Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 543 A Tiny Cloud: A Top-Tier Rich and Beautiful Woman!
On October 26th, the first Virtual Game (Magic Blade) Open Peak Tournament, jointly organized by Zhiyun Virtual Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, together with Magic Light Technology, Yihai Technology, and several other companies providing live streaming services, officially began.

Before the official start of the competition, in order to gain greater influence, Magic Light Technology allocated a large amount of funds for publicity and promotion, while Zhiyun Group also provided traffic support.

The main promotional channel for this event was ByteDance Video, a subsidiary of Yihai Technology!

Currently, there is no channel more suitable for promoting internet products than TikTok!
The number of users is too large, and it is also a promotional channel targeting the global market!
While Yihai Technology's move is partly to align with Zhiyun Group's virtual industry strategy and partly to seize the leading position in the virtual game live streaming business, the virtual game live streaming business has become the fastest-growing segment of Yihai Technology's live streaming business, with impressive user viewing time, high levels of tipping, and strong sales performance from streamers!

Therefore, Yihai Technology also cooperated fully with the promotion of this open peak competition!

The combination of these two is absolutely amazing!
After all, Yihai Technology's bouncy video promotion channels are directly aimed at netizens around the world.

As a globally operated and number one short video app, ByteDance can be found in most countries and regions, except for a few special countries and regions, and ByteDance occupies a good market share in each locality.

The total number of users is enormous!

ByteDance has over 600 million active users in the Chinese market.

In overseas markets, ByteDance Video has over 100 million users in the United States and over 100 million users in Brazil.

There are fewer users in Europe, but there are still more than 80 million users. However, the average user time spent using the app is the longest in Europe, and the spending level is also relatively high.

In addition, Indonesia in the ASEAN region has hundreds of millions of users. Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey, Russia and other countries are also important markets for ByteDance Video, each with tens of millions of users.

Even in the Japanese and South Korean markets, ByteDance Video has a decent number of users... Of course, due to the specific characteristics of those local markets, the total number is not large.

The rapid development of ByteDance Video is inseparable from its outstanding commercial monetization capabilities. While other competitors, such as Facebook and Google, have also launched short video businesses, ByteDance Video has never been a standalone short video business. Strictly speaking, it is just a traffic portal.

Behind this are a series of channels and platforms that provide content creators with ways to monetize their content, such as the Duohai Shopping Platform, the ByteDance Advertiser Program, and live streaming rewards/sales.

Content creators produce various short videos, accumulate followers, and then accept various advertisements to promote products and attach product links in advertiser programs.

You can also open an online store directly on the Duohai shopping platform and then link the online store to your personal homepage!

This creates a system where content is created to attract fans, who then use those fans to advertise or directly sell products, thereby monetizing the traffic!
ByteDance Video generates revenue by taking a percentage of the profits, such as a share of advertising fees from advertiser programs or service fees for directly linking products to its platform.

The efficient dissemination of short videos, the high user engagement and usage time brought about by AI recommendation algorithms, coupled with efficient monetization models... all these factors have attracted a large number of high-quality content creators: you can make money by publishing short video content on TikTok, and if it goes viral, you can make a lot of money!

This high-quality content, in turn, has attracted more ordinary people to download and use ByteDance Video.

More users, in turn, attract more content creators to create content on TikTok.

This creates a virtuous cycle, allowing them to quickly seize the market!
This is one of the core reasons why ByteDance Video's user base has grown so rapidly, both domestically and overseas!

Then, this content creation-traffic monetization system, plus the retail of goods brought by the Duohai International Shopping Platform... The merchants on the Duohai International Shopping Platform are not only a large number of domestic merchants going global, but also a large number of overseas merchants. And the products of these overseas merchants are also delivered to global consumers through TikTok + Duohai Shopping Platform.

The overseas version of the Duohai shopping platform is named "International" because of its global reach...

This means that many goods from the local countries will also be exported through TikTok and Duohai International Shopping Platform!
Finally, let's also talk about the local logistics boosted by e-commerce!
With content creators, local businesses, export channels, logistics industry, and other models combined, Yihai Technology's short video + advertising + e-commerce model has cultivated a large number of related practitioners in almost every market!
The content creators mentioned are just the surface-level practitioners... Behind them are a large number of business practitioners, advertising, planning, and operation personnel engaged in new media operations and e-commerce operations.

Truck drivers and delivery personnel in the logistics system.

If you add up all the fields together, the number of people working in those fields will be enormous!

The large number of people who rely on ByteDance Video and Duohai International Shopping Platform to make a living have, to some extent, become a shield for ByteDance Video to expand its business overseas!

In the early stages of ByteDance's overseas expansion, many countries did not pay much attention to the short video model, treating it merely as an ordinary entertainment app for passing the time.

Later, some people noticed that the content in the TikTok videos might not be suitable for the laws, regulations, or cultural customs of their localities. There is indeed vulgar or illegal content in some places. For example, content creators in India like to create all sorts of messy and vulgar content.

Then some people will think that bouncing videos are harmful and need to be banned...

However, at this point, they also discovered that a large number of people in the industry were already making a living by TikTok.

Banning TikTok is easy, just a matter of a word. But if it is banned, Yihai Technology can simply walk away, leaving behind hundreds of thousands or even millions of unemployed people... which makes things very difficult.

Because direct bans would have too much negative impact and there are too many concerns, even if there are any dissatisfactions, the only option is to request rectification, such as banning certain accounts or content based on IP addresses from the local country.

Of course, Yihai Technology basically complies with these requirements... As long as the local authorities make legitimate requests based on local laws and regulations, Yihai Technology will comply and will not go against them!
Yihai Technology's overseas operations are actually quite well-behaved... at least on the surface, just like Zhiyun Group's operations around the world, which strictly comply with local laws and regulations!
Of course, tax avoidance is not included!
What multinational corporation doesn't avoid taxes?

Almost every year, Zhuyun Group is fined or sued by some country for tax issues overseas. Zhuyun Group usually goes to court, and if it loses the case, it pays the fine. But it just doesn't change its ways, and only makes its tax avoidance more covert.

I bet you won't be able to find it next time!
Then there are Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and so on, plus Yihai Technology, Hailan Auto, etc., they are basically all the same.

Multinational corporations are the undisputed leaders in the field of tax avoidance, and in many cases, they even form alliances on tax avoidance issues.

The case of Apple and Zhiyun fighting together against European tax issues is a prime example... Although the two companies are locked in a fierce battle, they have always stood firmly together in the face of European tax avoidance. Later, Google, Samsung, Facebook, Microsoft and other companies also provided assistance, both overtly and covertly!
Because the EU's stance is: regardless of whether you are Zhiyun, Hailan, Yihai Technology, or even Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Facebook... they will all be fined!

The tax avoidance issue between major multinational corporations and the European Union has been a long-standing and likely ongoing dispute.
Apart from tax avoidance issues, Yihai Technology has been very law-abiding in its overseas operations, especially in terms of content control, where there have been virtually no major problems!

Especially after Yihai Technology extensively integrated with Zhuyun Group's Yun AI artificial intelligence, its content control became very robust.

Relying on Yun AI, a super-large artificial intelligence model, Yihai Technology has highly efficient control over video content and user comments on its subsidiary, ByteDance Video.

Ensure that content distributed to local country IPs complies with local laws and regulations!
Global operations and a massive user base... these factors allow ByteDance Video to launch product promotions with tremendous force!

Of course, it's unlikely that Yihai Technology would use ByteDance Video for global traffic distribution for ordinary products... Usually, only their own products, or products from Zhiyun Group and Hailan Auto receive this treatment.

This type of advertising isn't just mindlessly placing ads; it involves allocating traffic to relevant video content. It's a very subtle advertising model that doesn't lead to excessive user engagement.

In the lead-up to the virtual game open tournament, ByteDance Video prioritized virtual game-related content, increasing the traffic weight of this type of video content.

This means that during this period, short video content related to virtual games will receive more traffic... So many content creators who make virtual game-related content will find that their videos are getting more traffic than usual these days.

In addition, the virtual world is the hottest and most eye-catching topic this year, and many ordinary people are willing to see this kind of content, so the traffic is usually very high.

The combined effect of these two factors resulted in a very large reach for the first Virtual Game Open Summit!
Not only virtual game players, but also a large number of people with some interest in the virtual world have learned about the relevant information.

This surge in popularity thrilled Fang Junli of Magic Light Technology... It felt like winning the lottery, like a pie falling from the sky!
The traffic is enormous... Three days before the official start of the competition, a large number of new users flooded into the game "Magic Blade". On the night of the official start of the competition, the peak number of online users exceeded 80,000... This number is even higher than that of "Kingdom Summit"!

Many users with virtual devices weren't originally users of the Magic Blade game, but now they've come to watch the excitement, casually play a game, and also check out the martial arts competition.

Meanwhile, on the official live streaming channel that Demon Blade opened on TikTok, the number of viewers surged rapidly, quickly reaching three million concurrent viewers... This figure is not just the number of views, but the number of people online at the same time.

And this is just one of the live streaming channels; there are actually many more... In accordance with Zhiyun's consistent tradition of promoting live streaming, the live streaming content is directly licensed for free, and anyone can use a signal to live stream. Moreover, they have thoughtfully provided professional-grade live streaming models, including movie-level 3D visuals!
Therefore, many internet celebrities and bloggers are also live-streaming this martial arts competition on TikTok.

Then, many other short video or video media platforms have also opened live streaming rooms for live broadcasts. As for the exact number of live streaming channels and viewers across the entire network, those are impossible numbers to count!
Such a large-scale event made some Magic Light Demon Blade players who were preparing to participate in the open peak tournament both nervous and scared!
The Demon Blade tournament held server-wide preliminary rounds a few days ago, and players who reached level 30 could sign up to participate!

After several rounds of preliminary rounds, the top 64 players have been selected. These players will then compete in pairs to determine the top 32. The remaining players will continue to advance through rounds: the top 16, the top 8, the top 4, the semifinals, until the finals determine the strongest player!
The players who made it into the top 64 and officially competed in the open tournament were all wealthy, either second-generation rich kids or first-generation entrepreneurs. They had seen a lot of big events offline and were surrounded by groups of so-called experts online!
But... the audience nowadays isn't just a few hundred or a thousand people in the game... it's millions or even tens of millions.

It wasn't just domestically; there was a huge audience both domestically and internationally. Not only in Asia, but also in Europe and the Americas, there were large groups of people waiting to watch the game.

To be honest, they were quite nervous facing such a large audience!

In a villa in Shanghai, a young man with blond hair was scrolling through various information on his phone. He even went into the official live stream room of the Demon Blade and muttered, "This scene is much more high-class than the opening of the Divine Dragon Set in the bar!"

"With so many people watching, they have to make it through the first round!"

After thinking for a moment, he immediately contacted someone: "Old Lu, can I borrow your level nine armor for a bit? I'm going to be on stage soon, it's the first round. I don't know who my opponent is yet, but it's better to be prepared. My secret armor is only level eight, I'm afraid I might get caught off guard..."

"I also want to craft them myself, but as you know, we can't get the materials these days. Everyone's frantically scrambling for crafting materials, but the game only produces so few, it's impossible to get them!"

"Alright, thanks! I'll definitely help you get the Merchant Token later. Don't worry, I'll ask the guild's war team to help you get it until it appears!"

"But why are you running a trading company? What's the point of doing business in a game? You don't need those measly little profits... Why don't you join my guild? I'll be your vice guild leader, and we can each lead a guild war team and wipe out those bastards!"

After hanging up, he made another call... but when he got through, the other end said the equipment had already been lent out... it was gone!

He wasn't the only one who wanted to borrow equipment!

Borrowing equipment at the last minute is quite difficult, since there are only so many high-level equipment in the game, and it's not something you can easily borrow whenever you want.

The equipment system of Demon Blade is a typical example of a money-grabbing free-to-play mobile game: it's obsessed with making money!
Of course, there is also an element of luck involved. The stats for crafting equipment are random, and it is very difficult to get equipment with high initial attributes.

Then you need to synthesize the equipment!

The materials for crafting equipment are even more expensive. Although all materials are nominally produced in the game and players can farm them gradually, there simply aren't enough...

Some of these materials have a very low drop rate in the game, but they can be purchased directly with in-game currency obtained through top-ups in the in-game store... This essentially allows wealthy players to directly purchase materials from the in-game store.

This is equivalent to players directly paying money to the game company, which is a way to make money!
However, some materials are only produced in the game and are not sold in the system store... This is a means to limit the number of high-level equipment, otherwise high-level equipment would be everywhere.

After all, there are a lot of rich players in Magic Blade. If everything is sold directly in the store, high-level equipment will quickly become abundant, which will lead to the devaluation of high-level equipment!
Therefore, if gamers want to craft or synthesize equipment, they need to purchase large quantities of materials that are only produced in the game from other players. This means that the output of ordinary gamers from completing tasks can also bring them considerable profits.

This can also promote the trading of materials within the game, encourage players to run dungeons and complete quests, and prevent them from logging in and doing nothing but fighting all day long... thereby extending the game's lifespan!
This has resulted in equipment in the game "Magic Blade" being quite expensive, with high-level equipment often costing hundreds of thousands or even millions... mainly due to the high cost of crafting and synthesizing.

Buying these materials from other players won't be cheap... After all, most other players aren't short of money, or at least they're middle-class. If you want them to sell the abandoned materials they've worked so hard to obtain, the price won't be low!
This ultimately led to a scarcity and high price of advanced equipment!

Even for top-tier players who have made it to the open tournament, it's extremely difficult to assemble a full set of level 9 gear... they can't even borrow it!
However, this does not affect the entertainment value of the game!
Even the differences in equipment have led to unexpected and interesting matches!
Once the competition officially began, the first round of players started to fight one-on-one, and the various special effects amazed many people who had never been exposed to the Magic Blade!

Especially for users watching the game in the virtual world, they are directly in the game venue, watching live... This immersive experience of watching the game is much more enjoyable than watching a movie.

Ordinary viewers outside the virtual world can only watch regular 2D images, while some users with the means can get 3D glasses to watch 3D images.

Even these conventional scenes look incredibly gorgeous... This is the biggest feature of the Demon Blade: when they fight, the scenes are extremely spectacular!
Various kinds of light flew everywhere!

This match was much more exciting than any movie.

In this competition, Feng Hualong, the number one figure in the virtual game live streaming industry, also ushered in a new peak in his virtual game live streaming career!

Although the official live streaming channel of Magic Blade also invited some so-called internet celebrity streamers, including some with long legs in black stockings, and provided a lot of data from the official source for explanation.

However, the game's official team only knows these superficial things, but they know nothing about the intricate interpersonal relationships, love, hate, and grudges among these masters.

Who knows?

It's Feng Hualong, of course!

He had been playing the game for months, moving among various experts and beauties, and had heard countless gossip stories.

This also makes his live commentary more attractive.

"In today's first round, although the other matches were pretty good, the most exciting one was undoubtedly the match between 'Love in Nonsense' and 'Berserker Instant Kill'."

"The 'Bullshit Boss' is the leader of the Bullshit Gang. He's quite strong and was once recognized as being among the top ten in terms of combat power."

"And Berserker Instant Kill is Berserker Boss, the vice leader of the Sunflower Gang. His combat power ranking was once consistently in the top 20. These two are well-known experts in the game, and they are also recognized rivals in love."

"Not long ago, these two had a conflict over 'Little Cloud'. They've already had several private PK battles and even arranged a guild war! I even livestreamed their first PK. I wonder if the viewers in the livestream remember. Back then, it was 'Bullshit Master' who defeated 'Berserker Master' in just over 130 moves!"

"But there's a rumor in the martial arts world that some time ago, the Berserker ambushed the Bullshit Master and supposedly killed him in just ten moves!"

"Speaking of the feud between these two big shots, we have to mention a key figure, namely 'Little Cloud,' the top beauty among the Ten Beauties of the Martial World. Rumor has it that the two big shots had a dispute because of Sister Cloud. Let's interview Sister Cloud to find out the truth!"

"That's right, today, Yun Duo, the number one of the top ten beauties in the martial arts world, will also be a guest in our live broadcast room. Now I'll turn the camera to Sister Yun for a brief interview!"

Immediately afterwards, the viewers in the live broadcast room, especially those watching the live broadcast through 3D, saw a beautiful woman in ancient costume who was beautiful in almost every inch!
No, calling her a beauty is an insult to her!
She looks like she's ethereal, so beautiful she seems inhuman... Most importantly, she doesn't look lifeless or unreal like AI beauties.

The beautiful woman in ancient costume right in front of you is standing there alive!
"Wow, this 3D graphics look even more beautiful and realistic! How did they sculpt this person's face?"

"I heard that in virtual games you can use your own photo combined with 3D scan data from virtual devices to generate a personalized virtual character panel. Could this be what Yun Duo really looks like?"

"This is absolutely the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, bar none. Compared to Yun Duo, all celebrities and internet personalities are just garbage!"

"Oh my, she spoke! Her voice is so sweet, like a fairy's. It's intoxicating!"

"She smiled, and that smile is making me sleepless tonight!"

"Damn, no wonder she caused so much trouble in the martial arts world, she's just too stunningly beautiful!"

"Now I'm curious, with such beautiful clouds, such a lovely voice, and an ethereal aura in every movement, she must be a stunning beauty in real life!"

"Although this is a virtual game screen, a person's expression, movements, and speech cannot be changed. These are all cultivated from childhood, and a woman who can have such an expression, movements, and tone of voice must be a beauty in real life!"

"Judging from Yunduo's level and equipment, they're pretty good. She must have spent a lot of money playing games. She's a rich woman!"

"She's a top-tier rich and beautiful woman, I wonder which bastard will end up getting her!"

(End of this chapter)