alm0’s weblog

We are glad to have such a fascinating opportunity to talk with Sergey Smagin and Ruslan Murashko, who created Tagoo.

Good afternoon! On your site I have not found any information about the administrators of Tagoo. Are you hiding from someone? Or what?

Sergey: Greetings. We are not hiding, however I believe that it’s too early to shout, as there is a lot of work to do.

Tell us about how did you came up to the idea of creation of Tagoo? How it is financed? And so on.

Ruslan: First time we thought about the creation was at the and of 2007, we’ve started as a Beta test since the New Year. We finance Tagoo on our own, however in future we’re planning to find investor.

What about copyright infringement? You claim that you do not host any of the files you show in the search results on Tagoo servers. However you allow your users to download music from places where, most probably, it is hosted illegally. May a person, who uses Tagoo be named as a law abiding one?

Sergey: As you have already mentioned, Tagoo does not host any mp3 tracks on its host. That is why we do not break copyright laws. Tagoo is just a search engine, which searches mp3. As for as I concerned, it is legal to download copyright protected audio tracks that are hosted somewhere in the Internet here in Russia. That is why according laws in Russia the only person who could be blamed for breaking copyright law is the owner of the site where mp3s are hosted, as users who download mp3 are unaware of the fact whether it is legal or illegal track.

When are you planning to end Beta testing?

Ruslan: Our service should be improved, we have a lot of ideas in development. I believe that in 3 or 6 months we will finish beta testing.

I have looked at Advertisement section of Tagoo. I found out that you allow advertising only by banners. What about text advertisement?

Sergey: Yes, we are planning to launch it. Moreover we will change entirely our advertising system.

Are you planning to launch new services, like video search, spreading you services overseas?

Ruslan: Yes we do, however we would not tell you much about that. You will see everything when the time comes.

Are you planning to become a giant company such as Mail.ru Yandex.ru Rambler.ru and so on?

Sergey: Yes we are planning that and we are full of ambitions. It is not possible to create a real search engine with the help of small company, so we are working on it and I hope that in the nearest future we will become one.

P.S Maybe you will be interested in our new service Tagoopedia.com we have launched it recently and I believe that in a month or two we could talk about it too;)