Chapter 806: Sohu's Final Battle
China Overseas.
Tengyu Logistics Headquarters.
Xu Tengyu received a call from Lu Yiming.
"Holy crap! Did you invest in the campus network?"
He looked at the energetic young girl in black stockings, long legs and a lot of energy on the computer desktop and silently put his left hand back on the desktop.
"Why didn't you say so earlier?"
On the other end of the phone, Lu Yiming certainly didn't know what Xu Tengyu was doing. He just smiled and said, "I'm telling you now , haven't I? Since you know about the campus network, it's easy. How about it? Do you want to invest? I'll give you a chance to become an original shareholder."
Xu Tengyu said excitedly: "Can this campus network become the second QQ?"
Today, QQ has completely dominated the instant messaging market. Even Microsoft is unable to stop it. It has completely formed a monopoly.
There was once a person who valued Yixun Technology. Just because of the QQ software, the company's valuation exceeded 100 billion US dollars. In addition, many venture capital institutions and capital operators came to contact Lu Yiming to help Yixun Technology go public in the global capital market.
However, no matter how high the price they called out or how sincere the bet price was, Lu Yiming had no intention of listing Yixun Technology.
Currently, Yixun Technology is Lu Yiming’s sole proprietorship.
This is a public opinion tool and must be in our own hands.
Lu Yiming has made up his mind that if one day he is unable to guarantee that QQ and MM will completely belong to him, he will destroy these two softwares with his own hands and will never hand them over to any party.
After experiencing the past twenty years, there has always been a voice in his mind telling him: "The enemy is in the XX unit!"
Facing Xu Tengyu's excitement, Lu Yiming directly poured cold water on him: "It's impossible. The directions of these two software are different. As a platform for public opinion, the campus network will have a great influence in the future. This cannot be measured by money alone."
The size of Weibo is not very large in later generations, but its influence on public opinion is obvious to all.
Fortunately, Weibo is now called Interesting News World, which is also owned by Lu Yiming.
However, Quwen Tianxia is a listed company, which Lu Yiming believes is not safe, so the Weibo functions will not be placed on Quwen Tianxia.
The campus network is a very important public opinion platform in Lu Yiming's plan.
Of course, Xu Tengyu was just asking casually, because ever since he learned that the campus network was created by Lu Yiming, his first thought was that he must invest in it.
He has been living a comfortable life following Lu Yiming in the past few years. Others have been trying their best to curry favor with Lu Yiming. Now that he is close to him, there is no reason for him to refuse.
Moreover, as someone who came from a top wealthy family, Xu Tengyu naturally understood the importance of the three words "right to speak".
He even felt that it didn't matter whether he made money or not, and even losing money was no problem. As long as Lu Yiming let him participate, it meant that he really treated him as a brother!
The Internet 2.0 era created the first batch of Internet celebrities in China. Mu Zimei, Sister Furong and others were once very popular online figures. Topics about them emerged in an endless stream and were deeply imprinted in the minds of countless netizens.
Even if you are worthless, you can use the Internet to express your opinions. As long as you are recognized or even attract attention, you can become a celebrity that everyone pays attention to.
Blogs are such a platform that specializes in creating internet celebrities.
Because Sina has been acquired by Lu Yiming and renamed Yiwen, the original Sina blog no longer exists. Instead, Sohu has begun to focus on the blog project and cooperated with Fang Xingdong, the father of blogs.
As a portal website, Sohu is a huge traffic entrance, and blogs can retain users by providing high-quality content.
The two sides each got what they needed, joined forces, and formed a close alliance of interests.
After inviting Mu Zimei to be a permanent blogger, "Love Letter" brought huge traffic and attention to Sohu. With the help of a group of LSPs, Sohu's stock price also continued to rise, making Zhang Chaoyang very happy.
Unfortunately, happy times are always short-lived, and soon the popularity of the blog began to decline.
This made Zhang Chaoyang feel very unhappy. With a gloomy face, he called the technical director Xu Chaojun to his office and asked , "The popularity of blogs has dropped rapidly recently, and the growth of various data is not as expected. What's going on?"
Xu Chaojun knew Zhang Chaoyang was angry when he saw his expression, so he quickly said, "Mr. Zhang, the blog's traffic was taken away by the campus network. Recently, Wang Xing has been doing promotional activities. He wants to follow the Facebook model and connect with universities across the country by taking advantage of the momentum of the acquisition of Renren."
Nowadays, although the Internet is booming in Xia Country, it is still mostly used by young people. Most of the parents are very resistant to this new thing, regard it as a scourge, and avoid it as much as possible, even guarding their children against it.
Therefore, the main audience group of the Internet is these college students. They are away from their parents, are willing to accept new things, and have knowledge in their heads. They are the backbone of the Internet.
The campus network directly cuts into colleges and universities, which is definitely the most extensive mass line.
Zhang Chaoyang frowned and asked in confusion, "Campus Network? Isn't this website a competitor to us?"
Campus networks are for social networking, while blogs are for content communities. Although the two are not completely unrelated, they are two companies in different fields.
Xu Chaojun smiled helplessly: "Mr. Zhang, although campus networks and blogs are not on the same track, their users overlap. The main users of Weibo are contemporary college students. Now campus networks have also launched content services similar to blogs, attracting the attention of users."
Zhang Chaoyang got angry when he heard this.
Sohu was doing well in its content community business, but ended up getting hammered by a company that was not in the same industry?
How can I tolerate this!
Although Sohu's development has been a bit mediocre and has even begun to fall out of the first echelon, Zhang Chaoyang's status in the industry is still there.
The Godfather of Xiaguo Internet!
Ma Jieke, Xiao Ma Ge, and even Lu Yiming, strictly speaking, can only be considered his juniors.
Now, a young gangster has betrayed his martial arts ethics and launched a sneak attack, seizing the territory of his old senior.
What is this called?
This is clearly challenging someone else's rule!
Zhang Chaoyang called Fang Xingdong, explained the situation, and said in a firm tone: "We must take action!"
Fang Xingdong was silent for a long time, and then he said in a muffled voice: "What action should be taken? The other party is the richest man in Asia."
There is no doubt that in Fang Xingdong's view, offending Lu Yiming was a very unwise choice. Sohu was cut into the track by Lu Yiming and was forced to become a competitor, and could only blame itself for its bad luck.
However, Zhang Chaoyang obviously didn't think so. He sneered and said, "So what if he's the richest man in Asia? Am I afraid of him? In a fair competition, it's still uncertain who will win. Besides, we have no choice. If blogs die, Sohu will die too."
Although he certainly couldn't compete with Lu Yiming in terms of money, Zhang Chaoyang was an old senior after all, so he still had some pride. He also knew that the brave would win when two people met on a narrow road, and if he didn't even have the courage to fight, he was destined to be trampled under the feet of others for the rest of his life.
What's more, Sohu has launched several projects that are half-dead and can only suck blood from the company but cannot bring any profits to the company. Now Sohu can only rely on the blog. If this is killed by Lu Yiming, Sohu will be completely finished.
It can be said that Sohu was forced to fight back.
You can't be like so-and-so and make a profit by selling your headquarters building, right?
How can an Internet company make money by selling buildings?
Fang Xingdong sorted it out carefully in his mind and found that what Zhang Chaoyang said was true. The current problem is not whether to compete with the richest man Lu, but that he must compete with the richest man Lu, and he must win. If he loses, he will lose everything.
After the merger with Renren, the campus network became much stronger, and the video function was launched. Not only could female college students send photos to canvass for votes, they could now send videos directly, which made those hungry and extremely thirsty men even more excited.
Toilet paper sales in supermarkets have increased.
On this day, Wang Xing was having dinner with Lu Yiming. During the meal, Wang Xing said to Lu Yiming: "I don't know what's wrong with Sohu recently. They are spending a lot of money on advertising."
It turned out that Zhang Chaoyang was determined to promote blogging to Chinese netizens in a vigorous way, making blogging, which was originally a "niche hobby", completely popular and eventually becoming the unquestionable spokesperson for the self-media creation model at the time.
In fact, blogs do have this ability.
For example, the Mu Zimei incident in 2003 and 2004 frequently dominated the Internet charts, making the Chinese people aware of blogs and attracting many new registered blog users.
According to statistics from the Xiaguo Internet Information Center, the number of blogs in China reached 3 million in 2004, while the total number of Internet users in the country was 94 million during the same period. This means that approximately one in every 30 Internet users is a blog user.
Huge traffic means huge profits!
Just by selling advertisements, Sohu made a lot of money.
Therefore, just after the end of 2005, domestic portals and many Internet companies that were originally pessimistic about the blog business also joined the blog camp.
Even Pony Ma, who has changed his career to make games, couldn't help but come and join in the fun.
The campus network was finally established, and Wang Xing was a little worried. He asked Lu Yiming, "Should we also increase the intensity of advertising?"
Lu Yiming asked back: "Why do we need to advertise?"
Lu Yiming asked so confidently that Wang Xing didn't know how to answer for a moment.
After a few seconds of silence, Wang Xing said, "Mr. Lu, this is an era of information explosion. It used to be said that good wine needs no bush, but now it is true that even good wine needs a bush. If we don't advertise, our visibility will not be high enough and we will be pulled down by others."
The rise of the Internet has ushered in an era of information explosion in the world, with a huge amount of information every day that is too much to handle. As a result, publicity has been placed in an increasingly important position.
How can your product be remembered by more people? These have become big questions.
Those who are in a Buddhist way of making products are basically beaten up by those little geniuses in advertising and marketing.
No matter how well you make your products, if no one knows about it, who will buy them?
On the contrary, even if the product is rubbish, as long as the advertisement is loud enough and the audience is wide enough, even if calculated by proportion, there will be a considerable number of people who will buy it.
Times have changed, my Lord.
Lu Yiming curled his lips and said, "I, Lu, have always relied on my strength to win. What kind of skill is advertising?"
Wang Xing couldn't help but roll his eyes secretly, and thought to himself: Are you reluctant to spend the advertising money?
Is Lu Yiming a stingy person?
Of course yes.
After all, Lu Yiming would never spend two cents on something that can be done with one cent, especially for a product project in the transitional stage such as the campus network, which is not worth increasing the investment too much.
"How can we create buzz without advertising? How can we attract attention without buzz?"
Wang Xing asked two questions in succession, and then said, "How about we invite a celebrity?"
Lu Yiming said dissatisfiedly: "Celebrities are indeed very popular, but how can we find celebrities on the campus network? Of course, the biggest problem is that blogs rely on text to gain attention, and the cultural level of celebrities..."
Although Lu Yiming didn't say anything further, Wang Xing understood it immediately.
People who are good at blogging, even if they don’t have a high level of education, at least have solid writing skills. There are not many celebrities who can write a short essay well, let alone write a long article like a blog. It would be a miracle if they can do it well.
Not writing articles and posing? Then celebrities have no advantage. The campus network's beauty pageant is still going on. Aren't those lively and youthful beauties more attractive than those plastic surgery celebrities ?
Lu Yiming said: "If you want to create good content, you don't necessarily have to recruit people from outside. You have to trust the users of the campus network. They can create interesting and attractive content themselves. After all, they are all serious college students."
Nowadays, college students, especially those from prestigious universities, are still worth some money.
Wang Xing was somewhat surprised and said, "Mr. Lu, do you mean we train them ourselves?"
After all, Wang Xing was used to the buying mindset, so he didn't think about the issue of his own training for a while.
Lu Yiming said as a matter of course: "Yes, we are a platform. The most important function of a platform is incubation."
It is obvious that Lu Yiming intends to directly use the routines used by video websites to cultivate UP hosts in the future.
However, Wang Xing still felt a little worried: "Can we incubate it ourselves?"
Cultivating it yourself means risks. Although it costs money to buy it, what you buy back are finished products. You don’t have to bear the risk of cultivation failure, and you can use it right after you buy it, which saves time.
The business world is like a battlefield, and time is life.
Lu Yiming said, "Of course. Did you know that there are many experts among the people? Besides, we have so many college students. It's not that they don't have abilities, but they just lack a stage to show their abilities. Then we can just build this stage for them."
