You call this entrepreneurship?

Chapter 553

Currently, QQ’s biggest weakness is that most of its income comes from members. So what is VV’s biggest weakness?
Of course it’s the “beautiful picture artifact”.

Why did VV rise so quickly and gain the favor of Internet users so quickly?

Of course, it is through the convenient and fool-proof photo editing of the "beautifying tool".

In this era, "beautification tools" are simply the killer tools of social platforms. All netizens who upload photos must "beautify" them first.

Powerful beauty algorithm, coupled with convenient fool-style operation, makes it simple and easy to use.

As soon as the “beautifying tool” was launched, it spread on the Internet at an extremely fast speed. Users of campus networks, Weibo, and QQ spaces must have the “beautifying tool”.

Especially on QQ space, all the photos uploaded by users have been photoshopped.

Sentinel Technology directly bundled "Meitu Magic Tool" and VV for promotion, and VV used "Meitu Magic Tool" to gain market share.

Without the “beauty tool”, VV would not have been able to develop so fast. This is its biggest reliance.

As long as we can find a substitute for the beauty tool, VV will be half useless.

Penguin was very angry about Sentinel Technology some time ago, and now it’s finally time to fight back.

……

This time, Penguin has invested a huge amount of resources in the "Beauty Show" product, and is still promoting it online and offline.

The company's corporate development system, B-line business system, operation platform system, R-line platform R&D system and functional system are all combined together.

Especially the core of QQ, which pushes "Beauty Show" advertisements to all users six times a day.

To this end, QQ has also launched a pink diamond logo specifically for "Beauty Show". As long as you download and use "Beauty Show", you can light up the pink diamond on QQ.

Apart from not being bold enough to hold a product launch conference, it basically replicated the promotional model that Sentinel Technology used when promoting its “Meitu Artifact”.

It is advertised as being better and more efficient than the "beauty tool", and it is also stated that it is permanently free.

That’s right, permanently free is a point that Penguin emphasized when promoting “Beauty Show”.

The purpose of doing this is naturally to specifically target the "Meitu Artifact" in order to retaliate against Sentinel Technology's VV free membership benefits.

VV's free membership caused QQ to lose five years of membership income. Meiyanxiu followed suit and made it permanently free, eliminating the possibility of charging for the "beauty tool".

After all, developing a software will eventually require charging, otherwise without profit income, it will be difficult to maintain the product.

This idea cannot be said to be wrong at this time, because this is the general thinking of people in the Internet industry.

The Internet has not yet entered the era of full free access, and netizens do not know the saying "free is the most expensive".

The move of making "Beauty Show" permanently free made project manager Lu An very proud, and she felt it was a stroke of genius. She was also praised by CEO Ma during the meeting.

The morale within the project team has been high recently, and everyone is gearing up to compete with their opponents from Sentinel Technologies.

But a week passed and Sentinel Technology had no response, which made Lu An feel very surprised.

We have directly issued a challenge, so why don’t you show any response?

Isn't this totally wrong?

Lu An thought that he might have missed some information, so he asked others to look for relevant information about Sentinel Technology to see if there were any statements or announcements.

However, after searching for a whole day, they found nothing.

Sentinel Technology seemed to have not noticed the "Beauty Show" and did not respond at all, not even updating the version of "Beauty Artifact".

The official account of "Meitu Shenqi" on the Weibo platform did not post a single message, and there were countless netizens in the comment section who were fanning the flames, but they did not respond.

Faced with the strange silence, Lu An felt a little unsure.

After thinking it over, Lu An went directly to Ma Huateng to report the situation and asked what to do next.

After listening to the report, Ma Huateng also felt that something was wrong. Qin Shaoyan's behavior was unexpected and unpredictable.

Now that someone has called you, you should actively fight back. What does it mean to remain silent and not respond?
After thinking for a while, Ma Huateng could only tell Lu An, "Just do your own thing first, and don't worry about other things for now."

"In the Internet, products are king. If you make a good product, then nothing Sentinel Technology does will be of any use."

"Okay, Mr. Ma." Lu An said quickly, "Programmers have been developing various new features around the product."

"Don't worry about new features. You should focus on developing better beautification effects," Ma Huateng said. "As long as we can surpass Meitu Magic in terms of beautification effects, we will have won half the battle."

When Lu An returned to his office, he called the technical director Liu Feiyang over and said, "Boss Ma has instructed us to improve the beauty effect and make sure it surpasses the beauty tool."

Liu Feiyang frowned, "This is not easy to deal with. The beauty effect of the photo beautification tool..."

"I don't want to hear the reasons, I just want the results." Lu An interrupted Liu Feiyang directly, "Just tell me when you can do it?"

"I can't give you an exact time." Liu Feiyang was also helpless.

"What about Ma Hong? He must have something else. Please urge him." Lu An said directly, "Let him think of a solution."

Liu Feiyang frowned, and finally gritted his teeth, "That'll cost extra."

"Money is not a problem, as long as the problem can be solved." Lu An said nonchalantly, "There will be salary increases and bonuses. President Ma attaches great importance to us." "I feel relieved with your words." Liu Feiyang said confidently, "I'll take care of the rest."

Liu Feiyang left the company's headquarters building and went to the office building next door, where he found Ma Hong who was concentrating on writing code.

"Ma Hong, congratulations." Liu Feiyang sat next to Ma Hong with a smile on his face. "Our project was praised by President Ma, and he also gave us a six-month bonus."

"Will it be directly deposited into your card along with your salary next month, or will it be paid in cash?"

Ma Hong grinned from ear to ear, "Give me the cash. Cash is better."

"Okay, come with me to the bank to withdraw money after get off work." Liu Feiyang patted Ma Hong, "Perform well, and I will give you a raise in March next year. I will try to raise your salary by 30%."

"Thank you, Brother Liu..."

"Don't be in a hurry to thank me." Liu Feiyang interrupted Ma Hong, "I don't know whether my application will be approved or not."

"You also know that our project is the company's key product. President Ma attaches great importance to it and asks about our project progress every day."

"Although our Beauty Show has been launched, it is still a little behind the Beauty Tool. President Ma is a little dissatisfied with this."

Ma Hong said quickly: "Brother Liu, I have tried my best. It takes time to optimize this thing..."

"What we lack most right now is time." Liu Feiyang interrupted Ma Hong again, "Boss Ma has already said that as long as our beauty effects exceed those of the beauty tool, your salary will be doubled, and your bonus will be... for twelve months."

"Really?" Ma Hong's eyes turned red. "Are you really sending so many?"

"Would I lie to you?" Liu Feiyang assured with a solemn oath, "Mr. Ma doesn't care about money, he only cares whether our product can beat Meitu's magic tool."

Ma Hong struggled internally, "It's not impossible to surpass the beauty tool, but this method is a bit risky."

"What method?" Liu Feiyang asked.

"There is an internal version of the Meitu Tool, which has never been used. They said that the internal version is not stable, so it has been shelved." Ma Hong hesitated. "Not many people have used this internal version. Only testers have tried it a few times. Others are working on new features, and no one has maintained it."

"I think we can use this internal version as a reference. There is an algorithm in it that we can try out."

"Then try it quickly." Liu Feiyang didn't care about anything else and urged, "Make a new version right away and let's see the effect first."

Ma Hong thought about it and finally nodded and agreed.

……

Two days later, there was finally movement from Sentinel Technologies.

However, they did not directly respond to the "beauty show", but only posted a sarcastic Weibo post on the official Weibo account of Meitu Shenqi.

“Are there companies that do anything other than plagiarize?”

This Weibo post quickly topped the Weibo hot search list, attracting a large number of netizens and many big Vs reposting it.

"You're absolutely right. Some companies just copy whatever they see without any shame."

“Is there anything else this company doesn’t copy?”

Not only did people in the Internet industry forward the article, they also spoke freely and criticized the plagiarists.

Big Vs in other fields also joined in the fun, criticizing and adding fuel to the fire, making it quite lively.

Although the Weibo post did not mention anyone by name, everyone knows who it was talking about.

Apart from Penguin, no other company has ever been the target of unanimous criticism from industry insiders.

Sina.com founder Wang Zhidong once publicly criticized it, calling it a "plagiarism king." Ding Sanshi also criticized it, saying, "XXX wants to copy everything."

Computer World, a well-known magazine in the industry, published an article titled "Damn Penguin".

Soon, many public opinions appeared on major social platforms, calling on everyone to take action to resist plagiarism.

"If we allow Penguin to continue plagiarizing, it will be the end of the domestic Internet!"

"From now on, I will start by boycotting any Penguin products!"

"Starting from BeautyShow, I will never download or use it. BeautyShow is powerful enough. Why should I give up a good software and use a worse product?"

Amid overwhelming public opinion, Penguin did not respond.

But Penguin did one thing and started to ban the "Meitu Artifact" on QQ products.

"Meitu Shenqi" has become a blocked word on chat software and cannot be sent out.

Block the link to the official website of the Meitu Shenqi website, and prohibit uploading photos that have been photoshopped using the Meitu Shenqi tool into the space album.

block!

A complete ban!

At the same time, Penguin launched a new version of "Beauty Show".

The beauty function is more powerful, and we claim that we have surpassed our competitors in all aspects. Why should we use outdated software when there are better ones?

(End of this chapter)