this man is not calm

Chapter 371 Time Window
The music MP3 project started very early. After the overstocked inventory of Venus game consoles was cleared out, relieving a lot of pressure, we began to prepare for the design.

The choice of strategic direction in the fields of white goods, consumer electronics and IT hardware is very important. If you take the wrong path, the harder you work, the worse the result will be.

MP3, one of the most profitable trends in the next few years, is the direction that Jin Shang has reserved. Videotapes, DVD players, CDs, home theaters and the like, although they are extremely popular now, are actually transitional products. After nearly half a century of accumulation, the development speed brought about by the technological explosion is far beyond the imagination of the general public. When people today look at the world twenty years from now, it seems unreal like science fiction coming into reality.

The small and convenient MP3 music player was the first surprise that the IT field brought to the traditional field around the millennium. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it a shock.

After seeing Yang Qi off, the technical issues will be temporarily put to rest.

Blue ocean exploration is so troublesome, and stumbling is the norm. Jin Shang has already pointed out the direction, but the development from software to hardware is still not going smoothly. If we really attack around aimlessly, I don’t know how much money will be wasted.

He grabbed the microphone on the desk and dialed Zhang Qian's number to tell him the current progress and the decision to speed up the promotion of the music album.

Later, we worked step by step and were busy until Thursday, when we finally finished most of the backlog of work and alleviated the delay in the company's operations.

After leaving get off work early, Jin Shang and his girlfriend went to meet Dai Yiqun, Zhang Qian, Mei Fengchun and others for a small gathering, and they were ready to return home around ten o'clock in the evening.

Because I had drunk a little bit of wine, I had to let Li Xuan drive. Fortunately, her driving skills have improved during this period, and she can drive smoothly under dim visibility conditions on the road.

It was a rare opportunity for me to sit in the passenger seat, staring at the scenery outside the window in a daze. For a moment, I didn't know what I was thinking. Just when I was in a daze, the car stopped and Li Xuan unbuckled her seat belt.

"Let's go down and take a look. It's rare that we have the time to go and look around."

It is surrounded by a lakeside park. At this time, it is not very lively. There are no children playing around, and the retired elderly people who used to play musical instruments have gone home. However, there are still some night market snack stalls, and young people pass by from time to time to support them, so it is quite popular.

The two of them also bought some barbecue skewers that looked relatively clean, leaned on the stone railing, and looked at the reflection of the nearly full moon in the water.

"Tomorrow is the Lantern Festival. No wonder there are still so many people outside so late."

"This area is much more lively than it was two years ago. It used to look like a busy small county town, but now..."

Wiping the grease from the corners of her mouth, Li Xuan said calmly,

"There are a lot of low-rise shops and stores, and they all do good business on the street. Also... there are construction sites everywhere. It is foreseeable that high-rise buildings will rise from the ground in the next few years. In comparison, my hometown is the same as it was ten years ago, and I don't think it will change much in ten years."

After all, it is the capital of the country, which is different from the small third- and fourth-tier counties. The dividends of the times have come, and the speed of development is so fast that even the local natives can hardly react.

The two chatted about some harmless gossip. Li Xuan looked at her boyfriend's face. The tipsy look faded away and his face looked much more normal. It seemed that he had regained his composure.

"Just now... you were a little too high-profile, a little different from your usual self."

"Have it?"

His girlfriend nodded slightly, which made Jin Shang feel a little embarrassed. He scratched his head and couldn't help but say,

"Maybe there are some things that are always unsatisfactory."

As the company grew bigger, it involved more and more people and things, and its external relations became more troublesome. Uncontrollable areas kept popping up, which made Master Jin, who thought he had everything under control, somewhat dissatisfied.

In fact, this is the dilemma that entrepreneurs in emerging fields often encounter. Jinxi Culture is already very good, and most of the difficulties have been eliminated. It is incredible that it is only now beginning to encounter resistance.

"The blank market has been occupied almost completely, and the remaining ones...are all occupied. We can either stop here or take over from others. It's just like the game "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" developed by our company. At the beginning, there are many unowned territories, and it's first come first served. In the later stages, you have to fight for every inch of land. No one can give up the market share without a fight."

At the beginning, Jinxi Mall focused on the daily necessities and people's livelihood areas. In the past year, with the support of the affordable strategy and relying on high-quality on-site repairs and after-sales services, the home appliance online sales have snatched a large amount of business from offline home appliance stores.

An informal rich list was released at the end of last year, and three of the top ten were owners of large supermarket chains. This shows how huge the profits are and how exaggerated the influence is.

Jin Shang was indeed not afraid, but he was not so arrogant as to ignore them. After several attempts and frictions, they more or less found each other's bottom line.

It cannot be defeated or destroyed, and the winner cannot be determined in a short time. The competition is a long-term one.

In that case, let’s roll up our sleeves and get started.

It's not just e-commerce, brand computers, system browsers, chip semiconductors, as well as email, anti-virus software, etc., but wars are being fought on multiple fronts in almost all fields, especially the earliest portal website, Northern United Online, which has gone from being a monopoly to a multi-party melee. Coupled with the endless secret war in the instant messaging market, it is simply a mess.

Even with the "golden finger" protecting him, Jin Shang still felt a little stretched.

"You are good at defending, but not aggressive enough!"

Master Jin sighed,
"One move affects the whole body, and many things are not just business competition."

Millions of canal workers depend on us for their livelihood and clothing. We will never allow the canal to be abolished and the sea to be used instead!

Regardless of whether the business war could be won or not, if he really won completely, Jin Shang would not know how to deal with it.

The era of tens of millions of food delivery riders and millions of Didi drivers has not yet arrived. Even if it affects real employment, one family cannot bear the blame alone.

"We are ahead by too much. To use your words, all our competitors are rotten fish and shrimp. Except for a few with strong backers, it's hard to pick out a few who are cheering for us. Currently, only instant messaging seems to have encountered strong opponents. As for portal websites, Internet cafe alliances and others, you don't seem to be worried about them."

"Just maintain your presence. Email, antivirus software, browsers, portals, etc. are defensive in nature. They are currently in the limelight, but will be relegated to the back-end in the future."

After a pause, Jin Shang said leisurely,

"I need to find a breakthrough point and try it out. It is not only to make an example of others, but also to achieve the deep integration of online and offline and reflect the fundamental value, so as not to be accused of being virtual. To change the world, we cannot just stay behind the screen."

"The music industry is the chicken?" "Yeah! Movies and TV series... are too big, and the timing is not right now. The music industry is the right size, and there are good and bad people, so it's easier to start with."

"You're... not even letting your own people go. Last year... Jin Xi Music ranked second in the number of CDs released in China, and its overall profit was at the top of the list."

"Let's start by making a show of force. MP3 players are still very expensive..."

"But electronic music is cheap. The code copying costs almost nothing, and it is available all over the country, so there are no publishers who make a profit from the price difference."

"Don't worry. The last golden age of the music industry will last for about five or six years. So, I decided to increase my release efforts starting this year. Only two or three albums a year? That's too few. I need at least five..."

"We'll make all the money, but that will offend a lot of record companies."

"It doesn't matter. They have no future."

The so-called film and television giants are vulnerable in the face of iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video, and record companies are trembling under the impact of online music.

The wheel of time rolls over, and those who take the wrong path will be crushed under the wheels.

As for why Jin Shang is so sure that as long as he masters the rhythm well, online music will not hurt him and can also bring him the greatest benefits, it comes from his experience in his previous life and his vision in this life.

The impact of Internet multimedia on real media did not occur in a short period of time, take pop music as an example.

In the three years around the millennium, about five or six years, the domestic music scene ushered in the last glory of the physical record industry. Not only did singers and songwriters emerge in large numbers, but sales also set new records, not only in China, but also abroad.

In that era, for a new artist in the Hong Kong and Taiwan music circles, sales of 200,000 were considered a success, while sales of 500,000 for a well-known singer and a million were considered platinum. The kings, gods and queens of singing were only considered successful at this level. In fact, the massive sales in mainland China were not taken into account, mainly because piracy was so rampant that it was impossible to count them at all.

It has happened more than once that a singer's album was not well received, but then pirated copies became popular and the singer made a lot of money.

The earliest third-party music player in China, Qianqian Jingting, was launched in 1998, which is quite early. Foreign countries are far ahead. As for the ones that come with the system, they have a history of more than ten years.

In fact, with the popularization of computers, especially the emergence of MP3 players, the first thing to be affected was not genuine music, but pirated music.

No matter what, even if it is a pirated album, it still has production and distribution costs. As long as it exists in physical form, it will definitely not be able to compete with electronic music that can be copied infinitely and instantly with just the movement of fingers.

Anyway, they are all fans who don't buy genuine copies. Compared with physical records that require CD players and walkmans, MP3 players have too many advantages. They can store hundreds of songs, can be easily replaced at any time, have a battery life of nearly ten hours, and are perfect for young people who don't have high requirements for sound quality and don't have much money.

The genuine products are less affected, and with the spread of MP3, the scope of electronic music is even wider than that of pirated products. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, it has increased the popularity of songs and singers, and in turn led more passers-by to join the genuine fan group.

It was not until three or four years into the new century, when computers had become widely used, MP3 players were extremely cheap, and people's living standards had risen to the point where they could consume such electronic products smoothly, that online multimedia began to cause extremely serious damage to the physical film and television entertainment industry. Album sales that easily exceeded a million disappeared, and the top singers could no longer reach the ceiling of tens of millions of sales.

Until... the era of traffic, when electronic albums created purely for the purpose of making money emerged, fans and marketing companies manipulated the charts, and sales of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions were no problem.

Precisely because he had accurately grasped the pulse rhythm, Jin Shang decided to make a fortune in the next few years of the music market's "last gasp" as if he had been given a shot of adrenaline, and by the way, completely overturn the landscape and firmly occupy a dominant position before the new gameplay matures.

Of course, it would be even better if we could take advantage of the opportunity to launch Jinxi Music on the market.

There are still many channels to make money in the future, such as the SP business which is currently developing rapidly, among which the income from ringtone downloads is very gratifying.

Young people probably no longer know how exaggerated ringtones were during their heyday. A popular song like "Mouse Loves Rice" could sell for nearly 200 million yuan, which shows how profitable this thing is.

As for companies that are qualified to carry out SP business, no one would believe it if they told them how much share they would get from the basic operators.

The basic operator only charges 15%, and the remaining 85% is distributed between the agency and the copyright owner.

When Jin Shang heard about this ratio for the first time, he was stunned. Not to mention 30:70, 40:60 must be one, and he had even thought about the worst 19:10.

Hao Qilian gave an explanation for why this happened. In fact, it was a disguised way of supporting Internet high-tech companies. Such emerging companies, which had almost no profit model, would hardly be able to persist if they did not find a way to make money.

It is hard to say whether there will be adjustments in the future. At least for now, for most IT companies, especially those in the Internet industry, the share of wireless value-added services is the only profit channel.

Of course, the specifics will be slightly different for each company. Jinxi Culture is a large and experienced company with experience in friendly cooperation, so it can get 85% of the share. Other new entrants may get a little less, but it won't be too low.

Jin Shang and Li Xuan chatted for nearly half an hour. After learning about Jin Shang's actual plan, Li Xuan said leisurely:

"You are very confident in your judgment! Is the music industry so vulnerable? After all, it is a mature industry with decades of history..."

“It’s hard to guard against disruptors coming from different industries!”

Jin Sang sighed and added,

“Music as a form is still too simple. In the future, it is likely to become an auxiliary to video, or even be placed in a subordinate position. The trend of decline is unstoppable, and it can no longer be reversed by one or two talented musicians.”

There are only so many melodies, and the total amount is limited. No matter how much you sample, arrange, or work on the instruments, it's just like building a temple in a snail shell. There's limited room for innovation, and it's extremely difficult to expand the boundaries.

"I'm afraid others can't imagine that when you get ruthless, you'll even cut yourself."

"Pop music is not the core business anyway, at least not the only core, but it's nice to make money."

There are still a few years left, and the inventory in the memory of the previous life must be converted into cash as soon as possible. Since it is a last gasp, it is destined not to last too long. Before others react, you can make a fortune, then smash the pot, start anew, and change the way of playing.

(End of this chapter)