Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 314: In full swing, unstoppable

“Three-Body is the most imaginative, shocking and profound science fiction work I have seen in recent years”

"The sentence that impressed me the most: 'The universe is an empty palace, and humans are the only ants in it.'"

——Stephen King

“Whether for ordinary readers or professional writers, White Deer Plain is a literary feast that cannot be missed.”

“It tells us a simple truth: the reality in fiction is far more real and more exciting than the reality in life.”

——Yu Hua

Even Stephen King and Yu Hua are still a little uncomfortable with the 140-character limit (70 characters for Chinese), and are afraid that their expressions will be incomplete if they exceed the limit, so they simply post two posts to improve their recommendations. With the endorsement of two top Chinese and American writers, readers are even more enthusiastic about registering for Weibo.

In less than 5 minutes, hundreds of book reviews appeared on the pages of both the Chinese and American editions.

"I'm reading American Gods. This book tells the story of how ancient gods like Odin and Loki were brought to America by believers and then weakened due to the loss of faith. Now they have to compete with new gods for power. It's very interesting!" - "Sweetheart Rainbow Pony" from the United States

"You must read Xiao Si's latest novel "Sadness Is Like a River", it is so touching, I cried while reading it, 5555..." - "Summer Solstice Not Yet Arrived" from China

"Damn it, you guys have to read Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, it's the king of romance novels!" - "Flying Muscle Man" from the United States

"I'm currently reading the fourth volume of A Song of Ice and Fire. The POV narrative is so fascinating. I think we'll be able to see the ending in 2010?" - "Big Sword Swing" from the United States

"Has anyone read Remy's "Psychological Crime"? It's a niche novel, but it's very good!" - "The Ghost in My Heart" from China

"Share a few books: The Legend of the Condor Heroes, The White Jade Tiger of Chu Liuxiang, The Jade Bow of the Sea of ​​Clouds, The Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty, and Seven Weapons..." - "The Greatest Hero" from China

……

Users soon discovered that if they did not want to see content from China or the United States, they only had to hover the mouse over the dividing line between the two versions, and the single arrow would turn into a double arrow indicating "pull left or right," making it easy to see only one side, or mainly one side.

What’s interesting is that if the page size on one side is expanded, the extra page is not blank, but presents different functional areas - "My Circle", "Book List Collection", "Creation Center"...

Each feature is worth exploring - the key is that there are no annoying advertising ribbons, animations, and pop-ups that appear from time to time on current websites.

The thoughtful web design, simple page presentation, and highlighted functional design have greatly increased the interest of registered users in using Weibo.

Early morning in the US is broad daylight in China, so for a time China’s IP growth rate even exceeded that of the US.

Many people originally came here to watch the fun, but when they saw so much reading-related information suddenly emerge, they impulsively registered accounts due to the herd effect.

In less than an hour and a half, the number of registered Weibo accounts in China and the United States exceeded 5, and the number of visits was a hundred times higher.

Although there are few people who posted it and many people who viewed it, the sudden explosion of data due to the presence of pictures still slowed down the access speed.

Li Wandong, the head of Tide Culture, who was in Beijing, called Zhang Chao and asked, "The access pressure is too great now. Do you want to start the backup server? Otherwise, it will go down."

Zhang Chao asked back: "Why not let it crash?"

Li Wandong didn't follow Zhang Chao's train of thought for a moment and was stunned: "Huh!?"

Zhang Chao said, "How can people know how many visitors we have if we don't shut down the server? Hurry up and shut down the server! It takes more than 10 seconds to load a new page. What are you waiting for?"

In 2007, people were much more tolerant of web page loading and software opening speed than 10 years later. Especially after some portal websites became increasingly rich in elements such as FLASH animations, it was common for the browser to freeze when loading.

At that time, every Internet user would press "F5" (refresh shortcut key) frequently.

Li Wandong finally came to his senses and said quickly, "Okay, I'll immediately shut down the server and activate the backup server."

Zhang Chao asked, "What else?"

Li Wandong was stunned: "Anything else?" As an IT straight man, he was so overwhelmed by Zhang Chao's ideas that he couldn't even see the taillights of his car.

Zhang Chao on the other end of the phone sighed, wondering if everyone would be able to make it after he "left"... Just as he was about to give instructions, Shuang Xuetao on the other end of the phone said, "Hurry up and prepare an apology statement, put it at the top after the website is back online, and then send it to major media outlets!"

Zhang Chao was immediately relieved when he heard this. He didn't expect that Shuang Xuetao, who looked the most dull, would become so clever. He almost blurted out "Ruzi is teachable" and changed his words temporarily, "I trust Xuetao to do things. Wandong, you listen to him!"

Li Wandong looked at Shuang Xuetao, then at the receiver in his hand, and muttered, "You cultured people...", and obediently went to arrange the outage matters.

Zhang Chao hung up the phone, went back to the bedroom, stretched out his limbs, and collapsed on the big bed.

At this time, he has arrived at the apartment purchased by Huang Jiefu. This apartment is located in the high-rise area of ​​Brooklyn, with an area of ​​1800 feet, about 160 square meters, with 3 bedrooms, 1 small study, in addition to the living room, dining room, kitchen, and all the necessary appliances and furniture.

Although the housing prices in Brooklyn are also rising, they are still very cost-effective compared to Manhattan. Under the influence of the subprime mortgage crisis, the total cost of this house is about 150 million US dollars, and it has considerable appreciation potential.

But Zhang Chao couldn't care less about all these now. After a busy day, he just wanted to sleep. He buried his head in the pillow, and in less than 3 minutes, he began to snore softly.

Zhang Chao can sleep peacefully, but many people related to him cannot.

The most nervous people were of course the people in "Tide Culture". The launch was rushed, and some functions were not fully implemented, but since Zhang Chao said "Opportunities are rare, and they will never come back", everyone naturally believed it unconditionally.

It is easy to choose to shut down, but it is critical to grasp the timing of when to get back online.

If the recovery is too early, netizens will not have the joy of "recovering what was lost"; if the recovery is too late, netizens will think that it may not be possible to access the platform today and will give up, and the popularity will disappear.

Therefore, Li Wandong led the members of the IT technical team to keep a close eye on the background data and make sure to restore "Weibo" online before everyone's emotions reached their peak and "collapsed".

At the same time, Xinlang's news department also received a press release from "Tide Culture", which stated in extremely sincere language:

"Because readers from China and the United States were too enthusiastic, the number of visits to Weibo reached tens of millions in an instant, and our servers were overwhelmed..."

Of course, the news department did not dare to act on its own, but instead sent the news of the Weibo outage and the apology letter to Chen Tong, asking for instructions on whether to follow up on the news.

Chen Tong was also sitting in front of the computer at the moment, and the screen showed a blank "404 error page": Sorry, the page you are trying to access does not exist...

Although he could not see the backend data of "Tide Culture", his rich experience in operating Internet products told him that before the "404" error, the number of registered users of "Weibo" would not be less than 5. This number is even higher than the data of "Xinlang Blog" when it was just launched more than two years ago, which is incredible.

In addition to Weibo connecting readers in China and the United States, there must be another reason. Chen Tong thought for a long time, and then carefully recalled the thousands of ordinary readers' book reviews before the "404" error. Suddenly, he found a blind spot in his previous thinking.

He believes that the 140-character limit will restrict users' expression and make people less interested in registering on Weibo to post book reviews and book lists.

But on the other hand, the 140-character limit also liberates more netizens who don't want to write long articles, allowing them to share their feelings in the shortest words.

When people think of a traditional "blog," they think of articles that are a few hundred words or a few thousand words long, with layout and pictures. Although they are deeper and richer than these mere 140 characters, they are still too heavy for people who want to relax.

"Weibo" has almost "forcibly" removed this shackle, allowing everyone to communicate about their reading experience in a relaxed manner.

The concise page and simple, basic “follow” and “comment” functions run counter to the current trend of increasingly complex web product design, so even when viewing on a small mobile phone screen, there will be no visual fatigue.

"Weibo" has actually become a large social platform, a highly vertical social platform with "reading" as its bond. If there are no major problems in operation, Chen Tong's intuition tells him that the user stickiness of "Weibo" will be very high.

Isn't this the opportunity to enter the "online social networking" that Xinlang has always dreamed of? It was right in front of him, why didn't he see it...

If "Chaotide Culture" takes the opportunity to launch "Mobile Weibo" based on JAVA and Symbian systems, like "Mobile QQ", then not to mention Xinlang itself, even Penguin will probably be shaken.

Filled with remorse, Chen Tong slapped his head hard and groaned incomprehensiblely.

It just so happened that the news department came to ask whether to report the news about Weibo's downtime, which made him feel like he was being roasted on a fire by some force - if he didn't report it, he would definitely be laughed at for being blind, and it would be strange if NetEase and Sohu didn't follow up and add insult to injury;

If it is reported and placed in a prominent position, it will undoubtedly fan the flames of the powerful enemy of one's own blog; if it is placed in a corner, people will still laugh at it for being petty.

After thinking it over, Chen Tong picked up his laptop, pushed open the door of CEO Cao Guowei's office, and the first words he said were: "I was wrong, I will reflect on myself..."

Of course, "Weibo" brings more opportunities than crises - such as Qidian.

Qidian CEO Wu Wenhui also signed up for Weibo as soon as possible, and before he knew it, he had experienced a system crash. Looking at the 404 error page, he was also stunned for a while, then quickly opened the office door and shouted to the large office area outside: "All editors, there will be a meeting in 10 minutes, bring your notebooks."

The editors, who were either busy reviewing books or urging authors to update their works, poked their heads out of their workstations upon hearing this, and the office suddenly brightened up.

Ten minutes later, in the Qidian meeting room, Wu Wenhui said to everyone: "Do you remember? The great writer Zhang Chao, he is also our author..."

At this time, a white, tender, lotus-like hand was raised, and Zhe Yu, the most beautiful editor of Qidian, said timidly: "I... I told him about the update, and reminded him every month, but he ignored me..."

Wu Wenhui waved his hand and said, "He's too busy. It's understandable that he doesn't have time to update. Anyway, the film and television adaptation rights have been sold to him, so we'll make money anyway - but we still have to urge him to update. Don't let my junior brother eunuch!"

Zhe Yu felt relieved and quickly responded, "I understand!" His voice was as loud as a silver bell and his breath was as fragrant as orchids.

Wu Wenhui then got to the point: "I am Zhang Chao's recently launched Weibo account. Have you registered?"

An editor was about to raise his hand, but suddenly found that everyone was shaking their heads, so he quickly changed his hand and waved it back and forth to indicate that he had no opinion.

Wu Wenhui nodded with satisfaction. It seemed that the editors were very dedicated and none of them slacked off. So he said, "Since Weibo is a platform for sharing reading experiences, why can't we at Qidian have a place there?"

The editors were stunned at first, but then their minds were opened. Wu Shu immediately said, "Yes, Zhang Chao didn't say that only traditional literature can be shared!"

Shui Mo immediately responded, "We can use the identity of ordinary readers to recommend the novels on our website to everyone! This may be more useful than a lot of newspaper publicity!"

Zhe Yu said: "There are still many American readers on it. Maybe we can open up overseas sales. We can try to translate some popular Western fantasy novels."

The editors all opened their minds and started chattering. Wu Wenhui looked at everyone with satisfaction. After a long while, he said, "These are all good ideas, but we need to take action. You all should register accounts first, and use the name 'Qidian Editor XX'.

It’s fine to pretend to be an ordinary reader, but it’s even worse if someone finds out. If you want to promote a book, do it openly, don’t be timid. Okay, let’s adjourn the meeting!”

Several editors frowned upon hearing this, and one of them muttered, "…the information that was just filled out needs to be changed…"

Wu Wenhui, who was about to leave the meeting room, suddenly changed his expression and asked, "Didn't you say you haven't registered yet?"

"Boss, I didn't say anything and you didn't hear anything. Brothers, let's go and register an account!" The editors immediately scattered.

……

On the day when "Weibo" was launched, the Writers Association was also very lively.

The old writers, wearing reading glasses, sit in front of several computers in the office; several young men and women are working in groups to "help" them, teaching them step by step how to register and post.

This time, the Writers Association issued an internal initiative, hoping that all writers would seize this opportunity to communicate cordially with readers on Weibo and set an example in promoting literature.

Many people responded, most of them were young and middle-aged writers. Older writers were also interested, but they couldn't handle the registration at home, so they went to the writers' associations in various places to seek help from young people.

After all the hassles, quite a few people have registered successfully, but how to post has become a problem. Most of the old writers can't even type with one finger, so they can only write notes by hand and then ask the young people to type and post them.

"I am Han Jiang, an old writer from China. I am very happy to meet you on Weibo. I hope you will like my works. I once wrote a novel, "Hometown Road", which was published in the magazine "Harvest"..."

The young man said hurriedly while typing: "Teacher Hanjiang, the word count is not enough, the Chinese text is only allowed to be 70 words."

Han Jiang looked unhappy, so he had to take the paper again and write carefully.

Of course, there are also immediate positive feedback. One reader left a message saying, "Teacher Sun, I didn't expect to see you here. I really like your novel "Visiting Dreams". I'm following you!"

When Sun Ganlu saw this message, two more wrinkles on his face appeared from smiling.

The "Weibo" platform's easy posting and immediate feedback format allows writers who are usually too busy with creative work to write blogs to reap the joy of online communication.

……

In one day, the development of "Weibo" was so rapid that it even exceeded Zhang Chao's expectations.

(End of this chapter)