Chapter 78: Originator
For a new product, powerful or not is only one aspect. The key is to have stability so that users can use it with confidence without problems such as lost emails, lags, garbled characters, etc. Only in this way can users use it.
Song Yang looked at the Hotmail email box in front of him. Compared with the last time he came, the appearance had changed a bit, and there were new functions such as calendar and email search, but overall it was still an improvement on the previous version.
Different from DoubleClick, Hotmail is completely aimed at the general public and is an Internet product like Netscape, Yahoo, etc. Only users and traffic can prove the performance of Hotmail!
In the small conference room of the Hotmail project department, Song Yang, Greg, Irene, Wesley and other former executives of DoubleClick gathered here.
Although the names are different, the executives of DoubleClick and Hotmail are basically the same people.
To put it nicely, this is called nostalgia. To put it bluntly, it is a lack of talent. Apart from these few people and Ryan who is far away in New York, Song Yang has no one else available.
In the conference room, apart from Wesley who was excited as he thought about the sudden emergence of Hotmail and its feat of sweeping the email market, Greg and Irene had calm expressions. To be honest, their expectations for Hotmail were not too high.
This project was also led by Song Yang alone, but no one had ever tried to make a profit from free email, so naturally he was a little worried.
Compared to DoubleClick, which made money from digital advertising right from the start, no one can tell what Hotmail will become under the banner of free email, not to mention that it also has to find ways to attract users. Just look at how much advertising money Netscape, Yahoo, AOL, etc. spent to attract new users, and you can see how difficult it is!
"Are you sure the public beta and registration can be opened on time?"
As soon as he came on stage, Song Yang asked Wesley that the key was whether it could be launched on time. Otherwise, no matter how good the publicity was, it would be a waste of effort if nothing was seen.
Wesley gritted his teeth and said, "No problem, the Hotmail email account can be launched first, and then the functions and loopholes can be improved through the updated version!"
This is because the development is not good, and the updates make up for it. However, Hotmail is not the only one who plays this game. As the world's first web mailbox, Hotmail can be used on any computer in the world. You no longer need to send emails at home or at work through a specially installed computer client as before.
Hotmail is the only email product in the world that can do this. This is a seller's market and users have no choice but to obediently enter the Hotmail email market.
"From now on, we will start to promote Hotmail email in an all-round way. We want to make Hotmail the largest email service in America in the shortest possible time!" Song Yang said to the crowd.
After the voice fell, Irene was the first to speak, "How much money do we need to invest in promotion? The server cost of Hot Mail is very high. If we want to promote it on a large scale, we need to rent more servers."
This time, Greg did not get into a fight with Irene. Instead, he agreed with what Irene said. The funding for the Hotmail email project mainly came from the US$5 million from Wang Laboratories.
It seems like a lot, but the development costs, labor costs, server rentals, and purchases of patents and technologies from other companies mean that basically two-fifths of the funds are burned up. If the remaining money is used only for steady development, then there will be no problem. But if money is spent on promotion, it is estimated that it will not last for a month.
“Promotion doesn’t have to cost a lot of money!”
Hearing that Irene and Greg were both concerned about the promotion funds, Song Yang thought for a moment and spoke up, planning to let Hotmail play some tricks this time.
Greg, Irene, and Wesley all looked at Song Yang with confusion, not knowing what Song Yang meant. Not to mention that the Internet industry was burning money on advertising, even cars, televisions, luxury goods and other products were also advertising desperately.
“Nowadays, Internet users are all over the world, and it is impossible for us to place advertisements in every place in the world!
Instead of us going to great lengths to find those people, we should let users find them themselves!"
Song Yang first looked at Wesley and asked, "Can we add a link to every email sent from Hotmail, with a sentence like 'This email is from Hotmail, now you can get your free Hotmail mailbox', and through this link, directly transfer to the Hotmail email website?"
This sentence and link may seem insignificant and seem to be of little use, but for users who have not been exposed to Internet tricks and have not been beaten by the Internet industry, they will never doubt this link.
This is the primary method of viral marketing. As long as there is one user using Hotmail email, anyone who receives emails from this user will receive an email with that link, allowing the user to promote the Hotmail email to their friends and family!
Wesley hesitated for a moment. Attaching a link at the end of the user's email might seem like a privacy violation, but it was not easy to determine. Even if he was sued in federal court, he might not lose the case.
It is still a wild era, and the speed of Internet development far exceeds the speed of federal lawmaking.
Just like e-mail, there is no official statement on the definition of e-mail in all regions of the world, including the America, and whether documents, contracts, notification documents, etc. sent by e-mail have legal effect, not to mention these minor details.
“Technically, there is no problem!”
Wesley gritted his teeth and said to Song Yang, the worst that could happen is that someone would catch him and sued him in federal court, but it would only be a formality, and at most he would be fined some money. It was basically impossible to expect to put him in jail for this!
Song Yang nodded to Wesley, and then said to Irene and others, "In addition to the link at the end of the email, Hotmail will adopt an invitation system this time, which means that registration will not be open to users directly. Every user who successfully registers for Hotmail will have five invitations to invite others to register for Hotmail. This invitation system will be used until the end of the year!"
This is to whet the appetite. On the surface, it seems that it is not open to the public. In fact, how many invitation codes are released is not up to Hotmail itself. But if you say it is a routine, it is a routine, no matter how deep it is. Anyway, this kind of half-hidden attitude in the early stage has never appeared on the Internet now. It will definitely attract a lot of people. The less they get, the more agitated they will be...
At this moment, Greg really felt that he could not keep up with the times. The two promotional methods mentioned by Song Yang completely overturned his imagination.
But looking at Irene and Wesley who also looked confused, Greg suddenly felt that it was not just him, these two people were not much better.
After a long moment, Irene finally understood Song Yang's tricks. Behind her thick glasses, she looked at Song Yang's face with a strange look. Originally, Irene felt that Song Yang might have a talent for the Internet, but now Irene had to admit that there might really be geniuses in the world.
Whether it is a link attached to an email or the so-called invitation system, it is all about controlling human nature. Irene, who has learned countless tricks at the business school of the University of Houston, has to admit that this new trick targeting human nature may really create a miracle. If Hotmail email is successful, then these two promotional methods will also become classic cases of MBA.
Looking at Song Yang who was explaining things to everyone there, an inexplicable look appeared in Irene's eyes. It was not until she heard her own name that Irene suddenly came back to her senses.
Song Yang didn't know what was wrong with Irene who was looking at him straight. Irene used to be very calm, let alone mentioning God.
"Erin, go talk to all the partners of DoubleClick and tell them to use Hotmail for all future business dealings!"
When Irene was talked to by Song Yang, she lowered her head and responded, then ran out in a hurry. After leaving the small meeting room, Irene felt her face getting very hot and her heartbeat was much stronger than usual. She looked back at the meeting room. Irene didn't dare to stay any longer and ran away in a hurry.
Although routine marketing is required, the necessary resources must still be used. For example, the customers of DoubleClick, whether they are advertising companies or Internet companies, can become the first users of Hotmail e-mail and use them to take over the American email business market.
If Hotmail email can develop this time, then Hotmail can be regarded as the originator of routine marketing accounts!
After the meeting, everyone immediately started to get busy. Song Yang also called Joetus to tell him that Hotmail e-mail would be launched soon and Wang An Company would also cooperate in the promotion.
Then he called the two major trumpeters, Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine and Professor Tristan, and asked them to become the first batch of internal test users of Hotmail email, and then began to praise Hotmail email!
Because of the routine, Hotmail did not have a big media promotion on the day it was launched. But this does not mean that Hotmail's publicity was weak. On the contrary, almost on the same day, Internet industry practitioners across America were exposed to it directly or indirectly!
