America: Starting with the acquisition of MGM...

Chapter 166. Miss, are you embarrassed?

"Boss, MySpace suddenly went live at midnight today. I just searched for it and it's already possible to register and log in."

Fitz was giving a report over the phone.

"How's their website?"

Eric asked while opening a Google search himself, and instantly found it at the top of the first page.

Needless to say, such speed and accuracy must have come from paying Google.

Upon clicking the link, Eric noticed that the interface was somewhat similar to Facebook's.

Facebook's most popular phrase is "Welcome to Facebook!"

The message displayed in the center of the other person's screen was "join myspace!"

"Boss, I haven't been using it for very long yet, but although I also register an account with an email address, MySpace operates on an anonymous system."

"Users don't need any real information. Not to mention social security account numbers, they can fill in their name, address, education, occupation, etc., and just add a nickname at the end."

Eric burst out laughing: "Anonymity? What was the idea behind such a stupid setting? If you don't use real names for social networking, who knows if there's a cat behind that computer?"

Admittedly, real-name registration carries the risk of user privacy leaks, but it also guarantees authenticity, which is the most important cornerstone of social networks.

While anonymity reduces the risk of user information leakage, it greatly increases other problems.

For example, a pervert might pretend to be a minor to fish and make friends, then lure and deceive the other person into committing a crime.

For example, anonymity can provide strong protection for online fraud, money laundering, and the sale of contraband.

Moreover, this kind of criminal behavior is like a contagious disease. Once a few people start doing it, it often breeds a small group of people, which then attracts a large number of people.

It even involves bringing in real-world criminal organizations, severely disrupting user experience and public morale.

What Eric could think of, Fitz could naturally think of as well.

But instead of laughing, he said seriously, "Boss, while anonymity may create a lot of problems, I don't think it's stupid."

"One thing that is more attractive than real-name registration is that it can attract users more effectively, since disguising is the nature of the internet."

"An email address, just an email address that anyone can apply for, even a child as young as a few years old can get one."

"Myspace is more appealing to users of all ages than we are."

Eric nodded: "It's okay, don't worry about this kind of problem. The key is to focus on the user experience."

"What we need to do is to update and maintain normally, conduct internal reviews, and as long as we don't have any problems, the other party will definitely have problems."

"Because they are the pursuers, they are more anxious. If they are always in a weak position, they will inevitably make mistakes and make foolish moves."

How are Facebook's user data statistics right now?

After a brief pause, Fitz replied, "Currently, the number of registered users has reached approximately 1700 million, with an increase of about 400 million this month, and the number of active users logging in frequently within a week is around 1300 million."

"Currently, judging from the user profile, the main user group is still college students, but we are also starting to expand to high school students and working-class people."

"However, the growth rate cannot be compared with last month. Now the number of new users per week is fluctuating at around 3%."

"Last month's total visits were 1.9 million, and I originally expected to exceed 2.5 million this month."

"However, with the competition from MySpace, we may not be able to reach this figure unless we take some action."

"What do you want to do?" Eric asked.

"For example, the celebrity fan count ranking event that you asked us to do, boss, was supposed to be held at the beginning of the month, but we've been waiting for so long, isn't it because we're waiting for MySpace to go live?"

"In addition, I think it's time to start a promotion plan in major middle and high schools. The number of college student users has reached near saturation, and we need to expand into new territories."

"Besides high schools, there are also major companies, organizations, and groups. I think Silicon Valley is a very suitable place for experimentation."

"People here are the most open to new things, especially the internet. We can collaborate with companies in Silicon Valley to promote our products internally."

"Boss, what do you think?"

As Fitz spoke, Eric considered the feasibility of his suggestion, and after a few minutes said, "Let's start with the secondary school promotion first, and postpone the company and group aspects for now."

"I don't think this is a good direction. People in our country like to separate their lives from their work."

"Work is already tiring and frustrating enough; nobody likes being friends with their boss or supervisor online."

"What if they assign you work remotely? If your boss posts something, should you, as an employee, comment on it?"

"Everyone else is commenting that you're flattering him, but you're not. Will the boss have a problem with you?"

"For example, Fitz, you plan to go to a concert, take a sick day specifically to go, and are excited to post about it on social media afterward. But when you think about your colleagues and boss among your friends, would you still dare to post it?"

Fitz choked for a moment and said with a wry smile, "Definitely not. It's definitely better to separate life and work. I was thinking too simply."

"Let's do it that way then. Is there anything else?"

"Um"

"If you're stammering, then something's wrong. Go ahead and say it."

"Boss, everyone has been incredibly busy since Facebook launched. With more and more users, the pressure to moderate is increasing, and there's also the ongoing maintenance and technical development."

"Fifty people are a bit too few. When we're really overwhelmed, I'll have to ask Howard and Mirren to lend us more people, but I'm too embarrassed to keep asking. Could we hire another batch of new employees?"

"How many do you want to hire?" Eric countered.

"I've done the math, and if everything goes smoothly, seventy people should be enough to last until the end of this year."

"Okay, let's recruit them then. You'll be in charge, and I'll go check it out later."

After hanging up the phone, Eric realized that he really should hire more people for Facebook, mainly because he hadn't expected it to grow so quickly.

In addition, with the competition to be held by MySpace, unstable logistics are definitely not an option.

In fact, ever since Eric met James Murdoch at Nicole's birthday party on June 20, he had been waiting for the other party to make a move.

Now, almost a month later, it has finally arrived.

It seems this kid has convinced old Murdoch, but it's unclear how far old Murdoch will support him.

For a traditional newspaper tycoon, a stubborn old man, especially one who has experienced the internet debacle, rekindling his passion is not so easy.

That was a few years ago during the dot-com bubble, when Yahoo, with less than 3% of News Corp.'s revenue, created a market value twice that of News Corp., a phenomenon that spurred Rupert Murdoch.

So he went on a spending spree to invest in the Internet, spending over a billion dollars to acquire websites such as WebMD, Juno, TheStreet, and SixDegress.

The result was, unsurprisingly, shortly after the purchase, the internet bubble burst.

Murdoch's investments have almost all gone down the drain; that's over a billion dollars, not just a few dollars. He's lost so much money he's practically vomiting blood.

From then on, Rupert Murdoch never spoke well of the Internet again, and he even disbanded News Corporation's Internet division, completely abandoning it.

So even if it's the youngest son's request, Eric estimates that Rupert Murdoch might not be willing to invest much capital.

It's very likely similar to his father giving him 1000 million to take a gamble, or giving James six months to experiment.

If you succeed, you'll be a genius; if not, come back and let me arrange your work.

Eric believes that Rupert Murdoch will definitely set a goal for his son, and that goal will certainly be based on Facebook.

With 20 million Facebook users, he wouldn't ask for less than 15 million.

Once a user base is established, given Murdoch's greedy nature, he will certainly raise profit requirements.

Assets that cannot be liquidated are equivalent to liabilities.

However, given the current economic climate, there is only one way to make money from social networks: Google.

Unfortunately, users hate GG (Google/Google) the most. If too many GGs are inserted when the user base is not yet stable, this is no different from driving users away.

Before working on Facebook, Eric had already set a policy: he would not take over Google within a year, and even if he didn't make a single penny, he would rely on burning money to retain users.

Once user engagement increases and Facebook's features are fully developed, you won't want to leave even if you want to.

The sunk costs are too high; it will be time to fleece them later.

Just as Eric was finalizing Facebook's next development plan, MySpace also began a large-scale promotion.

With strong financial backing, MySpace's promotional strategies are similar to Facebook's.

First, there's the TV issue. As a product of its parent company, Fox Group is operating at full capacity.

News networks, television networks, and radio networks repeatedly broadcast GG at various times.

"Join myspace!"

"Join myspace!"

"Join myspace!"

Every Fox audience member was subjected to this brainwashing bombardment of the phrase "GG".

Then came online promotion; Yahoo, Google, MSN, and major forums all started their own marketing campaigns.

Then came offline promotion. MySpace didn't choose major universities, perhaps because it felt that those areas were already dominated by Facebook.

It chose the plan that Eric abandoned, and partnered with various companies and organizations to promote it.

They also hired a large number of people to frequent bars and nightclubs in major cities, recruiting DJs, musicians, and young women to join them.

This group is fun-loving and has a certain number of fans. More importantly, music is currently a weak point for Facebook.

The celebrities gathered on Facebook are mostly film and television actors, with some music as well, but they make up a smaller proportion.

MySpace, of course, didn't overlook the film and television industry either. MGM could leverage its connections, and Fox was no less powerful.

As a result, a large number of Hollywood actors opened MySpace accounts in just two days over the weekend.

Many of them overlap with Facebook, after all, there are only so many big-name actors that the audience is familiar with.

The actors were also helpless; they were all big shots and acquaintances, and they had to give face to both sides, not daring to offend either.

Eric certainly can't blame active players like Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, and Anne Hathaway for this.

Nicole even called him specifically to ask what to do, and Eric told her to just send a message as a token gesture; she and James Murdoch were only nodding acquaintances.

However, although celebrities will give face to both sides, who can retain them in the future depends on their own abilities.

Meanwhile, two weeks later, Facebook users received another tweet from the system announcing an official event.

"Vote for your favorite star!"

Facebook will launch a ten-day ranking event to determine who is the most popular person.

The rules are simple: the number of fans determines who ranks the star, and the star whose fan nickname ranks first will receive a gold badge.

The second to fifth ranked brands are marked in silver, while the sixth to tenth are marked in bronze.

Facebook also bought a Google Play spot, and launched a massive online campaign to compete with MySpace's Google Play.

Monday arrived, and after breakfast, Eric drove to the film set. Today was the start of filming for "House of Cards".

Eric had just parked his car when a white Land Rover suddenly pulled into the parking space next to him.

He was already very familiar with this car; it was naturally occupied by the beautiful Charlize Theron.

After getting out of the car and walking to the Land Rover, Erica opened the car door and reached out her hand, revealing two firm, beautiful legs wearing flat sandals.

Theron smiled sweetly and helped Eric down.

boom!

The car door closed, and Theron rolled her eyes at him: "Aren't you going to let go? I'm not disabled."

"I won't let go!"

Eric squeezed hard as he spoke, and Theron's expression immediately turned conflicted.

"Don't do this, Eric. You know I have a boyfriend. This isn't right."

Eric, however, didn't listen to what she was saying at all. He leaned closer and whispered in Theron's ear, "Miss, you're embarrassed."

Theron's breathing suddenly became heavy. He forcefully pulled his hand away, glared at Eric, and hurriedly left.

Upon arriving at the photography studio, she calmed her wildly beating heart, and for some reason, sighed again.

Patty Jenkins looked over curiously: "What's wrong, Theron? Why are you sighing?"

"There's no director, filming's almost over, right?"

"Well, there are only a few scenes left. Let's try to wrap up filming within two days. Go get your makeup done."

Charlize Theron made an "oh" sound and walked towards the dressing room, then couldn't help but sigh again.

"Filming for 'Monster' is about to wrap up, and I'm afraid we won't have a suitable reason to meet again. The script for 'Inception' isn't even finished yet, so we can't use that as an excuse."

She muttered to herself, feeling a little disappointed.

"That bastard, he's such a nasty guy! He always bullies me and tries to seduce me. He's so awful! Why is he so handsome and outstanding?"

"Charlize Theron, wake up! You have a boyfriend. Eric Cooper is a womanizer. He's been linked to Nicole Kidman, Gal Gadot, and the Olsen twins. You two aren't a good match."

"Yes, we're not a good match. I can't betray Stuart. He's very good to me, although he can be temperamental at times and we do argue, but I can't be the one who betrays him."

The makeup artist was applying makeup to Theron, who was staring blankly ahead.

In his mind, the images of Eric and Stuart kept intertwining and shifting.

Perhaps she herself didn't know when she had become so deeply involved, both physically and mentally.

Ugh!

(End of this chapter)