Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 439 Pony Ma's demands and the situation have changed!

Upon hearing this string of names, Gu Bei gained a better understanding of just how many enemies Zhou Hongyi had.

This is a joint statement issued directly in the name of the company to boycott 365. This kind of blatant alignment is not something that Tencent can easily pull into.

and,

The penguin plus the name Baidu
Any one of these examples would be terrifying enough in today's internet age.
The two largest members of the BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) internet giants have jointly issued a statement, along with Kingsoft, a smaller giant, and three other companies that are just there to make up the numbers. The sense of pressure is simply overwhelming!

Judging by the timing, this should be the real trigger for the 3Q War. Tencent was probably tormented by privacy issues over the past period and planned to wipe 365 out of the internet industry.

Zhou Hongyi is probably really scared now. Pony Ma is usually so polite and refined, but he can be so ruthless when he strikes.

but,

How is Zhou Hongyi feeling? Is she able to sleep at night?

Gu Bei didn't care.

Anyway, Weibo hasn't openly intervened yet.
Zhou Hongyi shouldered all the pressure from Tencent alone; it had nothing to do with Gu Bei or Weibo.
For Gu Bei, the longer the 3Q war dragged on, the less attention Tencent would have to pay to it, especially since an instant messaging software called WeChat had already appeared on the market.

Starting with version 1.0 two months ago,
WeChat now has over one million registered users.
It's currently in a small-scale internal testing phase, and there hasn't been a large-scale investment in marketing and promotion.
We simply spent money to attract some initial users through Tencent's competitor's email service, and the user profile was basically office workers in first- and second-tier cities.

Then, these users sent emails to invite their friends to register for WeChat, and gradually, the user base steadily reached millions.

If WeChat were a webpage,

This user base is impossible to hide from anyone.
After all, anyone who pays attention can notice the number of users on a webpage.

Fortunately, WeChat is a client application, and data collection in the current mobile internet era is not yet fully developed.

Moreover, even with millions of users, most people give up after a few days, and not many people actually use WeChat for continuous chatting. Therefore, WeChat remains as unknown as an iceberg hidden in the mobile internet.

The key is,

The longer the time frame, the more people will find out.

The more suppressed the anger, the more intense the outburst!

"President Gu, I feel that Zhou Hongyi is not able to hold on much longer."

Peng Shaobing said with a hint of helplessness.

The names Penguin and Baidu are truly terrifying. Zhou Hongyi is called a "red-clothed cannon" by internet people, but that's relative to science and engineering guys; his heart isn't that big yet.

"Hang him up!"

Gu Bei said calmly, "Tell him that after I return to China, I will personally help him."

"OK!"

Peng Shaobing hesitated for a moment.

Because he knew that if Gu Bei returned to China, the earliest he could do so would be next year.

The reason Gu Bei hasn't returned to China since participating in the North American promotion of Gravity is that he's about to attend the premiere of Social Network and then wait for Liu Yifei to fly to North America so they can start filming Mission: Impossible 4 together.

Waiting until Mission: Impossible 4 has finished filming around the world before returning to China is a bit too early to say next year.

After all, the Oscars season is at the beginning of next year. As the core of Rose Pictures, Gu Bei and Liu Yifei cannot be absent from the Oscars season even if they don't have any films competing for Oscars.

If Zhou Hongyi were to actually believe it, it would probably be a very long time coming.

but,

Peng Shaobing didn't think Zhou Hongyi would actually believe Gu Bei.
A tech mogul like Zhou Hongyi would definitely prioritize his own ideas when making decisions.

The following week,
A wave of anti-365 fever swept across the internet.

Besides the initial six internet companies that issued statements boycotting 365, more and more companies have begun to boycott 365, as if 365 is a cancer in the internet industry, although there is some truth to that.

While Gu Bei was busy preparing for Mission: Impossible 4 in North America across the Pacific Ocean, he could feel the terrifying dark cloud hanging over 365's head, behind which was a domineering penguin.

Zhou Hongyi has been holding back until now and still hasn't revealed anything.
Instead, they became even more aggressive on Weibo, launching a fierce attack on those companies.
I don't know if he was under too much pressure or if he had finally realized that even negative publicity can be considered positive.
at this time,

Gu Bei received a call from Lei Jun, the founder of Coarse Grain: "Mr. Lei, why are you still up so late? Is it because of the financing?"

Recently, the company is preparing to launch its first round of financing. Gu Bei obtained the ticket through Weibo, which is why he received a call from Lei Jun.

"Mr. Gu, I have a friend who wants to contact you. I wonder if you would be willing to have a chat with him?" Lei Bus said, sounding somewhat embarrassed.

friend?

Pony Ma!

I wonder if Pony Ma knows that you are using the Kik framework to develop MiTalk?
Lei Jun stepped down as CEO of Kingsoft at the beginning of this year to focus on starting a business in whole grains.
Whether Lei Jun held a position at Kingsoft or not made no difference. Kingsoft sided with Tencent from beginning to end during the 3Q War, and Lei Jun's influence was definitely involved. However, Lei Jun still developed MiTalk during this period.

It can only be said that the business world is like a battlefield, and even these big shots are not immune to this.

"can."

Gu Bei agreed.

After a while,
The phone rang again.
This time it came from an unknown number.

"Hello, Director Gu."

Pony Ma's voice sounded somewhat familiar. Gu Bei had met and talked with Pony Ma many times during the first few years he worked at Tencent.

"Is General Ma here to sue for peace?" Gu Bei asked preemptively.

Pony Ma smiled slightly upon hearing Gu Bei's words.

It seems Gu Bei isn't so confident after all. His first sentence revealed his true thoughts: he also wanted to make peace with the penguin.

Actually, there was already some clues when Gu Bei poached Zhang Xiaolong last year.

Excessive humility breeds arrogance!

Gu Bei was as confident as ever in the Penguin headquarters office, but then he turned around and poached Zhang Xiaolong from Penguin's Guangzhou branch, which shows that Gu Bei's personality is not as confident as it seems on the surface.

He immediately felt reassured: "Director Gu is joking. Weibo and Tencent Weibo are in fair competition. There's no question of seeking peace or not."

After a pause, he continued, "However... Zhou Hongyi has been slandering Tencent and a host of other internet companies on Weibo. Shouldn't Weibo take some action against this kind of account that damages the atmosphere of the Weibo community?"

Are you teaching me how to do things?

Gu Bei continued to maintain his facade.

“Director Gu, I don’t mean to teach you how to do things, but I think…” Pony Ma said calmly, his emotional control had always been quite good.

"I don't want you to feel it, I want me to feel it!"

Gu Bei continued to emphasize the emotions in his tone, making himself appear as if he were trying to be very assertive.

Pony Ma: "..."

After a pause, he took a step back, indicating that he would absolutely not order Gu Bei around: "Of course, Director Gu has absolute control over his company!"

"That's good!"

Gu Bei snorted coldly.

"Director Gu doesn't need to be too resistant to Tencent. We don't actually have any ill intentions towards you or Weibo. It's just that Zhou Hongyi is not a good person. If Director Gu continues to support Zhou Hongyi, he is actually going against the entire industry."

Pony Ma spoke calmly to Gu Bei, trying to avoid touching on sensitive topics, "Actually, Tencent has always wanted to invest in Weibo, and we could even discuss merging Tencent Weibo with Weibo."

"Can you accept my financing terms, including no veto power and dual-class shares?" Gu Bei countered.

“We can talk.”

Pony Ma said earnestly.

Gu Bei was almost reluctant to deceive Pony Ma. He said in a firm tone, "But I don't want to talk to you. I understand the principle of mutual dependence, seeing how you deal with 365."

"Director Gu, Director Gu..."

Pony Ma looked at the busy tone coming from her phone and immediately felt a headache coming on.

The penguin executive next to him asked, "How is it?"

Pony Ma said helplessly, "He's like a child. He hung up the phone as soon as I couldn't coax him."

"Young people are indeed a bit hot-blooded."

A Tencent executive, considering Gu Bei's age, felt that his situation was understandable.

"But what about Weibo? Are we just going to let our image continue to deteriorate?" another Tencent executive asked.

"Let's focus on dealing with Zhou Hongyi first. I've noticed a shift in public opinion lately; more and more people are seeing through Zhou Hongyi and starting to feel disgusted by his statements."

After thinking for a moment, Pony Ma said, "I think we can also try to reach out to Gu Bei. Weibo's media attributes are something that Tencent Weibo can't cultivate yet. Gu Bei is interested in raising funds and going public through Weibo, so this is our opportunity."

at the same time,

Gu Bei, who was in North America, dialed Zhang Xiaolong's number.

Zhang Xiaolong had clearly just been woken up: "President Gu, although there is a time difference between China and the US, could you please call at a slightly better time next time? At my age, I can't fall back asleep if I'm woken up."

"You're like this at forty?"

Gu Bei chuckled and joked, "Enough said, WeChat version 2.0 can be released now. Get ready in the next couple of days!"

"That's it?"

Zhang Xiaolong felt somewhat helpless.

"Zhang Xiaolong, the next week may be our only chance in this lifetime. Whether we can successfully launch a surprise attack on Tencent depends on the performance of WeChat version 2.0."

Gu Bei's tone became serious.

"Understood, Mr. Gu!"

Zhang Xiaolong nodded solemnly.

The so-called WeChat 2.0 version is actually a game-changer that will disrupt the entire mobile internet ecosystem. It brings the phone's address book into WeChat and automatically adds friends whose phone numbers have already been registered with WeChat.

Two weeks ago, Kik gained over a million registered users in 15 days by incorporating existing contact lists and emails, posing a significant threat to WhatsApp.

but,

Given the Kik team's lackluster feature development capabilities,
This is why they will fade into obscurity in the mobile internet era.

The longer Gu Bei studied instant messaging, the more he realized that Tencent's path of combining instant messaging with games was not accidental, but inevitable.

Because instant messaging and online games are very similar in nature,

The people they attract will churn in large numbers from day one, and it's only through feature updates (version updates) that they can be brought back, only to churn again in large numbers.

However, instant messaging has one advantage: as the user base grows, the churn rate slows down.

Therefore, the battle for instant messaging is very simple: continuously stimulate users' interest through various functions, and when the user base reaches a critical point, it will be invincible.

At this point in time
At a time when Kik had just experienced a surge in popularity, and the industry hadn't yet grasped the logic behind his success,
It was still a time when software similar to Kik had not yet appeared on a large scale globally.
It was also on the eve of the 3Q War, and Tencent would soon have to deal with public condemnation for some time, leaving it no time to deal with WeChat.

This is Gu Bei and Zhang Xiaolong's only chance!
After hanging up Zhang Xiaolong's call,
Gu Bei immediately dialed Peng Shaobing's number: "Things have changed!"

Peng Shaobing was still in a daze, but he immediately came to his senses: "Wait a moment."

There was a rustling sound on the other end of the phone, and then he came to the study: "Mr. Gu, what is it?"

"Notify Zhou Hongyi that the situation has changed. Let him release whatever information he has. One day... three days, then freeze his account."

Gu Bei's tone was full of fatigue, as if he had just gone through something.

Zhou Hongyi is a big shot who has emerged from the internet age. Gu Bei knows that if he directly orders Zhou Hongyi, he doesn't know what she will think and she may not do as Gu Bei wants.

Then we can only force him to do it!

When Zhou Hongyi was given only three days to live, he had no choice but to give it his all.

Gu Bei wasn't afraid that Zhou Hongyi would kneel down to Tencent, after all, Tencent had directly penetrated 365's core territory. 365 was going to go public in the US next year, and if Tencent took over its core territory, 365 would never be able to recover.

As for Peng Shaobing, Gu Bei didn't tell him about the WeChat thing, so this matter also had to be kept from him.

"Mr. Gu, how could things have changed so quickly?"

Upon hearing this, Peng Shaobing's tone was filled with surprise.

Just a few days ago, Gu Bei was as calm as ever. The power that could cause such a drastic change in him in such a short time must be...

I'll explain later.

Gu Bei said calmly, "I'm hanging up!"

After hanging up the phone, Gu Bei looked out the window at the sunny Los Angeles. The City of Angels has such comfortable temperatures and weather all year round, but his body trembled slightly, as if he felt a chill.

He hesitated for a moment with his phone in hand, then dialed a number.

"Hello~"

A soft, sweet voice came from the other end of the phone, filled with anger at being woken up, "Gu Bei, you're so annoying!"

Gu Bei felt a sense of calm instantly: "Qianqian, I missed you!"

Liu Yifei, who was still grumpy from waking up, immediately woke up and her tone softened: "What's wrong?"

"It's alright, just hearing your voice is enough!"

(End of this chapter)