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Chapter 452 0442 [The Internet in 2010]

The Weibo war is far from over.

Because major companies have found another way to promote their products—by directly installing their own Weibo applications on smartphones.

Therefore, Sina announced at the beginning of the year that it had partnered with Nokia for Sina Weibo. Many Nokia phones produced from now on will come pre-installed with Sina Weibo.

Zhang Chaoyang is a rather eccentric person. He occasionally posts updates on ByteDance Weibo, yet he continues to insist on running Sohu Weibo. He even personally brought in big names like Zhao Benshan, Li Lianjie, and Liu Xiaoqing, who don't usually go online, and exclusively brought them to Sohu Weibo.

Tencent has also re-entered the market.

After Tencent's TaoTao (Weibo) was integrated, it was officially launched as "Tencent Weibo" this year, and at the same time, an app adapted to three smartphone systems: Symbian, Microsoft, and HarmonyOS was developed.

Furthermore, Tencent has started promoting its QQ platform through pop-up ads. As soon as you log into your QQ account, you'll quickly receive pop-up ads about Tencent Weibo.

Using this method, Tencent Weibo quickly surpassed Sina and Sohu, becoming the second largest force in terms of registered users, second only to ByteDance's Weibo.

NetEase Weibo continues to pursue an elite, high-end, and differentiated strategy. While its user base is relatively small, its user activity is quite high.

Tianya Weibo also emerged as a dark horse, carving out its own path in the microblogging field with its massive user base from the Tianya forum.

Baidu's move is the most outrageous. Its Weibo product hasn't even grown yet, but it's already started its own internal struggle!
First, it created "Baidu Talk," while also having "iTieba." This year, it launched "Baidu Weibo." All three products have Weibo functionality, leaving Baidu users unsure which one to use.

"Baidu Talk" also forcibly links to Baidu Tieba accounts, requiring users to upload a real profile picture and enter their real name and ID number for verification during registration.

Yu Jun, who has already joined Zhihu as an advisor, couldn't help but complain on ByteDance's Weibo after seeing his Baidu Tieba platform being exploited and manipulated: "Does Baidu no longer have any product managers with normal brains?"

Loyal users of Baidu Tieba forwarded and commented on his Weibo post.

"Old Yu, come back. Since you left, Tieba has become increasingly difficult to use."

"Brother Jun, where have you gone into seclusion?"

"Baidu's product managers these days are fucking insane!"

"..."

Yu Jun then posted another Weibo message in response: "I am currently a consultant at Zhihu, doing quite well, and I will not be going back. Zhihu has been officially separated from HaiNei.com and has become a separate subsidiary of ByteDance. Next, we will increase the issuance of registration invitation codes and will fully open Zhihu account registration within three years."

The Weibo post immediately attracted widespread attention.

A former vice president of Baidu has actually jumped ship to Zhihu, a subsidiary of ByteDance?

Zhang Chaoyang quickly called Chen Guiliang: "The Baidu vice president you poached last year was Yu Jun?"

“Yes. He wanted to keep a low profile, so I never went public,” Chen Guiliang said.

Zhang Chaoyang couldn't help but exclaim, "You guys are the best! How much annual salary did you pay him?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Not high, they don't pay for the five social insurances and one housing fund. They're temporary hires... well, temporary workers."

"Damn it!" Zhang Chaoyang hung up the phone.

Chen Guiliang wanted to hire Yu Jun to work on WeChat or Weibo, but Yu Jun remained unmoved and stayed on as an advisor at Zhihu. Chen Guiliang then offered him shares in Zhihu, but Yu Jun still refused.

……

The economic crisis seems to be over, and with the development of smartphones and 3G networks, a new era of internet entrepreneurship is dawning.

Zhang Yiming, who worked at ByteDance's Weibo, and several colleagues resigned en masse. They've secured angel investment and are planning to launch a mobile-based home rental and purchase business, and have even quietly developed a related mobile application.

On the contrary, Chen Hua, the former CEO of Kuxun.com, continues to work as an executive at ByteDance, responsible for developing and improving vertical search, user analysis and other content, and is also actively connecting and cooperating with the Chengdu Cloud Computing Center.

Once Chen Hua achieves significant results in his research and development work, he will likely resign and start his own business.

Chen Hua had even discussed it with Chen Guiliang, and that once he found a good startup project, Chen Guiliang would approve his resignation. Not only would the non-compete agreement be voided, but Chen Guiliang would also provide him with angel investment.

After repeated defeats, Wang Xin officially founded Meituan this month.

After the Spring Festival this year, the "group buying" model suddenly emerged. Now there is already a battle of hundreds of groups, and next will be a battle of thousands and tens of thousands of groups.

Meituan has many competitors, and to survive, it must fight its way out of a mountain of corpses.

This wave of startups, including Weibo, is almost entirely related to smartphones and 3G networks.

Entrepreneurs who had been dormant during the economic crisis seemed to have caught a whiff of blood and sprang to life, creating all sorts of apps.

HarmonyOS is just what it needs!

These Chinese entrepreneurs first focused on Symbian system apps, and then on developing HarmonyOS and Microsoft system versions.

As for Android and iOS versions, they are not considering them for the time being because their market share is too low.

……

At the end of March, bloggers on a large number of social networking sites, including ByteDance Weibo, Haiwainet, Sina Blog, Sina Weibo, Tianya Weibo, and Sohu Weibo, began to frantically advertise Xiaxin mobile phones.

The second phone based on the HarmonyOS system is about to be released!

Xia Xin's CEO, Li Xiaozhong, personally called Chen Guiliang: "Mr. Chen, could you use your Weibo account to promote Xia Xin mobile phones?"

“Okay,” Chen Guiliang agreed immediately.

This isn't a competitor, this is a true friend. Chen Guiliang is happy to help promote products from the HarmonyOS camp. That same day, Chen Guiliang posted on Weibo: "Congratulations on the release of the second phone from the HarmonyOS camp. Xiaxin was once one of the leading domestic mobile phone manufacturers, and now they've shifted their focus to the smartphone market. I believe they can achieve great success again."

The reason why Xiaxin mobile phones can be launched so quickly is because they were already developing smartphones, but they just changed the operating system to HarmonyOS.

They created their own user interface based on the HarmonyOS system, called XIAUI.

However, it still uses a resistive touchscreen, requiring a stylus for operation. The reason for doing this is twofold: firstly, they already had the foundation, resulting in a very short development cycle; secondly, it doesn't require changes to the supply chain, making it very convenient to implement.

This Amoi phone is priced at just over 1,000 yuan, making it less competitive against the HarmonyOS A1.

Because it can directly use HarmonyOS apps and is featured in the highly popular HarmonyOS community, Xiaxin's new phone, despite lacking many highlights, still managed to sell reasonably well.

This situation instantly boosted market confidence for other mobile phone manufacturers in the HarmonyOS camp, prompting them all to accelerate their mobile phone research and development.

Chen Guiliang's prestige also rose again.

The reason is simple: as the owner of a mobile phone manufacturer, he was actually willing to promote Amoi!
This is what a leader should be like.

Rong Xiuli, the CEO of Tianyu, even commented under Chen Guiliang's Weibo post: "CEO Chen is righteous."

Wu Ying also tagged Chen Guiliang and Rong Xiuli, adding, "President Chen is a righteous man."

They quickly formed a unified response, all praising President Chen's righteousness.

These guys are just here for the fun of it.

Because their Weibo nicknames are all "xx mobile phone xxx", such as "Xingyao mobile phone Wu Ying".

They learned from Chen Guiliang's marketing tactics, frantically increasing their online exposure and jumping on every trending topic to generate traffic. Before the phones were even made, their brand name and the boss's name were already familiar to netizens.

Moreover, these mobile phone company owners don't let their teams manage Weibo; they operate it themselves. Whenever they have free time, they browse Weibo, see what's trending, and then express their opinions.

Some controversial remarks were inevitable, but public opinion was quite tolerant at the time, and surprisingly, no major car crash occurred.

In this very simple era of online social networking, every Weibo account represents a real person.

Celebrities also laugh and rant without any concern for getting into trouble. Due to their generally low educational level, celebrities' Weibo posts are full of typos, but netizens generally interpret them as typos.

Even Uncle Benshan occasionally posts a couple of Weibo posts on Sohu.

He was brought in by Zhang Chaoyang and only frequents Sohu Weibo; he doesn't juggle multiple platforms. ByteDance and Sina both approached him to join, but Zhao Benshan rejected them.

Chen Xiaoxu is quite interesting. She posts on Weibo every day, and only has an account on ByteDance Weibo. The content is basically an excerpt from a book, accompanied by a brief reading reflection, showcasing her reading experience of the day.

This kind of Weibo post attracted a lot of literary youth, who read the same books as Chen Xiaoxu.

Damn it, the environment can influence people.

Chen Guiliang, who never used Weibo in his previous life, now spends at least 40 minutes a day browsing it. He's having a blast.

Of course, Chen Guiliang mostly just watched the drama unfold, as his status as the owner of the social media platform made it difficult for him to speak out easily.

And here comes another trending Weibo post.

Zhou Hongwei complained on ByteDance's Weibo account: "Some companies really do everything, and they'll stop at nothing. In response, I will soon launch a privacy protector and QQ Guard."

Haha, the 3Q War is coming.

Chen Guiliang couldn't resist joining in the fun, commenting, "I'm here to watch the drama unfold, you guys continue."

This Spring Festival, Tencent launched "QQ Doctor" to steal market share from 360 Security Guard. Moreover, in second- and third-tier cities and below, they directly went to electronics malls to conduct on-the-ground promotions, getting computer stores to pre-install QQ Doctor on new machines.

In less than a month, they captured 40% of the market share.

Even Chen Guiliang's cousin, Feng Tao, now pre-installs QQ Doctor on the computers he sets up for people. He gets a commission for every computer he installs it!
Who knows how much Tencent has spent on advertising?

Zhou Hongwei was clearly panicked. He was a rogue to begin with, and now he had encountered an even bigger rogue than himself.

"Old Master Chen is here to watch the drama too?"

What does "eating melon seeds" mean?

"You didn't know that? Of course you're just watching the show while eating watermelon. Haha, Mr. Chen always comes up with new terms. I remember he was the one who popularized the word 'roast' back then."

"Is the Red-Clad Cult Leader engaging in shady dealings with Tencent?"

"The term 'yin-yang' was popularized by President Chen. Damn, there are so many people with yin-yang traits online now."

"Tencent deserves to die!"

"..."

A Weibo post by Zhou Hongwei attracted a large number of Tencent haters, with many company bosses and executives collectively criticizing Tencent.

Because Tencent has offended too many people and its business scope is too wide.

The famous article "Damn Tencent" was published this year, and it was even published in an authoritative IT magazine.

This year is the year with the worst reputation for Tencent.

(End of this chapter)