are still some flaws in its recommendation engine, but every time I sit down and try to use it, I notice that the team has made improvements. It’s still a far cry from Pandora in terms of the sophistication of its recommendations, and of course the scope of its repertoire. But I think they might one day make an excellent local partner for Pandora.
Somebody told me here is an essay talking about our project and us. Supprised to hear that because we are just a very early stage startup. Also supprised to found just some words of personal attack.
I don’t mind these kind of words, either the motivation behind these words. We are living in web 2.0
I just wanna clarify some facts here:
1. just as I answered luyi by his email visit (sadly luyi hasn’t quoted in his article), http://www.dola.com.cn is just a technology test platform for our customer/partner. we are an very early stage project. And we focus on technology solution provider, instead of service operator. So we spent little of resource in dola/muge website. Yes we copied pandora and musicgenome.com in website just because we are good at technology instead of web design. Also we don’t think it so important to only build a well-look website.
2. Aletheia : we have no plan to raise fund by now. So don’t worry about that if VCs invest us might be conflict to you or your competitive project.
We make money by MUGE platform & solution providing and we have some commercial projects in hand. We can live very well without VC.
3. Aletheia : don’t attack me so hard without any proof. if you doubt our technology, you are welcome to visit my office in shanghai. I can show you our engine just like i show that to Pandora chairman.
4. Aletheia : Thanks for your interest in our project and seems you spent so much effort to investigate us. I guess you might consider us as your competitor. Now, take it easy, you see we might be your partner, we may sell you our MUGE engine.
5. MUGE/DOLA is a quick growing project. I think you can see its improvement every week.
Thanks for keep interest and comments
Victor, Zhang
Hi Victor,
Thanks for the clarification. I think no one is evil here. All the comments including the post itself are just for information transfer, not personal attacks. We will keep an eye on Dola/MuGe’s future development. All the best to your success.
Luyi
Victor,
Really appreciate your frank views on this and understand that your company has a technology focus rather than design.
I think all my earlier points were very factual and not personal, and your comments also show how naive you are or at least positioning yourself as innocent despite some of your actions.
1) You admit to blatantly copying other companies’ designs wholesale – this is against the law, it is not a personal attack
2) You attributed an endorsement of your company’s technology to the Pandora chairman when he did not state those words – again, this is not right.
3) You are right that I am interested in this space, which is why I have been following developments in China and around the world and that is how I came across your company. There is always the potential to work together, but you are wrong if you think it is simply about technological superiority and ignore the trust and integrity element that goes with any partnerships (see points #1 & #2)
4) And lastly, I would like to clarify that my statement expressing doubt on your technology was just to emphasis the point that more readers will trust that your technology works simply by your words instead of them having to go to your office – if only your company positioned itself without relying on copying in other areas.
I hope that other companies will also abide by some basic guidelines on intellectual property and how they project themselves – it is also an important aspect as we all seek to push the envelope here in China.
Luyi,
Thanks for your best wishes. Yes we are helping some big players in China digital music area to enable their music recommendation.
Just from the technology viewpoint, I can see almost all of pilots in this area will fall in danger after these big players in this area launch the similar service very soon.
And all those harasment will go meaningless then. Let’s go and see.
Thanks and same best wishes to you
Aletheia,
Personally, I still feel your words with too strong emotion. Not clear about your motivation. But if you do have interest in this area and in our project, just contact us. I believe you can understand our core value and technology is totally different from other companies.
And MUGE/DOLA is a quick growing startup. “Copy” is just first step, and we are now doing “Exceed”. please keep watch.
And another thing you might teach me, which music recommendation service provider in China is totally no “Copy” from oversea?
If you are really familar in these area, you should unserstand even pandora are still small company. pandora only has about 100 people, and still hasn’t seen a good revenue model. Frankly speakinig, I haven’t seen the value to copy pandora in China. Maybe you can teach me.
But MUGE/DOLA are selling its core technology and doing real business in Chinese way. Teach me Whom we copied?
Another important information I can share with you, pandora chairman has told me f2f that our automatic music DNA analizor is strong enough for China market since Chinese music hasn’t so many genres as E&U, and pandora hasn’t got that automatic technology by now.
Two things need your help (I think it easy for you since you seems very familar with pandora as well):
1. Get the endorsement from pandora chairman about his feedback, and show us. (seems you are very faimilar with pandora according to your words)
2. Check if pandora or any possible company has simiar technology and if we have IP issue.
Whatever, thanks for your interest.
I have to admit that I am flabbergasted with your persuasive logic that black is white
Your statements regarding copying and IP which I “copy” and paste below are contradictory and beyond belief.
“And MUGE/DOLA is a quick growing startup. “Copy” is just first step”
“Frankly speaking, I haven’t seen the value to copy pandora in China.”
“But MUGE/DOLA are selling its core technology and doing real business in Chinese way. Teach me Whom we copied?”
“Check if pandora or any possible company has similar technology and if we have IP issue.”
I leave it to the reader to look at Pandora’s website (www.pandora.com) vs Dola’s (www.dola.com.cn ) and MusicGenome (www.musicgenome.com ) vs MusicGene (www.musicgene.com.cn ) and make their own judgment. (I take no responsibility if the reader falls off his chair and knocks his head!)
To the uninitiated, IP does not pertain only to technology but it also applies to branding, logo and design, interface look and feel etc.
I hate “copying” to china without beating one’s brains.
according to your chicanery,Vector,I think you are and your project are speciosity.
You have not technologist style.
1)”startup-company helping some big players ….”sounds cool?can you tell us you clients’ name??thank you!
2)leading recommend engine?? When did you guys start this proect??1 year??wow,seems like recommending is very simple hum??
cheers!
square
Aletheia
Basically, you guys can do anything if you like.
But I really have no time to continue this meaningless argument here. MUGE/DOLA is busy helping some top websites in China to enable their music recommendation service. So I am very very busy these days. For the futuer of Muge/DOLA, let’s go and see.
Also some suggestions to you both, SAVE your words of bias here and DO things meaningful. Whatever you say, you cannot affect our business success anyhow.
Maybe in the future, we have chance to work together to change the music enjoying mode of Chinese People. So just leave yourself a chance.
is Aletheia from yobo ,8box or other competo??pity victor,lol~~~~~
Aletheia must be some senior person from yobo. Yobo also copied many things from pandora. But Aletheia hasn’t say anything about it (http://www.yobo.com/company/about) vs (http://www.pandora.com/corporate/mgp).
But we all know yobo has no resource and time to do music analysis jobs as they claim.
If Aletheia is a neutral commenter, he should comment yobo, 8box, or the other companies.
Xuer,
You brought up a good point and it is true as Victor has already pointed out that other companies in China are also copying – some more than others, but 2 wrongs do not make a right….as I had already stated in an earlier posting “I hope that other companies will also abide by some basic guidelines on intellectual property and how they project themselves – it is also an important aspect as we all seek to push the envelope here in China”
agree with Xuer’s point of view that yobo has no resources and time to do music analysis job as they claim.
Gentlemen
Let’s try and clear some of the smoke here:
There is a name for what Dola has done – wholesale unauthorized copying of another company’s website and falsely atributing statements to officials at that company – these things are called “crimes”. They are illegal in every civilized nation on earth. This kind of behaviour is precisely why China continues to be perceived as a lawless country full of thieves and criminals.
Shame on you Zhang – you are acting for personal gain to the detriment of your country and its reputation.
China has many brilliant and industrious people who do not need to steal other’s work in order to create salable products and services. If you are really so smart why not go about your business in a legitimate way?
a rip-off list,to be continued
1)www.songtaste.com/ is a total rip-off of http://www.last.fm
2)www.9rap.com is a total rip-off of http://www.last.fm ,so I notice that some desc. on 9rap is copied from 8box.cn
3)space.a8.com is a total rip-off of 8box.cn
[...] Yiqilai.com released its new version in late September 2007 and jumped into China’s online music discovery battle field where 8box.cn, Yobo.com and dola.com.cn already compete against each other. We compared these services earlier here and here. [...]
[...] Yiqilai.com released its new version in late September 2007 and jumped into China’s online music discovery battle field where 8box.cn, Yobo.com and dola.com.cn already compete against each other. We compared these services earlier here and here. [...]
[...] Yiqilai.com released its new version in late September 2007 and jumped into China’s online music discovery battle field where 8box.cn, Yobo.com and dola.com.cn already compete against each other. We compared these services earlier here and here. [...]