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Chapter 467 0457 [The Eve of the Live Streaming Era]

Jiang Feiyu is a mid-level manager at ByteDance. During the recent major departmental reorganization of ByteDance, he was appointed as the deputy general manager of the "User Growth and Operations Department" under the "Hainan Network Business Unit" of the "Social Network and Content Business Group".

This promotion speed is already quite fast, considering he only joined ByteDance after the Series C funding round.

Jiang Feiyu was extremely excited when he was summoned by his boss today, thinking that his work had stood out and won the emperor's favor.

"Hello, boss!" Jiang Feiyu bowed at a 90-degree angle.

Chen Guiliang smiled and said, "Please sit down."

"Thank you, boss." Jiang Feiyu sat down properly.

Chen Guiliang asked, "Are you an anime/manga enthusiast?"

"Huh?" Jiang Feiyu was completely confused by the question.

Chen Guiliang said, "Your performance at last year's company annual meeting was quite good. I remember you played Conan, traveling to the world of 'Death Note' to solve a case. The plot was a pretty hellish joke, but it really left a deep impression on me. Who wrote the script?"

Unaware of his boss's intentions, Jiang Feiyu cautiously replied, "It's the script I wrote."

Chen Guiliang then asked, "Do you know about A-site and B-site?"

Jiang Feiyu said, "I know. The creator of Bilibili is my junior from university."

"Have you heard the news that I just bought AcFun?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Jiang Feiyu nodded: "I've heard about it."

Chen Guiliang said, "How about you manage A-site?"

"what?"

Jiang Feiyu was clearly unhappy: "Boss, I'm doing well at HaiNei.com, don't send me away! Besides, it was Youke that bought AcFun, and I'm now an employee of ByteDance."

"I'll just transfer my work relationship there," Chen Guiliang said.

If we ignore QQ Zone, HaiNei.com is now the largest SNS website in China, and Jiang Feiyu's position is the deputy general manager of HaiNei.com's operations department. Although he is only a mid-level manager within ByteDance, it's still a hundred times better than going to that crappy AcFun.

Jiang Feiyu looked troubled.

Chen Guiliang reminded him, "I personally negotiated the acquisition of A-site, which is related to Youke's future development strategy. Do you understand?"

"Is there some kind of preferential treatment in terms of resources?" Jiang Feiyu suddenly perked up.

Chen Guiliang said, "When the time is right, we will directly flood the country with resources."

Jiang Feiyu stood up abruptly and said seriously, "I'll do whatever the boss tells me to do. I'm a brick in the company..."

"stop!"

Chen Guiliang said, "Since you're an anime enthusiast and familiar with AcFun and Bilibili, I don't need to explain the basics. AcFun currently has too much copied content, and it's impossible to forcibly reverse this in a short time, otherwise it will backfire and cause user dissatisfaction. Just support original and derivative videos a little."

"Once you get there, first upgrade A-site's servers and bandwidth. Focus on developing the gaming section. Also, add an article section where users can post text and images and reply to comments."

Jiang Feiyu sat down and asked, "I'd like to know the boss's long-term strategy."

Chen Guiliang said:

"First, we need to establish a profit system. One is for the website to pay video creators; the second is for advertisers to pay advertising fees to the website and video creators; and the third is to establish a membership recharge system. We can't rush it now; we have to take it slowly."

"Second, establish a live streaming model. There were game live streaming platforms abroad as early as 2007, and it seems there have been new technological breakthroughs this year. You should talk to Dong Qianqiu of Youke, and he will provide you with a technical team."

A profitable business system cannot be built overnight.

A-site currently focuses on uploading videos, which is essentially piracy. If the copyright holder sends a lawyer's letter, the safe harbor principle allows them to simply delete the video and avoid legal risks.

Paying content creators who repost pirated videos is tantamount to the website itself operating a pirate operation, which carries significant legal risks.

Therefore, the only option is to pay original videos to encourage more content creators to produce original content.

As for game streaming, it emerged overseas three years ago, and now the streaming technology is becoming increasingly mature. Next year is expected to see a boom, hailed as the "Year Zero of Streaming".

Jiang Feiyu discussed some details with Chen Guiliang, and then made a request: "I want to bring two teams with me. One is an operations management team, and the other is a technical support team."

“Okay,” Chen Guiliang reminded, “Don’t kick out all the existing administrators from A-site at once, to avoid causing resentment among users. After you’ve screened them, keep some. By the way, you can also add a dance section and invite anime girls to post dance videos. Any kind of dance is fine, but I guess otaku dances have the highest acceptance, and otaku dance videos are the easiest to create. I guess many of the old perverts who have been brought here like to watch beautiful girls dance.”

……

Not long after AcFun was acquired by Youke, it suddenly shut down and underwent a redesign.

Yu Zhibo is a long-time anime and manga fan. He loved watching anime since elementary school and became a user of AcFun (A-site) in middle school. Now a high school sophomore, he faithfully browses AcFun to watch anime every day after school.

The site was closed for two whole days, and Yu Zhibo was getting restless and anxious, so he could only browse the ACFUN forum when he had nothing to do.

After dinner today, Yu Zhibo opened Tieba as usual, and the title of a post excited him.

"Haha, it's finally back to normal, but the new version of AcFun is a bit hard to get used to."

"The new website interface is much cleaner and simpler. Youke is indeed a big company. The old A site interface was too messy and looked unprofessional."

"I still prefer the old version."

"I estimate that A-site will no longer crash every few days in the future."

"Holy crap, Chen Laozu posted a video. I checked his account registration time, it's even earlier than mine, this guy is a veteran ACER!"

"Really? I'll go take a look!"

"..."

Yu Zhibo immediately went to AcFun, and sure enough, the first recommended video on the homepage was posted by Chen Guiliang.

In the video, Chen Guiliang waves at the camera: "Hello everyone, this is Chen Guiliang. I chased away that annoying monkey by throwing bananas at it, and I've brought you a new batch of monkeys. You're welcome. People have suffered from monkeys for too long, I was just doing what I was supposed to do. Look at the registration date of this account, I guarantee it wasn't bought. If I'm lying, may I be made to eat some fertilizer..."

The screen was filled with flying bullet comments, and artistic bullet comments had already appeared.

I don't know which genius came up with the idea of ​​using bullet comments to form a pattern of "bananas hitting monkeys," which took up the entire screen and floated by.

Some people even used bullet comments to create a face of Chen Guiliang, and it actually looked quite similar.

Ten years later, this kind of "artistic bullet comments" is basically nowhere to be seen on any website. Looking at the comment section, it's clear that there are a large number of non-anime/manga fans who were drawn in by Chen Guiliang.

The website has also added two new sections: "Dance" and "Articles," and the "Games" section now features glowing text.

Yu Zhibo clicked into the [Dance] section, and the cover images were all of beautiful young women he didn't recognize—dance students hired by the website for a fee, paid to post ten dance videos. Their continued employment was entirely up to them, with payment based on view counts and "bananas" (similar to Bilibili coins).

When you open a dance video, most of the comments are praising the girl's beauty, and many people are spamming "Down with AKB48".

The "Games" section also features many more videos, mainly about "Three Kingdoms Kill", "Future Era", and "Oracle Era".

"what is this?"

Yu Zhibo noticed a "Live Streaming" section, but the text was grayed out, and clicking on it didn't open it. It's probably still under construction.

XSplit, a revolutionary software in the live streaming industry, launched its beta version at the end of last year and released its official version in June of this year.

Previously, live streaming required using multiple software programs, making the technical process very cumbersome. XSplit, however, integrates scene editing, image capture, audio mixing, and streaming media delivery into a single interface, allowing even novice streamers to operate it in a user-friendly way.

……

Shanghai, Team WE.

After reviewing the livestreaming contract in his hand, SKY asked in surprise, "This five-year, 30 yuan livestreaming fee, is it really just for 30 hours of livestreaming per month?"

The legal representative from AcFun said, "Yes. We will give you an additional amount of money based on the traffic during your live stream. We are also developing a gift-giving system, so you can also get a share of the revenue from the gifts your fans send you."

SKY continued to bury himself in the contract.

In addition to the monthly streaming hours, he is also required to stream "Oracle Era" for at least one hour per week. At other times, he can stream whatever he wants, and he can even sleep in front of the camera if he gets too tired.

Isn't the website just giving away money for free?
SKY couldn't believe such a good thing could happen.

He is undoubtedly a top e-sports player, and has even served as an Olympic torchbearer. His various sources of income add up to several hundred thousand yuan annually.

Such high income is unique to this store; there are no other branches.

Other esports players earn at most two or three thousand yuan a month, and very few can earn more than 4000 yuan.

Some players even earn only a few hundred yuan a month and rely on the club to provide them with food and lodging to survive.

Giving SKY 30 yuan in live streaming fees over five years is a considerable sum, even without other revenue sharing. After all, it doesn't interfere with his main job; he only needs to stream for a short time in his spare time.

Of course, the club will definitely get a share.

“We have already spoken with WE Club, and the club said they respect your wishes,” said AcFun's legal representative.

Without much thought, SKY happily exclaimed, "I'll sign!"

SKY was signed to a five-year live streaming contract for 30 yuan; other esports players would obviously be cheaper.

A-site is spending money like crazy to sign players.

The esports clubs that were originally extremely dissatisfied with Chen Guiliang have now changed their attitude.

Because A-site has a contract with the club, the club also receives an additional income.

This kind of behavior is just throwing money away.

There are very few viewers watching game live streams, and almost none of them are willing to pay, so AcFun has to keep pouring money into it.

We are gradually cultivating the live streaming market.

Chen Guiliang's every move is now under the scrutiny of his peers.

His high-profile announcement of acquiring AcFun (A站) made this small website famous. Now, AcFun is aggressively signing esports players and launching live streaming services, making it hard for them to go unnoticed by the gaming industry.

Many people were completely baffled and couldn't understand what Chen Guiliang was trying to do.

The more this is the case, the more people value it.

When Chen Guiliang first started using Weibo, nobody understood it, but now Weibo has become incredibly popular.

Chen Guiliang's announcement that he would enter the Middle Eastern game market was taken as a joke at the time, but this year the media reported that Youke made a fortune in the Middle East.

……

Tencent.

Liu Zhiping personally reported the situation to Pony Ma: "Justin.tv, the first live streaming platform overseas, was established in 2007. It was a comprehensive platform that broadcast everything. In 2008, a game live streaming channel was separated. In 2009, the live streaming business grew rapidly, and game live streaming became a separate category on Justin.tv. This year, we have made a technological breakthrough and have dedicated live streaming software."

"How's the profit?" Little Ma asked.

Liu Zhiping said, "Direct profits are not much, but the advertising business is growing rapidly. I think we can't just look at the profits. Chen Guiliang's goal is definitely not to make some money from live streaming. He may be building an ecosystem."

"Ecology?" Little Ma seemed to be thinking.

Liu Zhiping said, "Last year, he open-sourced the HarmonyOS system, which was part of a grand strategy. This year, he acquired AcFun to start a live streaming business, and signed a large number of esports players, investing heavily without expecting anything in return. More and more game enthusiasts will gather on AcFun to watch videos and live streams, and it may even acquire the Chinese online live streaming rights for international esports events such as WCG in the future. Esports is also a sporting event, Mr. Ma, think about the NBA!"

Little Ma said, "We can do that too."

Liu Zhiping said, "But all the famous e-sports players in China have been signed by Chen Guiliang. They're all on five-year contracts."

Xiao Ma hesitated for a moment, not too optimistic about Chen Guiliang's move. After thinking for a while, he said, "Let him do it first. We'll follow up when the time is right. We can then use money to poach people, and we'll pay the breach of contract fees for those streamers."

Tencent doesn't need to expand or cultivate the market, because doing so would be too risky.

It's not too late for Tencent to enter the market when it's more mature. With its massive size and ample funds, Tencent could easily seize the opportunity and take over the market that others have cultivated!

Therefore, Tencent decided to wait and see.

Tao Chenggang was the one who trusted Chen Guiliang the most, and he was the first to choose to follow suit.

And the move was unexpected: Tao Chenggang actually acquired Bilibili. Bilibili just copied whatever AcFun did…

Chen Guiliang was both amused and exasperated. He called Tao Chenggang and asked, "Brother Gang, what are you doing?"

Tao Chenggang said, "You eat the meat, I'll drink the soup. Let's make money together. Anyway, I have a lot of cash on hand right now, and I'm just worried about how to invest it."

(End of this chapter)