Restart life

Chapter 485 0475 [So Busy I Want a Brain Replacement]

Without celebrities doing live streams, many netizens wouldn't watch this kind of thing.

They were even too ashamed to talk about it, and at most they would secretly watch it a couple of times, because at this point the live stream was considered to be "borderline".

But it's different when a tycoon like Chen Guiliang personally does a live stream. He doesn't play games, sing, or dance; he just sits there chatting with everyone.

It was made to look like a high-end online interview program, which instantly elevated its sophistication.

Many viewers who came from social forums didn't play games much. After Chen Guiliang closed the live stream, these people still felt unsatisfied and clicked into other live streams.

They found that most of the live streams were filled with people playing games, while only a few were filled with people singing and dancing. They were immediately disappointed and started sending messages asking if there were any live streams specifically for chatting.

When there is demand, there is market.

A number of opinion leaders from other websites have started livestreaming on AcFun to discuss social issues. Their styles and content are incredibly diverse, with some even resorting to spreading rumors for the sake of traffic, causing headaches for the platform's moderators.

Yu Jianrong, who launched the "Take a Photo to Rescue Begging Children" campaign and engaged in a heated online debate with Fang Zhouzi, is a typical public intellectual today and was even praised as the "most popular professor" last year.

He registered on Weibo last year and gained 250,000 followers in just three months; his follower count has now surpassed 500,000. Hearing that Chen Guiliang supported him during a live stream, he became curious and started doing live streams on AcFun (A-site). With his experience of giving dozens of speeches a year, he quickly became one of the top three streamers on the entire platform.

This person's remarks have always been extreme, and sometimes even seem quite abstract.

But he did indeed push things forward, and when Chen Guiliang supported his activities, he was completely objective and not personal.

Public intellectuals are like the media; don't assume they're all in cahoots. Yu Jianrong and Fang Zhouzi are both public intellectuals, and both belong to the liberal faction, yet they've been attacking each other for years.

……

A-site CEO Jiang Feiyu is giving a report during a video call:

“When we first acquired AcFun, we had less than 40 registered users, but the daily active user ratio was very high, consistently above 25.”

"After Mr. Chen announced the acquisition of AcFun, it attracted widespread attention both online and offline. By the end of last year, AcFun had over 150 million registered users. However, the daily active user ratio has declined, hovering around 50."

"After launching the live streaming channel, a large number of gamers were attracted. By the end of February this year, ACFun had over 4 million registered users. These new users mainly come to watch game live streams. Many of them are fans of esports players or loyal players of a particular game, and they only watch other videos in their spare time."

"Mr. Chen's live stream a few days ago attracted a lot of attention, resulting in 110 million new registered users on A-site in just a few days. Especially recently, several internet celebrities have joined, bringing with them a lot of fans..."

"Recently, we've been collaborating with Youke's promotional efforts by livestreaming the 'Oracle Era' National City Championship. Every day, players are being drawn to the game through in-game announcements. Some of these players have registered accounts, but many are just casual viewers who only watch the matches without registering an account..."

"Our immediate goal is to reach 10 million registered users on AcFun by May, and to achieve a peak concurrent user count of over 500,000 on our live streaming channel. This peak concurrent user count excludes visitors."

"Paid conversion rates are not a concern right now; our focus is on visitor conversion rates. The key is attracting visitors from other websites, getting them to register accounts, and maintaining their activity..."

"I've applied to collaborate with multiple games under Youke, and you can get free game skins just by registering on ACFun..."

After listening to the report, Chen Guiliang said, "I agree to hold a free skin draw event. You can discuss the specifics with the marketing and operations departments of Youke."

After ending the call, Chen Guiliang connected with executives from both companies to hear detailed reports on the specifics of their respective business operations.

There have been a lot going on this year.

Just after returning from the Chinese New Year holiday, Liu Qiangdong called to ask Chen Guiliang if he wanted to make additional investments.

JD.com just received a $1.5 million investment from Tiger Global last year, half of which only arrived at the end of the year. Now, JD.com's CEO, Dongzi, is already seeking venture capital again, and this time it's still in Series C2.

JD.com is definitely a money-devouring beast!

Another one is NavInfo.

After the Spring Festival, the company's stock price fell again, and Chen Guiliang arranged for hundreds of accounts to quietly buy shares. The goal was to gradually accumulate more than 4% of the shares through secondary market purchases before July.

If the stock price rises midway, the session will be paused.

Online banking has been actively seeking partners recently, and ByteDance's mobile browser is about to enter into a deep partnership with it. In short, they are pushing forward with mobile payments.

UC Mobile Browser is also in talks with online banks for cooperation.

The era of mobile payment is about to begin, but the next few years will be in the promotion phase.

The central bank will also officially issue payment licenses.

Youke's Youpay wants to obtain a license, primarily targeting corporate clients and gamers. This license should be no problem; Youpay has already grown large enough. What was previously a gray area tacitly approved by the government is finally about to be brought onto the right track.

ByteDance's mobile browser payment system, intended as a prototype for WeChat Pay, also plans to obtain a payment license. If the first batch of license applications fails, they will apply for the second and third batches.

This matter requires Chen Guiliang to personally intervene.

Speaking of WeChat, Chen Guiliang then connected with Discuz! CEO Dai Zhikang.

Dai Zhikang said, "We will soon update the mobile WAP site building assistant to version 2.12... The one-click APP generation tool is still under development and is expected to begin testing next year..."

Tencent has already launched a competing product!

Because Chen Guiliang had already registered the name WeChat, and even the names Weixin and Weiliao, Tencent's new product was eventually named "Zhangxun" after much effort.

With the help of QQ, Tencent's "Zhangxun" user base has approached that of ByteDance's "WeChat" user base in just two or three months.

ByteDance reacted as if facing a major threat, rushing to open the service ahead of schedule and calling on third-party mini-programs to join. ...

Chen Guiliang listened to the latest reports from all parties and wrote and drew on paper to see if he could strengthen cooperation between the products of the two companies.

Not only do they need to collaborate with their own companies, but they also need to attract more third-party manufacturers to cooperate.

Chen Guiliang wrote four characters on the paper: Fully open.

This year marks a year of openness for the Chinese internet, with Baidu's application platform, Tencent's eight major platforms, various brand Weibo accounts, Taobao Mall, and others all set to announce their open strategies.

The cutthroat competition among IT companies has gradually shifted towards a pattern of competition and cooperation.

Chen Guiliang had been working on opening up the platform for a long time, and this year he simply opened it up completely.

Continue to lead the trend of the times.

WeChat, in particular, must suppress Tencent's competitors by opening up its platform.

After thinking for a moment, Chen Guiliang wrote another line: ByteDance is increasing its shareholding again.

He needs to raise another round of funding from the United States.

Since January, the growth rate of China's gaming market has continued to slow down.

Client-based games account for 80% of the market share, but their growth rate has dropped to less than 10%. Web games have seen explosive growth, and mobile games are also developing rapidly.

Renren.com, HaiNei.com, ByteDance Weibo, and AcFun are all excellent traffic entry points for web games, and ByteDance has made a fortune from web game advertising.

ByteDance's Q4 and full-year financial reports released in January showed impressive website revenue, rapid growth in Weibo, and explosive mobile phone sales, giving US investors even more confidence in ByteDance.

Currently, ByteDance's stock price has officially broken through $100.

After the economic crisis ended, storytelling became popular again in the US stock market.

ByteDance tells a compelling story, constantly expanding into new businesses. With revenue growth in existing businesses and booming new ventures, the image of a burgeoning "business empire" is becoming increasingly clear.

Sohu is also telling this story; despite poor data from its new businesses, its stock price still surged to around $80.

In contrast, NetEase, despite having revenue far exceeding that of Sohu, has not told a compelling story for a long time, and its stock price has been hovering around $40.

"call!"

After considering everything, Chen Guiliang left the company with a headache and went straight to the supermarket to buy groceries.

Change your perspective.

Because he was wearing a baseball cap, not many people paid him any special attention; even if they thought he looked familiar, they assumed they had mistaken him for someone else.

Who would believe that Mr. Chen personally came to buy groceries?

Bian Guanyue went home from the school library and also bought some groceries at the supermarket. When she got home, she found that Chen Guiliang had already cooked a whole table of food.

"What's wrong with you today?" Bian Guanyue asked curiously.

Chen Guiliang smiled and said, "Adjust your emotions and clear your mind."

Bian Guanyue picked up her chopsticks, took a few bites, and said with a hint of apology, "Do you usually just make do with the food I cook? Yours is much better."

In fact, Chen Guiliang's cooking skills were only at a basic level; he had never seriously practiced this kind of thing.

But the dishes he made were even tastier than those made by Bian Guanyue.

I don't know what happened, but Bian Guanyue was very serious and even flipping through the recipes to learn.

"As long as it's edible, it's fine," Chen Guiliang said.

Bian Guanyue thought for a moment and said, "We should hire a cook for the family. I guess my cooking skills are hopeless."

Chen Guiliang said, "I'll ask someone to find one for me back in my hometown?"

"That's great. It suits both of our tastes," Bian Guanyue said, expressing her support.

Chen Guiliang immediately called his mother and asked her to find a reliable older woman who was also a good cook. He insisted she not be young and pretty; Chen Guiliang didn't want any trouble at home.

"There's a folk music concert at the National Centre for the Performing Arts next week. Are you free to go with me?" Bian Guanyue asked happily while eating her meal.

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Even if I don't have time, I'll have to find some time."

Bian Guanyue took a few bites and said, "My mom has been calling me every month for the past two years. I used to hate her a lot, but maybe because I'm doing better now, that hatred isn't as strong anymore. She said she wants to come to Beijing for a trip and also wants to visit my home, so I plan to take her around."

“If you think it’s appropriate, then that’s fine. After all, you’re mother and daughter,” Chen Guiliang comforted her. “My parents’ situation with my second uncle’s family and my grandfather’s relatives in the city is much more complicated than yours. But they’ve reconciled now, haven’t they? It’s me who can’t let it go. I’m actually quite narrow-minded.”

With Chen Guiliang's support, Bian Guanyue felt much more relaxed and was no longer as internally conflicted as before. She smiled and said, "Then I'll ask her to come over next month."

-

(I usually start writing this 8 AM chapter around 4 or 5 AM. The weather's been changing lately, it's freezing cold in the mornings, and I have trouble getting out of bed. Sorry.)
(End of this chapter)