Chapter 699 QQ Farm
Ma Teng's message made the already lively QQ group even more lively.
Lu Yiming also felt a little surprised.
He knows MSN, but what the hell is this MSN group function?
MSN is backed by Microsoft and is an imported product from the West. Therefore, in high-end business circles, many "respectable people" look down on QQ and think that QQ is something that only children play with.
However, in the original world, it should have entered the Xia country market in 2005, but now it has been advanced by several years.
Ding Sanshi, who had just been speechless after being criticized by Lu Yiming, saw Ma Teng's message and immediately said with gloating: "MSN, with Microsoft as your backer, Mr. Lu, can you stand it? To be honest, Mr. Ma, I even suspect that this is Microsoft's revenge on Mr. Lu? Mr. Lu poached their president, and Microsoft immediately added a group chat on MSN. The game is very intense."
However, Lu Yiming, who had been dealing with Microsoft for more than 20 years, knew very well that these people were good at monopoly, but they were not good at social networking. These American companies would not treat ordinary people as human beings, let alone the people of Xia Country.
Let's talk about MSN. Since it entered the Chinese market, it has been neither hot nor cold. It has built-in video communication and group chat functions, but it has never been popularized. The reason is that these Western companies have a common problem - they don't serve users, but want to train users. Whatever they make, users have to learn how to use it.
But in Xiaguo, these products are well aware of one truth: customers are king. The products they make try every means to take care of customers' habits and do whatever it takes to make users more comfortable.
One treats users as bosses, while the other is the users’ boss. Is there any doubt about who will have the last laugh?
Therefore, Lu Yiming was not panicked at all. Apart from the initial surprise, he did not even consider MSN as an opponent.
"Although Bill Gates is my friend, I still have to say that he has no idea how to use social media. Not only him, but all of them in the entire Western world are not good at it. So, if MSN wants to enter the Xiaguo market and compete with me head-on, the only thing I can do is to try to prevent it from losing too badly. After all, everyone knows that I am a kind-hearted person."
At this time, QQ, under the polishing of Lu Yiming, had become very powerful and had absolute dominance before the era of mobile Internet.
In the previous life, QQ group was not officially launched until 2005. Before that, the functions of QQ were very simple.
But it is only 2001, and Lu Yiming has already developed the QQ group function, while MSN can only follow suit. It can be said that the concepts of the two sides are a whole era apart.
What’s the point of social software just being cool?
The user base is the most important thing!
In the era before Lu Yiming was reborn, Pony Ma personally said that the secret of Tencent's success was "I have 500 million users."
When a new game is released and a pop-up window appears, that means 500 million exposures. Even if only one in a thousand people are interested, that still means 500,000 potential customers.
How do you compare with competitors?
In front of 500 million users, your prestige is nothing.
Facing Lu Yiming's "kind" remarks, there was a chorus of boos in the group.
"I have to say, Mr. Lu is really showing off this time."
"Boss Lu, when can I be as awesome as you?"
"I admire Mr. Lu's ability to talk nonsense."
After some joking, Chen Tianjiao from Shengda Network said, "I have to say that the QQ group feature is really amazing. After all, humans are social creatures, and QQ is a social software, so 'groups' are indispensable. The key is that this feature is really convenient. I have a group for my gaming friends, a group for my family, a group for my colleagues, and a group for my friends... They are all independent and do not interfere with each other. Inside the QQ group, everyone is very lively. I can't think of a more perfect social platform than this. When I was playing Legend of Mir 2, I could just shout in the group and we would immediately form a team to play a dungeon. It's more convenient than communicating in the game."
Jack Ma also immediately said: "Indeed, the idea of launching a multi-person chat service is absolutely brilliant. After creating a group, the group owner can invite friends or people with common interests to chat in a group. This is much more exciting than a one-on-one chat, and it meets the needs of the general public to chat anytime and anywhere regardless of the distance."
In "Legend of Mir 2", many guild players in the game spontaneously formed QQ groups, which greatly increased the stickiness and activity of the game, making the various data of "Legend of Mir 2" far superior to its peers.
In addition to game chat, it can also meet office needs. For example, enterprises or institutions can create a group together and set up administrators, so that they can even hold meetings in different locations, greatly increasing efficiency.
Lu Yiming took the opportunity to spoil the story by saying, "Regarding QQ groups, Yixun Technology will soon launch new features, such as providing group space services. In group spaces, users can use group BBS, photo albums, shared files and other methods to communicate, satisfying everyone's desire to show off. I estimate that the specific online push will be completed in one or two months."
Then he sent a middle finger emoji and said, "One step slow, one step slow, what can he use to compare with me on MSN?"
Chen Tianjiao said: "Then if I post the highlights of the PK in the game to the group, wouldn't that satisfy my need to show off? [Smiling face/Proud]"
Ma Teng also cheered, saying: "With so many new features, QQ will definitely beat MSN to the ground."
As for MSN, Lu Yiming despised it strategically, but took it very seriously tactically. He said, "QQ's winning rate is indeed very high, but I think it's not high enough." Then he said that what he wanted was not to increase the odds of winning, but to absolutely win!
After chatting with people in the group for a while, Lu Yiming remembered something very important and immediately contacted Jiang Rongfa.
"Lao Jiang, I plan to make a web game."
"Web game?"
It was the first time that Jiang Rongfa heard this concept, and his mind was a little fuzzy for a moment.
"What is that?"
Although he is a game developer, Jiang Rongfa really doesn't know what a web game is. Not only does he not know, there are only a handful of people in the world who know what a web game is.
In the second half of 2001, EBS, which had been simply translated into Chinese, gradually appeared on some small and medium-sized websites in China. This was the first generation of web games.
At that time, it was not called "web game".
There are three significant advantages of web games: First, it is very easy to get started. Anyone who has had some experience with games can easily master the game. Second, many of the materials used by EBS come from the famous "Gundam" series of the island country, which has invisibly attracted the hearts of anime fans who love the "Gundam" series. Third, because the program is relatively simple, and Perl technology is well known to many network programmers, new functions are constantly being expanded into EBS.
After Lu Yiming's explanation, Jiang Rongfa gradually understood what a web game is. Although he felt that this gameplay was very novel , Jiang Rongfa still felt a little confused and asked, "Mr. Lu, what is the use scenario of this web game? Let users open the computer and enter the URL to play? What is the difference between that and opening the client to play? Moreover, web games are limited by the operating method, and it is impossible to have as rich content as online games anyway."
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "No, you're wrong. I want to make a simple one, so simple that a three-year-old child can understand it at a glance. The game only has one interface, and the scene does not need to be changed. The web game format is the most suitable."
"There are games with only one interface? What kind of game is it?"
“QQ Farm.”
Lu Yiming sent a file to Jiang Rongfa and said, "This is the game framework I just wrote. Take a look."
This game is so simple that the entire content of a game can be written on just one A4 paper.
The game is set in a farm. Players take on the role of a farm operator, completing the entire process from purchasing seeds to farming, watering, fertilizing, weeding, harvesting fruits and selling them to the market.
QQ Farm is located in a vast plain surrounded by forests. Players have their own farm huts, planting land, transport vehicles and shops. The land types on the map include ordinary yellow land, black land, red land and gold land. With the increase of levels and money, players can open up more advanced and profitable land.
Players can buy seeds from the store and plant them in the cultivated land. Crops will grow automatically. Weeding, watering and pest control are required in time, otherwise the health value of crops will decrease and affect the yield of crops. Players can also weed, water and pest control for friends. In addition to gaining experience, they can also get gold coins as rewards. When crops are ripe , they must be harvested and stored in the warehouse in time to prevent them from being picked by other players. After harvesting the fruits, sell them in the warehouse to get gold coins.
For such a simple game, how crazy were the people who played it back then?
In order to prevent the ripe vegetables on their farms from being stolen by others, some people set several alarms at once and get up in the middle of the night to pick and steal the vegetables.
The popularity of farm games did not last long. After all, the game content itself was too simple, the gameplay was too single, and the user stickiness was not enough.
After Jiang Rongfa finished reading Lu Yiming's game content, he was confused.
He finally developed a hit like "Legend of Mir 2", and now what he wants is to keep up the good work and develop new games that are even better and more fun.
What the hell is a web game?
Moreover, there are only two core ways to play this game: one is to buy seeds and plant crops, and the other is to steal the mature crops of your friends. The gameplay is so monotonous that even Jiang Rongfa is too lazy to complain.
It’s just like Lu Yiming said, even a three-year-old child can play it.
What really caught Jiang Rongfa's attention was that Lu Yiming asked Junzi Interactive Entertainment to cooperate with Yixun Technology to embed this QQ Farm into the QQ client! This way, users don't have to remember the game URL and can directly log in to QQ to open the game quickly.
Turn a chat software into a game login window?
This is absolutely killer!
At night, Lu Yiming returned to Lu's Garden and turned on his computer to play games. However, as soon as he logged into QQ, QQ popped up windows frantically. When he opened them, he found that it was a group message directly 99+.
"What do these people have to do?"
Lu Yiming complained, opened the group chat, and scrolled down to the history records. After reading through them, he realized that it was Ding Sanshi who had brought up the topic.
Ding Sanshi: "Hey, did you guys watch yesterday's news?"
Jack Ma: “What news?”
Ding Sanshi: "E-commerce, don't you guys read the news?"
It turned out that not long ago, at the closing reception of the first Xiaguo Inventory Commodity Trade Fair, the madman Tong Jiawei, then president of Meishang.com, gathered together the reporters attending the meeting and claimed that he had found the feeling of doing e-commerce.
At that time, the American Business Network was not a simple company. Any order it made was worth tens of millions of dollars. It even had a huge order from Stanley, the world's largest hardware buyer, with a value of US$800 million.
Tong Jiawei even declared that his turnover would surpass Lenovo's within three to five years. You have to know that at that time, Ali was still struggling on the line between life and death.
Ding Sanshi posted the news in the chat window and sighed: "This is really easy money to make."
Lu Yiming directly said: "If you want to die, you can go."
Lu Yiming's bubbles immediately attracted everyone's attention. Ding Sanshi said unconvincedly: "Boss Lu, what are you doing? It's not that serious, right?"
At this time, Ding Sanshi had money in his hands and was restless. He wanted to find some investment opportunities. He saw this news and thought it was a hot spot, so he brought it up for discussion. However, Lu Yiming poured cold water on him as soon as he appeared, which made him very depressed.
As a result, Jack Ma also stood on Lu Yiming's side and mercilessly exposed Ding Sanshi's fantasy: "Tong Jiawei is just bragging. What's the use of having more orders? Look at which order he has completed?"
Ma Jieke had tried this B2B e-commerce model before, and he only lost money. Moreover, Tong Jiawei was a master liar, and his level was far inferior to Ma Jieke, so he could not fool him at all.
Lu Yiming: "Puffy, if you want to make money, come to me."
Ding Sanshi: "Please give me some advice, big boss!"
Lu Yiming: "Call me dad and I'll tell you."
Ding Sanshi: "...Forget it if you don't want to talk about it."
Meishang.com was founded in 1998 and was once a domestic comprehensive B2B flagship website. The background of its founder Tong Jiawei is even more impressive, he is An Fangbin, MB from Wharton School of Business!
In terms of financing amount, Ali of the same generation can only be regarded as a younger brother. The younger brother investors of Meishang.com even include international giants such as Citibank, IDG, First Data Group, Motorola, Stanley, etc., with a total financing amount of up to 43 million US dollars.
This much money can be wasted for years!
However, due to constant conflicts between management and investors, as well as the bursting of the Internet bubble, the company ultimately failed to survive the cold winter and collapsed when the Internet bubble burst, ultimately killing itself.
It was only when Ding Sanshi mentioned Meishang.com that Lu Yiming remembered this incident.
Although Lu Yiming has already invested in Majiek, who would be willing to earn less if they can have a bigger bite of the fat meat of e-commerce?
What's more, the scale of e-commerce is very large, and even Majek will not be the only dominant company in the future.
Lu Yiming felt that he could definitely have a hand in this.
But ideas are just ideas, and putting them into practice is not so easy.
Yixun Technology is now a social giant in Xia Country. In fact, it is easier for it to run a virtual mall than for Majeck's Alibaba. After all, social software itself has a large number of Internet users.
As for the software development itself, it was quite simple. Lu Yiming even asked Zhang Xiaolong to come up with the payment software, and the connection with the bank was almost settled. This was originally intended for the virtual mall for purchasing game equipment and QQ services, but it can also be used for e-commerce.
However, when it comes to QQ doing e-commerce, Lu Yiming immediately thinks of PaiPai.com, QQ Mall, QQ Online Shopping, Yixun.com, etc.
These are all things that Xiao Ma Ge has played before, but all of them failed without exception.
Why did it fail?
Because chat software and shopping software are not naturally two things that can be integrated together.
Lu Yiming thought for a while, but he couldn't find a leader who could carry the flag. Even if Lu Yiming had some ideas, he couldn't lead a group of rabble to defeat many competitors. Doing business is not that easy. Just look at the American Business Network and you will know that ideas alone are not enough.
The most important thing is that Jack Ma's e-commerce platform has taken shape. Even though Lu Yiming is Jack Ma's financial sponsor, and they have a good relationship in private, Jack Ma will never be soft-hearted in order to seize the market.
If you want to do e-commerce, you need a general who can compete with Majek.
While Lu Yiming was chatting in the group, he began to think about e-commerce.
Soon, while browsing the news about Tong Jiawei, a name rushed into Lu Yiming's mind.
Wang Juntao!
He is a tough guy. He founded 8848.com in 1999 and served as president and chairman. He quickly developed a shell company with only four employees and less than 160,000 yuan in capital into a landmark enterprise in domestic e-commerce.
And this took him only eight months!
When Intel President Barrett visited China, he called 8848 the leader of China's e-commerce. When the domestic Internet competition evaluated China's outstanding websites, 8848 ranked first!
In February 2000, Time magazine in the United States called 8848 the most popular e-commerce site in China. Five months later, 8848 was listed as one of the top ten websites in China by Forbes magazine.
Just this year, before Yixun Technology's virtual mall was launched, 8848 became the most visited website in Xiaguo's industrial and commercial categories, and successfully raised approximately 60 million US dollars!
The most important thing is that this person is different from Tong Jiawei, a fool who is only good for show. He has real talent and knowledge!
Unfortunately, 8848 succeeded too easily at that time, so the management became inflated. Everyone wanted to make money by hyping up concepts, and no one intended to lay a good foundation. Only Wang Juntao remained calm and rational.
So his subordinates and shareholders kicked the founder out of the company, and not long after that, 8848 was completely gone.
Why are 8848's management and investors so crazy? Are they all fools?
No, they're not stupid, they're just crazy.
It took two weeks for 8848 to grow from four people to sixteen people, four months to grow from sixteen people to one hundred and eighty people, six months to go from selling only software and books to selling fifteen categories of goods, and less than six months for the number of shareholders to increase from two to more than a dozen including Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.
In just ten months, 8848 went from being worth more than 300,000 Xia country currency to being worth 400 million US dollars.
That's why they go crazy.
The entire Internet industry is full of such crazy people. Even Ma Jieke was once crazy and lost. After Ali raised funds, he went on a big internationalization spree, opened a branch in the United States, and paid a lot of money to invite a bunch of foreigners to eat free meals. It was not until the arrival of the cold winter that he was awakened by the cold.
It is precisely because there are so many crazy people in the Internet industry that the value of wise people is more evident.
You know, Wang Juntao, the "Father of E-commerce" in China, remained completely calm and rational from beginning to end.
"Well, that's him. As for poaching, it's more interesting to poach the president directly."
