Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 438 What does it mean to turn one's hand into clouds and rain?
"Then should I give your phone number to Zhou Hongyi?"

Peng Shaobing asked softly.

He didn't really want to take on this kind of task of taking sides on Weibo, because he would be held responsible if things went wrong.

"No need. You can just talk to Zhou Hongyi and let them know that we will help him, but don't make any concrete promises to him."

Gu Bei didn't really want to get too involved with Zhou Hongyi.

After all, Zhou Hongyi's reputation as a rogue is known to everyone on the internet.

If Tencent hadn't also been a rogue entity, with greater power, and hadn't been the one to initiate the "either/or" choice, the public might not have necessarily supported 365 during the 3Q War.

Gu Bei chose to help Zhou Hongyi.
It's also because Linlang wants to follow the same path as the penguin.

Their hostile relationship will not end with the end of the Weibo and WeChat disputes; on the contrary, the fighting will continue indefinitely.

In fact, for Chinese society, it would be better if WeChat and QQ were owned by two separate companies.

The domestic game market doesn't need to be like it is in the future.
Nominally, it is a unipolar world with multiple strong powers.
In reality, Tencent alone holds a large share, while NetEase has less than half of Tencent's market share. The third company, miHoYo, has a share that is roughly a fraction of Tencent's, and all the others combined only have a little more than miHoYo.

On the contrary, the starter trio model is quite classic.

Linlang occupies the top spot, while NetEase and Tencent are vying for second place.

A triangle is the most stable structure.

This is exactly what Gu Beigang wanted to do when he was reborn.
However, after meeting Liu Yifei, and growing to love directing more and more as he made movies,
Gu Bei's thoughts changed somewhat, but he still hoped that China's film and television industry and gaming industry would undergo some changes after his involvement, so that his rebirth would not only be about making money for himself, but also have more meaning.

"understand!"

Peng Shaobing had been with Gu Bei for many years, and he immediately understood what Gu Bei meant.

Simply put, it means letting 365 take the lead, and Weibo will provide 365 with certain support, letting 365 act as a pawn to cross the river, rather than crossing the river with 365 to charge into battle.

……

The next day, in Hangzhou.

"Damn it, Weibo is about to be overtaken by Tencent Weibo, yet it's still so arrogant. Does it really think it can do whatever it wants just because it has a first-mover advantage?"

Zhou Hongyi walked out of Weibo's headquarters indignantly, looked up at the huge Weibo logo, and said disdainfully.

As a veteran who has been working in the internet industry since the last century
Zhou Hongyi truly didn't expect that this time when she came to Weibo, she not only failed to meet her boss Gu Bei, but even her phone call was postponed by Peng Shaobing due to the time difference.

When he was making a name for himself on the internet, Gu Bei was still studying. He really didn't give Zhou Hongyi any face at all!
'If you're so capable, why don't you say that when you're up there!'

The secretary couldn't help but grumble inwardly.

but,

He knew Zhou Hongyi's personality well, and what he said was full of agreement:
Indeed, Weibo is on the verge of collapse, yet it still thinks it can sit back and relax.

Fortunately, they're not completely stupid; at least they know to target Tencent. So, we've achieved our goal for this Weibo trip!

"Humph!"

Zhou Hongyi snorted coldly, "Tencent is now the parasitic herbicide of the internet industry. No matter which industry it enters, the original players will be dragged down by Tencent's user base."

The situation on Weibo is even worse than that of our 365 Security Guard.
Tencent Weibo has caught up in terms of user registrations and social interaction.
In other words, Gu Bei, the founder, doesn't focus his energy on Weibo but instead makes a fortune in the film industry.
Otherwise, if I were the founder of Weibo, I would have fired Peng Shaobing long ago. Weibo has hundreds of millions of users and they wanted to raise funds, but the price was too high and they haven't raised any money in a year. It's only because Gu Bei makes money so quickly from making movies that they can keep supporting them!

"Is making movies very profitable?" the secretary asked curiously.

"You know, Tencent once tried to acquire Weibo, but Gu Bei told their Weibo manager that he alone earned more money than the entire Tencent Group's annual profit!"

After Zhou Hongyi revealed this secret story, and received an admiring look from his secretary, he said smugly, "Let's go, it's almost time for our meeting with Jack Mayo."

After a few hours,
Zhou Hongyi emerged with an even more ashen face.
Compared to Weibo, which at least secretly supported 365, Jack Ma gave him hours of evasive answers, seemingly without any intention of offering any support.

I don't know if it's because back then, 365 sold 3721 to Yahoo, and after Jack Ma joined Yahoo China, they directly killed the Yahoo Assistant, which was made from 3721, as a virus.

Anyway, Jack Ma had declared back then that he was breaking off all ties with Zhou Hongyi, and I originally thought that this meeting would yield some results.

at this time,

The secretary took out her phone, glanced at it, and her face changed drastically: "It's bad, Mr. Zhou. Kingsoft and Kaspersky have just personally intervened, saying that our 365 software has a major security vulnerability."

"Damn it, these people still dare to jump!"

Zhou Hongyi took her secretary's phone and, sure enough, saw the open letter from Kingsoft and Kaspersky, which directly pointed out some product vulnerabilities of 365 Security Guard and implied that free products are no good.

He immediately took out his phone and started posting on Weibo: "After reading the open letters from two competitors today, I can only say that 365 pioneered the free antivirus software market in China back then, which indeed made the entire industry hate 365 to the bone. But I don't regret it, because 365 has protected the security of countless computers over the years!"

After posting on Weibo,

Zhou Hongyi immediately felt much more comfortable.

A fake business war: The tycoon strategizes in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

Real-life business battles: The boss is so angry he posts on Weibo.

After a pause,

Zhou Hongyi called Peng Shaobing: "President Peng, have you seen the open letter from Kingsoft and Kaspersky?"

"Ah."

Peng Shaobing simply replied with a curt answer and then hung up the phone.

"Damn, what a show-off."

Zhou Hongyi looked at her phone helplessly and said to her secretary, "Book the next available flight immediately. We need to get back to Kyoto right away. This is probably going to be a tough battle."

The two rushed to the airport, but even if Zhou Hongyi was in a hurry, she still had to wait in the waiting room.

He opened Weibo, ready to post a few more messages criticizing Tencent, Kingsoft, and Kaspersky, but then he found that the Weibo client froze after opening and remained unresponsive for a long time.

Once the Weibo client finally ran smoothly,
Zhou Hongyi then discovered the reason why the client crashed.

Because all the likes, comments, and shares on his account were uniformly 999+.

The bright red numbers were just as red as his name, causing Zhou Hongyi to pause slightly in surprise.

"what's the situation?"

Normally, his Weibo posts criticizing Tencent would be considered good if they got a few dozen comments or a hundred likes. This is the first time I've encountered all of his posts reaching the display limit of 999+.

He opened the Weibo post he had made an hour earlier.
It has over 30,000 likes, over 5,000 shares, and over 2,000 comments.

It was more than a hundred times the amount of data of his previous Weibo post, all in just one hour!

The power of traffic
Zhou Hongyi was somewhat stunned. Even though he was a seasoned businessman, this was the first time he had ever experienced the recognition of tens of thousands of people in an hour. The charm of this halo of public opinion was still irresistible to him, even though he was a veteran of the internet industry.

Why do coal mine owners, real estate tycoons, and internet giants ultimately end up in the film and television industry? It's because of the allure of this public image; the power of discourse is equivalent to power!
"I support Boss Zhou. I've been using 365 and it's great. As for security vulnerabilities, my computer hasn't been infected with any viruses!"

"Yeah, those antivirus software programs used to be really expensive. It's only since 365 started that I've felt more at ease with my computer."

"To be honest, Mr. Zhou is really a conscientious boss!"

The majority of the comments section still supports him, which is completely different from the previous two days when almost half of the dozens of comments were cursing him. It's as if a new world has been opened for Zhou Hongyi.

at this time,

Zhou Hongyi then realized,

Just how much confidence was conveyed in Peng Shaobing's "hmm"?
He previously commented on how ridiculous Weibo's user base and interaction volume were. He said that Weibo could instantly put him at the top of public opinion, and it could also instantly put others at the top of public opinion. What a terrifying force that is!
at this time,

Zhou Hongyi received another call from Peng Shaobing: "There's a topic called 'It's free, what more could you want?' Go participate and post something similar to your last one."

"Ok."

This time, Zhou Hongyi dared not express any dissatisfaction.

Following Peng Shaobing's advice, he posted another Weibo post, adding the tag "It's already free, what more could you want?"

When the plane from Hangzhou to Kyoto landed,
Zhou Hongyi opened her phone and took a look.
During the two-and-a-half-hour internet outage, this new Weibo post garnered over 20,000 likes, over 3,000 reposts, and over 1,000 comments, which seems much less impressive than the previous one, even though the content is almost identical.

The key is,

He saw the topic "It's already free, why would you want a bicycle?", which had already garnered over a million views.

In the topic square, there are also many more Weibo posts from real users, some supporting him and some opposing him, but the majority are definitely supporting him.

"Mr. Zhou?"

The secretary curiously reminded Zhou Hongyi.

How did he suddenly become so radiant and glowing?

"Hahaha!"

Zhou Hongyi looked up and smiled, leaving the secretary somewhat bewildered. Could it be that the boss had gone crazy from the pressure from Tencent?

Zhou Hongyi noticed the secretary's strange expression and wondered what he was thinking, but now she didn't care at all.

Zhou Hongyi finally experienced what it means to turn one's hand into clouds and rain!

The Red-Clad Cult Leader, only today does he deserve to be called a cult leader!

penguin,

Just do it!

……

"Mr. Gu, Jack Ma said he can accept our investment offer, but only one of the following can be retained: either the dual-class share structure or the board's veto power."

Peng Shaobing said to Gu Bei with a slightly excited tone that this was not the first venture capital offer he had reported to Gu Bei.

Half a month has passed since Tencent sued 365 and brought in Kingsoft and Kaspersky, both in the antivirus industry. It's now the end of November, and the official outbreak of the 3Q War is not far off.

Zhou Hongyi truly lives up to his nickname, "Red Cannon."

For the past two weeks, it's been a high-intensity battle against the Tencent League.

With the support of Weibo's traffic packages, the "Red Cannon" (a nickname for a prominent figure in the Tencent Penguin Alliance) has become even more powerful. Now, companies affiliated with Tencent Penguin Alliance are like rats crossing the street on Weibo, hated by everyone.

Many celebrities on Weibo initially refrained from expressing their opinions, as most of them had been famous for a long time and knew they couldn't easily offend media outlets like Tencent, which had its own Penguin website.

But celebrities who have only recently gained popularity through Weibo don't have as many reservations.
They followed the "Red Cannon" (a nickname for a popular internet personality) to gain traffic, and launched a tirade against Tencent, causing their fan count to skyrocket.

This prompted even the celebrities to jump on the bandwagon, who began discussing 365, Tencent, and the antivirus industry, joining the effort to gain attention.

To some extent, this is how traffic alienates people.

The key is,

Even Tencent Weibo has fallen victim to this.

At the beginning, most people on Tencent Weibo were on Tencent's side.

However, most of the users on Penguin Weibo were brought in from Penguin Space, and they were more focused on social interaction. Penguin Weibo lacked media attributes, and within a week, public opinion shifted to be exactly the same as Weibo.

The venture capitalists have seen this clearly in the past two weeks of confrontation.
What appears to be a battle between 365 and Tencent is actually a battle between Weibo and Tencent Weibo.
Despite having more users and more interactions than Weibo, Penguin Weibo can only follow Weibo's lead in terms of public opinion. Even Penguin itself cannot protect its own reputation. It goes without saying who is stronger.

It's not like venture capitalists haven't approached Weibo before.

The main issue is that Gu Bei not only requires dual-class shares,
They don't even give venture capitalists the veto power of a traditional board of directors, clearly indicating that they want venture capitalists to make purely financial investments!

In fact, the board system in China is not very perfect, especially compared with the boards of directors in North American companies. The power of the board of directors in China is much smaller, or it may be much larger, depending on the company.

But in internet companies,

The power of the board of directors is inherently smaller than that of traditional companies.
Most of the time, the CEO is in charge.
Therefore,
In internet investment, venture capitalists often need to obtain veto power.

The purpose is to restrain the founder and CEO when necessary; otherwise, venture capitalists are often no different from retail investors.
Gu Beicai was too lazy to argue with them. He could raise Weibo to go public without any problem. Weibo had been talking about opening up financing for a year, but there was no progress. It was like a high-class goddess in school treating venture capitalists like sycophants.

Previously, venture capitalists thought the goddess was faking it and not worth being her lapdog.

Now, venture capitalists have realized that the goddess is a real goddess, and they are starting to be willing to fawn over her.

"No compromise!"

Gu Bei frowned.

If we're talking about which of the three giants, BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), is most eager for traffic, it's definitely Jack Ma's Ali.

He wouldn't make concessions to Ali even if he made concessions to other venture capitalists, and the "Ali acquisition is a death sentence" rule also made him uninterested in Ali's money: "Besides, haven't Weibo's user numbers increased again recently? Let's raise our offer for Ali even higher!"

"understand!"

Peng Shaobing immediately understood and removed Ah Li from his shortlist.

After a pause,

He then moved on to the second matter: "President Gu, this afternoon five companies—Tencent, Baidu, Kingsoft, Maxthon, Keniu, and Kaspersky—issued a joint statement calling for a boycott of 365. Zhou Hongyi is prepared to fight them to the death!"

"No rush, let him exert force slowly; a soft knife cutting flesh hurts more!"

(End of this chapter)