Unlike established search engines like Sina, Netease and Sohu, Chinese music websites do not have a successful model yet, but who would dare to neglect its future potential?

The Internet is the fastest, widest and most advanced way of transmitting music information. In the music field, the battle lines have been drawn.

Got it, Gotit Music?

Most people who like popular music and the Internet in China know the website www.gotitmusic.com, as it was the earliest widely-known Chinese music website, founded in June 1997 by a young man named Zhang Qin.

“Gotit Music” was a small website when it was founded, using just two megabytes.

At the end of the month, “Gotit Music” applied for a free space of 20 megabytes from a Guangzhou-based server “Jiaxing Lianji”.

In July 1997, because of its growing demand for space, “Gotit Music” applied for an independent domain from an international server and became the first Chinese music website to end with .com.

It was a big deal at that time. Just two months before, Netease was created by Ding Lei, also in Guangzhou. However, the future for these two Guangzhou-based Ningbo (a city in Zhejiang Province) people was very different.

The space of “Gotit Music” soon expanded to 150 megabytes, not easy at that time.

Besides developing programs such as real audio music and BBS, where a net surfer can add his or her own opinions or more information, the website also incorporated some small websites like “MEO”" “JAM” and “Guitar Music Net”.

In early 1998, the space of “Gotit Music” increased to 400 megabytes, and a chat room also opened. At the end of 1998, “Gotit Music” began to sell CDs of Chinese rock bands such as “The Fly”, “Pan Gu” and Wang Lei. In early 1999, the website began to produce an Internet magazine, which could only be read by its members.

In the development of the Chinese Internet, “Gotit Music” had an opportunity to really go for it at the beginning of the sector, but “Gotit Music” did not do so.

Zhang regards his work not as a business but just as his interest. That’s why he chose to work alone, instead of looking for more partners or investment.

The website is pretty much the same now: infrequently updated and plainly designed.

Meanwhile, “Netease”, in which Ding has a 70 percent share, is already listed in the Nasdaq. But at least “Gotit Music” inspired the development of Chinese music websites.

Who is No 1?

“Wanwa”(www.wanwa.com) became well-known recently, not because it was the first to sign a contract with a big record company like Shanghai Audio and Video Publishing House to provide legal audio and video downloading services, but because of its “Wanwa Statement”.

This promises to become the biggest professional music website in China.

The characteristic service of “Wanwa” is the legal downloading of many original music works, especially new songs in the Chinese charts.

A professional music website ambitious to become No 1, “Wanwa” is not substantial enough in its content and not attractive enough in its page design. It is also facing challenges from many other websites who want to be No 1 too.

RedB52.com is one of them. This website has a beautiful page layout and columns on various music styles.

It is more like Western music websites and was founded by a group of overseas Chinese students and IT experts.

At their opening press conference they declared the website is aimed at becoming “the biggest Chinese music website in the world”.

The most characteristic achievement of RedB52 is that it has built an internationally advanced recording studio in Shanghai for the production of Internet music.

Besides their technical advantages, the group has employed experienced staff from record and film circles. However, how long this “bomber” can hold on will depend on how much money it has.

Is it worth US$12 million?

Zheng Lei used to work at a website called “dreamer”, where he had a monthly salary of 1,000 yuan (US$120), yet he refused an offer of 20,000 yuan (US$2,410) a month so that he could follow his Internet ambitions.

“I will be satisfied when I become another Ding Lei,” he once said.

The 24-year-old man from Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, taught himself how to use a computer as a child. And he also developed his business skills, following in the footsteps of many people in Wenzhou.

After graduating from university he built his own website and did some part-time work for dot.com companies here and there.

At last he registered www.Chinamp3.com. MP3.com is a famous American company where you can download music.

It is not hard to understand what Chinamp3 means.

Someone once offered 1 million yuan (US$120,000) to buy his website. He refused and said: “It is worth 100 million.”

With such a valuable domain name, Zheng’s website soon attracted over 100,000 visitors per day without any advertising.

Last March, Zheng managed to raise US$5 million and began to provide entertainment information and legal MP3 downloading. Zheng said he was not too anxious to be listed on the Nasdaq, and instead prepared to lay a more solid foundation, for he has the investment, technical skills and a valuable domain name.

Of the many personal music websites there are many excellent ones. They are ready to become commercial websites as soon as they get financing. With a good reputation among netizens, they are strong enough to challenge established music websites.

Another important Chinese website focusing on the selling of MP3 is www.peoplespace.net, founded in January 1999.

Huang Genling, manager of the website, believes that the online sale of music will become a trend. Traditional means of distributing music such as CDs and cassettes will decline as Internet music selling will grow, he said.

Although the layout of the website is not very fashionable, “peoplespace” has agreements with many musicians in China. The website is authorized by over 200 artists, such as Mao Amin, Zang Tianshuo and Man Wenjun to sell their MP3 and other forms of music productions on the Internet.

Critics and websites

For music fans, an interesting music website is one created by a music critic. Well-known critics such as Wang Xiaofeng, Hao Fang and Yan Jun have all created or joined music websites, trying to develop a new area in the virtual world.

Last June critic Jin Zhaojun also created www.shengna.com, planning to build the most comprehensive music website in China.

In such a competitive market, it is really hard to tell how many of them will succeed. Some of the critics’ websites have already closed.

Hard to advance

One of the most hot topics on the Internet, music is also an important part of big search engines, such as Sohu, Sina, Netease, Yahoo China, Elong and Etang.

Most of them focus on republishing music reports from traditional media.

However, with the strong support of the search engines’ investment and a large number of visitors, they are often very popular.

Music.sohu.com is a good example. Thanks to the influence of Sohu, the music channel is able to regularly invite famous musicians to its chat room.

At the same time Sohu’s music channel organizes big events to publicize itself, such as its two-year anniversary concert, in which it invested 4 million yuan (US$480,000). It is obvious that the destiny of such music channels are closely related to their search engines.

Optimistic foreground

As various music websites grow, media and record companies have begun to realize the opportunities around. Because of advantages in resources and influence, these websites have more vitality.

Big media such as Channel[V] and MTV established their prestigious places among the music websites as soon as they gained a foothold in the field. For example, www.mtv-china.com attracts many visitors with its large number of exclusive reports.

It is not difficult to understand why record companies are the last to set up music websites. They have been considering whether MP3 downloading will harm their profits.

But the Internet is growing fast and they cannot afford to wait. Companies such as Shanghai Audio-Video, Jingwen and Modern Sky have all established their own websites.

The participation of record companies will certainly make competition in the music website marketplace more intense, for they have a large amount of legal copyright for MP3 downloading.

Perhaps the real competition has just begun.

(China Daily 07/09/2001)