Since we are both reborn, of course I would choose the rich woman!

Chapter 317 I've never seen such a shameless person (6k views, please subscribe)

The summer of 2016 was undoubtedly a lively one for many high school graduates who were about to enter university, as well as for university students who had just started their studies.

The sudden emergence of Guang'an Networks not only brought more fun FPS games, making up for the monotonous and boring gaming environment in China, but also brought a completely different gaming ecosystem, like a refreshing spring breeze.

The increasingly egregious gaming behaviors on Tencent's platform, such as smurfing, intentional sabotage, intentional throwing, and forced leveling of win rates, have all been addressed with appropriate solutions on Guang'an Online Games' platform.

Furthermore, Guang'an Network Media even released the underlying logic of their game matchmaking system.

The complex logical chain is made understandable to ordinary people through tables, thus gaining greater confidence in the matching algorithm mechanism of Guang'an online games.

As for whether Tencent or other game companies will follow suit after these revelations...

Since Guang'an disclosed its algorithm logic, no domestic game company, including Tencent, has been able to make corresponding improvements to the matchmaking mechanism.

Is it that they don't want to learn?
Actually not.

It's just that they really can't learn it in a short time.

Just like ByteDance's "interest-based algorithm recommendation mechanism," Douyin's algorithm recommendation can accurately grasp your preferences and then recommend content in the relevant fields to you, allowing geniuses to meet geniuses and idiots to meet idiots, ultimately forming countless information cocoons of all sizes.

An account may be confined to a specific niche, and while it is surrounded by these niches, it is also becoming part of other niches.

However, once you become aware of the existence of information cocoons and start to purposefully utilize these recommendation algorithms, TikTok will present you with a large number of areas that you want to explore but have never been involved in before.

This has led to both fools and smart people becoming fond of TikTok, and even gradually making it a part of their lives.

Then.

Don't other companies want such a powerful algorithm that can generate billions of daily active users globally?

They really wanted it.

Especially penguins.

In Lü Yao's memory of studying abroad, after feeling the pressure from Douyin, Tencent urgently launched the shelved "Weishi". However, Weishi's first year of operation ended in failure. In 2018, Tencent launched a horse race mechanism and launched four similar Internet products in one go.

The results of it?
They still suffered a crushing defeat.

It wasn't until Hou, a true-blue Tencent executive, took over and boldly cut all short video projects, focused on algorithm development, and steadily developed WeChat's "Video Accounts" by relying on the super social platform of WeChat, that things finally started to look up after nearly four years of dedicated work.

Four years!
With the backing of an internet behemoth like Tencent, and with virtually unlimited resources, funding, and even connections, it still took them so long to get the algorithm working properly. They still have a long way to go before they can catch up with TikTok.

What do other internet companies have to offer to compete with internet giants like Tencent and Alibaba?
Even ByteDance itself took nearly seven years to tame its "interest algorithm".

What about Lü Yao's side?
He, Rong Nianqing, Wang Shan, and Lu Xiaoyi combined invest over 10 billion yuan and over 100 billion yuan annually in AI data centers. Is that all they're doing is "AI"?

of course not!

AI-enabled industry, AI mapping, human health management, online diagnosis, smart home management, intelligent driving systems, adaptive task management for drones, and other topics are all research topics for Wang Shan and his team.

Anything that can be integrated with a chip can be connected to AI, so theoretically, the research topics of the AI ​​Data Research Center can cover any aspect of daily life, including clothing, food, housing, and transportation.

The AI ​​research related to Lü Yao's future memories is only a part of, and a relatively small part of, the Luoma Lake AI Research Center.

This is also Wang Shan's research approach.

Lu Yao had talked to Wang Shan, who said that it was unrealistic to entrust all tasks to a supercomputer for computation, like in the movies. Putting aside the current limitations in computing power, the potential risks involved were extremely serious.

Therefore, we should learn from the development of industrialization and refine and verticalize AI. If we can do very well in a certain small field, then the experience gained in this field will also benefit other fields.

When the time is right in the future, it would be possible to integrate all AI information entities.

When Lü Yao was at the Luoma Lake AI Data Center Park, Wang Shan sat by Luoma Lake in the park, looking at the scenery of Luoma Lake that had been greatly changed because of the arrival of the AI ​​Data Center, and said with great emotion: "This is a magnificent project that will last for ten years, and it is also a great project that I am willing to dedicate my life to."

He now considers the Luoma Lake AI Data Center his home.

The matching algorithm that Lü Yao commissioned the AI ​​data center to develop was also their research project. It analyzes account data to profile the personality of the players behind the accounts, and then categorizes and summarizes them through personality tags.

Even in-game chat, purchases, and dynamic behaviors will be entered into the matchmaking system's database to meticulously craft a match for each player.

and so.

What may seem like a simple click of "Start Game" by a player is actually supported by countless AI engineers and a massive, sophisticated algorithm.

What can other game developers copy about this level of "intelligent assets"?

Lu Yao simply laid out the homework clearly in front of them and asked them to copy it, but they still couldn't understand it or copy it correctly.

It's like the University of Tokyo giving its completed assignments to certain countries to copy, but they still can't understand them.

Besides their competition and rivalry in the gaming industry, netizens have also been comparing and discussing the two companies' business operations, even engaging in lively debates about which company is better, healthier, and more dynamic.

Those who support Guang'an say that Guang'an is younger and more dynamic, and its business philosophy is completely different from that of Tencent, an internet company that is obsessed with making money.

Those who support the penguins talk about how powerful and influential they are, and how deep their background is.

Although neither Guang'an nor Tencent has invested in marketing in these areas, that's human nature: when you are powerful enough, people will naturally stand up for you and speak up for you.

This online competition among netizens continued until news broke that Tencent was laying off departments and employees, reigniting the online debate.

"Where are those who said Tencent was incredibly strong? Step forward! Tell us what's the purpose of this round of layoffs?"

"I looked at the list of layoffs at Tencent, and it seems like quite a few people have been absorbed by Guang'an. What's going on?"

Penguin supporters left sarcastic comments:

"Isn't it normal for a company as big as Tencent to cut some redundant departments?"

"When a company gets big, it's like a big forest; there's all sorts of waste and garbage. I think it's good to clean it up regularly."

Seeing this, the netizens who supported Guang'an laughed without saying a word: "Okay, okay, you're talking about trash, right? If this bunch of trash makes another hit product on Guang'an, you'll all be slapped in the face."

"Screenshot taken, follow up later."

"What are we waiting for? Guang'an's 'Honor of Kings' was made by Tencent after they laid off employees, wasn't it? Look at the state of things now!!"

There's never a winner or loser in these kinds of online arguments. Even when the facts are right in front of you, many netizens who have already chosen sides will choose to ignore them. What they want isn't reason or facts. When netizens argue online, they're mostly just venting and being themselves.

However, this kind of public opinion atmosphere is beneficial to Lü Yao.

As Gan Xiaoxi took action, Liang, the CEO of ByteDance, and Zhang Xiaonan also began to take action.

Summer vacation is traditionally the peak season for video game consumption, and internet cafes are doing exceptionally well during this time, especially in 2016 when League of Legends was incredibly popular.

then.

Many young people saw the "Summer Game Master Incentive Program" pushed out by various products under ByteDance.

As long as users upload game-related content to any of ByteDance's software platforms and receive a high number of likes, they can generate revenue based on a combination of data such as views, likes, and comments.

At Lü Yao's suggestion, ByteDance's various short video platforms also launched incentive programs for users, such as the "Home Decor Influencer Video Sharing Incentive Program," the "Online Shopping Goods Sharing Incentive Program," the "Beauty/Tutorial/Good Products/Recommendation/Sharing Incentive Program," and the "Urban Trend Video Release Incentive Program."

Meanwhile, ByteDance's algorithm mechanism is also poised for action, ready to be launched.

Find the standout video from a vast sea of ​​videos, then distribute it to the market for validation. Organize and plan marketing strategies to discover its replicability and replicable dissemination paths, and then find influencers to collaborate with for large-scale incubation...

This was Douyin's early "influencer creation strategy".

Discover the genes that lead to viral success, then replicate and spread them, and then find users with more potential to cultivate into grassroots influencers. Once promoted, this will naturally attract more grassroots users to plunge into the short video field, enriching the content library of ByteDance's products.

In order to build its foundation, ByteDance spent money almost without regard to cost in its early stages.

Realizing the importance that Tencent was placing on Douyin, Lü Yao no longer wanted Douyin to continue its slow and restrained start-up. He began to work on building a content foundation in advance, aiming to break through the 10 million daily active users mark by the end of this year.

Since Tencent can't develop an algorithm like Douyin's anytime soon, let's put some pressure on them and force Tencent's CEO to invest more resources in this area.

Then in 2017, it joined the long-form video program, and at the end of 17, it joined the live streaming program.

In 2018, e-commerce plans and the Star Chart order-taking system can be added.

At that time, Douyin will have more profit models.

More profits will attract more "ordinary people" to participate, and the gold rush era of short videos will officially arrive.

But right now, their main goal is to survive the penguin onslaught.

With the launch of ByteDance's "Summer Game Master Incentive Program," the program has been successfully deployed to young users who love games, allowing them to earn money by playing games and posting videos.
In a short time, tens of thousands of netizens joined the plan. However, most netizens actually lack the ability to make a living from the internet; over 98% are merely bystanders in the great internet era. Those who can truly make a living from the internet must possess independent thinking.

Those who have already made a living from this opportunity will naturally not let it slip by.

For example, those minor streamers and amateur players in League of Legends, or even professional players who are relatively famous but can't make it big in streaming.

These are the people this incentive program is really trying to recruit.

After seeing this incentive program, many netizens joined ByteDance's incentive program. Some created cool and flashy kill compilations, some made hero guides, some developed unconventional hero gameplay, and some simply compiled information.

These videos, with clear positioning and direction and relatively high production quality, quickly stood out from the large number of videos of varying quality.

Within just one week of the plan's release, thanks to ByteDance's talent-creating power, several small-time streamers, junior anchors, and even a master of unique skills account suddenly emerged, attracting a large number of fans.

As the number of fans increases, the video's metrics will also improve, leading to a corresponding increase in revenue.

In the second week after the incentive program was launched, some League of Legends players had already gained millions of followers across ByteDance's platforms. This is equivalent to a million followers across the entire internet in 2016, so it's quite impressive.

Accounts of this level, if managed properly, can easily generate tens of thousands of yuan per month.

Although a monthly income of tens of thousands of yuan is not much on Douyin (TikTok) where people now live in Rolls-Royces and have luxury apartments, in 2016, a monthly income of over 10,000 yuan was already quite impressive.

Moreover, this is long-term income.

In the internet age, more and more internet users have realized the importance of having a large online following.

First, there was Xiao A Giao who knelt down to get a Land Rover; now it's their turn to make a living in the internet industry.

Stimulated by ByteDance's series of incentive programs, bloggers and even ordinary people who want to make money flocked to ByteDance.

This period was indeed the most draconian of ByteDance's incentive programs.

However, at this time, there were not many internet users who knew about this information gap.

Even Lü Yao only started to get deeply involved with ByteDance's Toutiao account in 2017, and hadn't even started using Douyin or similar platforms yet.

How extravagant were ByteDance's incentive and support programs back in 2016?

Just talking about attracting traffic to novels, by posting the first two chapters of a novel and then relying on an external link to an obscure online novel website, one can attract more than five million yuan in paid traffic in a month.

Later, after ByteDance discovered this, it directly cut off the upload links from external novel websites. You had to cooperate with ByteDance's paid system to upload links, otherwise your account would be banned.

As for gossip articles like "I have a friend..." or "I have a best friend...", articles about family matters, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships, and articles about infidelity and being cheated on, these articles have very high click rates on Toutiao and have been popular for a long time. During this period, many skilled writers of short essays could earn at least the equivalent of an Audi a year.

For the more ruthless ones, getting a house from a single Toutiao account is not difficult at all.

Toutiao's powerful information flow recommendation algorithm is also the reason why Tencent wants to bet on "word media", so Tencent also created "Penguin Media Platform".

However, text-based media is ultimately a transition to the short video track. After 2018, Toutiao, Penguin Media, and Dayu Media will all gradually disappear. Even Toutiao has begun to develop towards the menu-style short video field.

However, amidst the current tide of the times, the fog of the future shrouds the eyes of every internet executive.

They also couldn't see the future trends clearly.

They were afraid of being left behind by the times.

So they chose to do everything.

Lü Yao wouldn't have so many worries. With a future-oriented perspective, he could accurately choose the direction to invest in.

But his precision was caught by Tencent's CEO, Teng.

But thinking about it, it makes sense. Penguins are best at figuring things out by imitating others, and Lü Yao was really outmaneuvered by Tencent this time.

Let's see how Mr. Teng responds next.

……

In just two weeks, many gaming bloggers under Tencent have found their place in ByteDance's products.

In particular, the three major PC games that Tencent now relies on for profit—League of Legends, Dungeon Fighter Online, and CrossFire—are generating a wealth of kill compilations, tutorial videos, strategy guides, and information within ByteDance's information ecosystem.

This information will not only attract users on the platform, but also attract and draw in players from the Tencent ecosystem to their software.

This is hardly some kind of gaming pro incentive program.
This is clearly undermining the very foundation of Tencent's social networking system!
What is the root of the social system?
That's naturally where users gather!
After all, wherever there are people, there will be social interaction; the only difference is in the form in which it is expressed.

Just like later, when Douyin painstakingly tried to create a social communication software, it even developed a separate software called "Flash Chat". Of course, this software was just a defensive attack by Douyin, because Douyin's operators also understood that Douyin's real social circle was actually Douyin's comment section.

How could the parent company that developed the "divine comments" feature on Neihan Duanzi not understand this principle?

This is also the fundamental proof that TikTok later became the second largest social media app.

In Lü Yao's future memory, WeChat truly became a purely work-related communication and chat software. All kinds of content that was strongly linked to consumption, such as sharing, travel, and links to good products, were actually done on Douyin.

This is also why WeChat later tolerated Pinduoduo's viral marketing within WeChat.

As the undisputed king of the current social system, penguins are extremely sensitive in this regard, and without a doubt, this will ignite their strongest killing intent.

But ByteDance has now established its dominance.

It's impossible to completely eliminate ByteDance.

Therefore, Tencent must immediately launch a counterattack!
……

At the end of July, Tencent CEO Teng quickly convened Tencent's senior executives to discuss countermeasures against Douyin's actions.

The final result reached through discussion was—

"The spread of Tencent-related content within ByteDance must be completely prohibited and stifled."

Penguins have a natural advantage in this regard.

Because the contract in which players agree to enter the game already favors the official entity, Tencent, with all the advantageous conditions.

soon.

Tencent sent a lawyer's letter to ByteDance, demanding that ByteDance completely remove all game content related to Tencent.

In this lawyer's letter, Penguin argues that all games under its umbrella belong to Penguin and are Penguin's assets. The players' consent clearly states that the players' in-game currency, equipment, and even characters belong to Penguin, and the copyright of the game's graphics and music undoubtedly belongs to Penguin. Players only have the right to use Penguin's games.

Therefore, Penguin's players have no right to distribute or broadcast Penguin's games on other unauthorized platforms.

All platforms under ByteDance have illegally used game footage from Tencent's games. We now demand that ByteDance completely remove all game videos and content related to Tencent's games and provide compensation.

The compensation amounted to hundreds of millions.

When ByteDance in Beijing received the lawyer's letter from Shenzhen, the entire management team at ByteDance were speechless and laughed. Although they had forced Tencent to respond, the way Tencent responded was disgusting and its behavior was far beyond their expectations.

After receiving the lawyer's letter, General Manager Liang waved it around in the common office area, roaring like a warrior possessed by the spirit of Zhuge Liang: "I have never seen such a shameless person!!"

Then he questioned his own legal team: "How can you be so shameless?"

Although lawyers, especially corporate business consultants, are typically shameless when it comes to money, a legal team as shameless as Penguin Pizza Hut... is truly exceptional.

No wonder he's one of the top business legal advisors in the country.

After seeing the expression on his legal counsel's face, General Manager Liang knew that the marketing work would have to be handed over to that young General Manager Lü from Shangnan.

So Mr. Liang immediately made a video conference call and sent the lawyer's letter sent by Tencent to Lü Yao for review.

During the video conference, Lü Yao read through the lawyer's letter sent by Tencent word by word, feeling the shamelessness between the lines. As if savoring a delicious dish, he clicked his tongue in amazement as he read, saying, "This is just right."

"This is the taste!"

When Liang saw Lü Yao's eyes light up as if he had seen divine text, he was speechless and amused: "The most crucial thing is that Tencent actually used the terms in the player agreement as an appendix to show its legal basis. This is simply... laughable."

Lu Yao laughed and said, "Tencent has crafted this lawyer's letter so well that we don't have to do any homework. Just posting the lawyer's letter verbatim online is enough to cause a huge uproar."

"this time."

"Tencent has taken a bite out of the cake of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands or millions of gamers."

And these tens of thousands of gamers will automatically become the propaganda megaphones for Lü Yao and his group.

(End of this chapter)