my return 2002

Chapter 356 Weibo
At the end of April, Liang Mengsong began to lead a team to conduct research on the upstream industry chain of chip manufacturing, while Zhang Rujin was based in Hefei, supervising the construction of the Zhulong chip factory.

And Shen Lang can also withdraw from it and devote his energy to the development of Inspur Group. Shen Lang has always believed that professional things should be left to professional people to do.

As May approached, the weather began to become hotter. For Ninetowns, the summer of 2009 was particularly sad for a very simple reason. It has been four years since Ninetowns won [World of Warcraft] in 05.

The contract between Ninetowns and Blizzard is about to expire. Originally, Zhu Jun was full of confidence in renewing the contract. After all, under the agency of Ninetowns these years, the revenue of [World of Warcraft] in the mainland market has always been very good. Not to mention helping Blizzard earn a lot of money, it also helped Blizzard establish an excellent reputation in the mainland market.

However, Cheng Yaojin suddenly came out halfway, and Netease suddenly hit Ninetowns with a sap.

At this time, Zhu Jun scolded Ding Sanshi in Shen Lang's office for not talking about martial arts.

"This Ding Sanshi usually pretended to have a good relationship, but he stabbed a knife in the back at this critical moment. It's not a thing!"

Shen Lang couldn't help complaining: "I told you a long time ago, don't put all your eggs in one basket, and last year when the contract was about to expire, you should renew your contract with Blizzard in advance. The thought of kicking off the car, you, but if you put more thought into the company's operation, you won't be so passive now."

Perhaps because the revenue of [World of Warcraft] has been good in recent years, Zhu Jun has a very comfortable life, spending all his time on football, but in the end he was stolen by NetEase.

Zhu Jun was full of remorse: "Oh, if I had listened to you earlier, I wouldn't have fallen to where I am today."

Shen Lang faintly felt that something was wrong: "Come on, don't you come to me just to complain?"

"You still understand me. Didn't this come to you for help? I heard Mountain Dew Games recently represented a game called [League of Legends]?"

Before Zhu Jun finished speaking, Shen Lang interrupted directly: "Don't even think about it, [League of Legends] is the highlight of Mountain Dew this year, and it is impossible to represent you."

"I haven't finished my sentence yet." Zhu Jun said with a sneer.

Shen Lang said unhappily: "Okay, finish your sentence quickly, and get out of here."

"It's like this. Don't you still have a studio in the United States, and you also made a MOBA game. You entrusted that game to me as an agent. You also know that Ninetowns is still very experienced in agency operations." Zhu Jun looked at Shen Lang with a sincere look.

Shen Lang's heart moved: "I can operate these two games at the same time, why should I entrust them to you as an agent?"

"First of all, these two games are of the same type, and if they are operated by the same company, there will inevitably be a problem of uneven resource distribution. Secondly, as far as I know, the United States is already holding the [League of Legends] college league. In the future, we will definitely take the road of e-sports, and your company will definitely be too busy to run two large-scale e-sports events at the same time, and Ninetowns also has experience in running [World of Warcraft] Internet cafe leagues and college leagues.”

Zhu Jun said in a low voice: "This time, I will treat you as if I owe you a huge favor, and there will be absolutely nothing to say if you can use me in the future!"

I have to admit that Zhu Jun is still very capable. He obviously did his homework before coming here. Shen Lang was somewhat persuaded by him. In fact, he was also considering whether to operate [League of Legends] and [DOTA2] at the same time, but it was not Regarding the issue of resource allocation mentioned by Zhu Jun, what Shen Lang is thinking about is that for these two games to form competition, it is obviously not enough if it is only internal competition.

And as Zhu Jun said, Ninetowns agents are more attentive. The reason why [World of Warcraft] became popular is not only the quality of itself, but also Ninetowns’ agent operation. I don't know how many grades are higher.

"I have to think about this matter again, and I will give you an answer in three days, but I have agreed in advance that no matter what the result is, you will still attend my engagement banquet." Shen Lang did not immediately agree.

"Of course, I've been friends for so many years, I'm not so stingy." Zhu Jun patted his chest and said.

After Zhu Jun left, Shen Lang called Lu Bin to the office. Seeing that the League of Legends was already being localized, Lu Bin was busy with the preliminary preparations for the formation of the National League.

It is not an easy task to set up a national e-sports club event in 2009. At this time, domestic e-sports is still in its infancy, and it mainly focuses on single-player events such as [Warcraft 3] and [StarCraft] , let alone commercialization, many players even have to rely on personal sponsorship to solve the cost of going abroad to participate in the competition.

At this time, domestic online games are still under strict control, and there is no concept of e-sports at all. Any game-related programs are not allowed to be broadcast on TV, let alone broadcast rights.

In order to form a long-term and stable e-sports league, the club must have a stable source of income. Relying on game bonuses alone is definitely not enough. Commercialization is out of the question, and the broadcasting rights cannot be sold. Lu Bin had no choice but to sponsor The idea of ​​the sponsor, this time I came back to the company to ask for sponsor resources.

"How's the progress?" Shen Lang poured Lu Bin a cup of tea.

Lu Bin took it and took a big sip, then shook his head with a wry smile, "Oh, don't mention it, many merchants don't agree with the concept of e-sports at all, and not many merchants are willing to sponsor traditional events such as Warcraft 3 and CS, let alone It’s a brand new game, and the sponsorship fee is a long-term investment on an annual basis.”

"Everything is difficult at the beginning. We have expected this. It doesn't matter. Anyway, there is still more than half a year before the launch of [League of Legends]. Advertising resources." Shen Lang patted Lu Bin's shoulder reassuringly.

Lu Bin nodded: "Yes, I understand Mr. Shen."

Shen Lang then told Lu Bin again about Zhu Junlai asking for the agency right of DOTA2.

"I actually called you here to ask your opinion. Do you think we can bear it if we run two large e-sports events at the same time?"

Lu Bin frowned slightly when he heard the words: "Well, it's hard to say about this, but my suggestion is that if you want to do DOTA2 events yourself, it's best to stagger the time and postpone the DOTA2 league until two years later. You have enough energy and experience to deal with it.”

Shen Lang nodded secretly. After these years of experience, Lu Bin became more and more calm in doing things.

Three days later, Zhu Jun came to Shen Lang's office again, and after receiving an affirmative answer, he gave Shen Lang a bear hug.

"Brother, thank you for your kindness, this time you saved my brother's life."

Shen Lang pushed Zhu Jun away angrily: "Don't get too excited, about the DOTA2 agency, you go to the United States to talk to Ice Frog yourself. Now there are already many game manufacturers staring at it. It depends on whether you can win it or not." yourself."

Due to the commercial success of [League of Legends], Ice Frog, who was also a DOTA1 map maker, has also received great attention. Even though DOTA2 has just undergone its first internal test, it has still become a favorite in the eyes of major game manufacturers. cake.

Zhu Jun is full of confidence. At worst, he is the same as the agent of [World of Warcraft]. He will agree to whatever conditions Ice Frog asks. Such sincerity may not impress Ice Frog.

It is ironic to say that NetEase was able to pry [World of Warcraft] away from Ninetowns because it used the same strategy as Ninetowns did back then. No matter what conditions Blizzard raised, NetEase would agree.

After sending Zhu Jun away, Shen Lang called Bingwa and put forward some requirements, mainly for agency profit sharing, and some hard indicators for investment in e-sports events. In business, if Zhu Jun does not agree to these conditions, he I'd rather take it back and do it myself.

The reason why DOTA2 has gradually become a niche game in later generations is that apart from its own difficulty of getting started, Perfect World's inaction in operation also accounts for a large part.

Even in the promotion stage, there are no advertisements for DOTA2 on the Internet. It is completely relying on the server supported by pulling players from DOTA1, that is, the game quality of DOTA2 itself is very good, otherwise it would have been ruined by Perfect World up.

After hanging up the phone, the assistant Yang Mei came in with a pile of documents.

"Mr. Shen, here are the data you want for the Inspur Group project in the last three months."

Shen Lang nodded: "Well, let's put it here, you go to work first, I will call you if there is something else."

A week later, Shen Lang called Zhang Yong to the office.

"This is the data performance of YY logs on the mobile terminal for the past three months. It seems that there is a 5% increase every month. In fact, the coverage of our current star system is increasing significantly. Compared with YY's The growth rate is no less than 15% every month, which is obviously abnormal.”

Zhang Yong explained: "Well, I noticed this too. I asked someone to do market research and found that the main reason is that the blog posts of YY Diary are too long. According to the interviewees' feedback, they don't have enough patience to read them all. It’s a very long blog post, and because the commercialization of YY logs is becoming more and more obvious, many users are somewhat resistant to reading those soft posts with a promotional nature.”

Shen Lang nodded: "Well, this is indeed a problem, have you figured out how to solve it?"

"I talked to Mr. Liang, he is going to make some simplification of the content of YY diary"

Before Zhang Yong finished speaking, Shen Lang interrupted with a wave of his hand: "Any move to change the tonality of the product rashly is stupid, and it may be thankless. Blog articles still have their necessity, why not Directly redevelop a product, limit a blog post to no more than 140 characters, and mainly focus on light reading and sharing people.”

Zhang Yong hurriedly said: "Okay, Mr. Shen, I will talk to Mr. Liang right away."

"Well, we need to hurry up on this project. As far as I know, Sina seems to be developing similar products. Although Sina is defeated by us in the blog market, we can't underestimate their opponents." Shen Lang warned.

Immediately after Zhang Yong left, Liang Han found Liang Han. As soon as Liang Han heard the boss's words, he immediately called the team management of YY Log into the conference room for a meeting.

Zhang Yong took what Shen Lang said as a 140-character short essay limit, and divided users who focus on light reading and sharing as the core framework of new products, and formulated the research and development direction.

The team of YY Log has been able to come from behind to become the number one in the industry over the years, and has successfully squeezed Sina Blog and QQ Log. The ability is beyond doubt. A demo version was quickly made on the core framework proposed by Shen Lang.

Shen Lang took a look at their demonstration and felt pretty good.

"The direction is right, but one thing needs to be clarified. This new product still has to focus on social attributes. This is also our traditional advantage. Don't lose it."

Liang Han asked: "Mr. Shen, what should be the name of this new product?"

Shen Lang didn't think too much, and made a decision directly: "Let's call it YY Weibo."

"Micro-blog, clear at a glance, wonderful Mr. Shen."

"Go, stop flattering, and finish the product as soon as possible." Shen Lang scolded with a smile.

Almost at the same time, Sina was brewing a storm. In order to curb Shanda's acquisition, Sina's stock price fell all the way. Later, due to the lack of business improvement and the subprime mortgage crisis, Sina's stock price fell to the lowest point since its listing.

At this time, Sina CEO Cao Guowei launched a management MBO plan. The management headed by CEO Cao Guowei will purchase 1.8 million common shares for 560 million US dollars, thus becoming the largest shareholder of Sina.

This plan instantly ignited Sina's stock price. On the day the plan was announced, Sina's stock price began to rise all the way. After all, the management bought the company's stock out of their own pockets. It was obvious that this was a big move.

The source of confidence for Sina's management lies in their new product, Sina Weibo, which has been dormant for two years.

Since the failure of Sina Blog, which had high hopes, Sina has been having a hard time. It is only supported by the income of the portal website. Sina Weibo is the product they give it a go.

Prior to this, Sina Weibo has gone through some user market research and internal testing, and the performance has been quite good. This time, Sina's management headed by Cao Guowei can be regarded as a disaster.

After all, at this time, Sina has no way out, not to mention comparing with the new generation of Internet giant BATL, it is the three major portal websites in the same period, Ding Sanshi is making a lot of money from online games, even Sohu has Sohu Video, Sohu Changyou That's a pretty good business.

Time is waiting!Cao Guowei spoke earnestly to the Sina executives.

Suddenly there was a voice in the conference room.

"What should we do if Inspur Group follows suit and launches similar products?"

In an instant, there was a deathly silence in the conference room. Everyone looked at me and I looked at you, but no one spoke.

At this time, Penguin lost the dominance of later generations and was replaced by Inspur Group. There is a saying among Internet entrepreneurs.

There are three problems to be faced in developing the Internet in the Mainland: life, death, and Inspur Group.

(End of this chapter)