What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 411 Shadow
Instagram launched its 15-second video feature, preventing Vine, which had become wildly popular in the first half of 2013, from dominating the short video market.

Vine, backed by Twitter, boasts a massive user base, while Instagram, similarly backed by Facebook, has over 1.5 million monthly active users. A comparison of these two companies' explorations in short videos is worth observing.

Yu Xing only noticed the Instagram follower at the second moment, and he also found it very interesting.

Vine embraces minimalism, while Instagram is more flamboyant, now supporting features like filters and image stabilization. Moreover, the latter allows direct sharing to Facebook without needing to rebuild social relationships, which seems to be quite an advantage.

Informal discussions have arisen within Silicon Carbon Data regarding the competition between the two software programs, with the main topic being which one has a brighter future, and both Vine and Instagram having supporters with compelling reasons.

Yu Xing did not express his opinion, but he felt that if the scope was simply limited to these two platforms, Instagram seemed to have more advantages.

Silicon Carbon Data has not made any moves to launch a short video project, and seems to be merely discussing industry trends.

However, a few days later, Lü Haiying privately conveyed some of everyone's thoughts.

"Senior, many people in the company are thinking about the prospects and operation of short videos, and they're all eagerly waiting for you to select their talents."

Yu Xing was somewhat surprised: "I didn't say I was going to choose someone to do it."

“You didn’t say it, but your interest has been shown. You’ve been criticizing Tencent’s practices on TV shows and having internal company discussions,” Lü Haiying laughed. “Everyone thinks that your discussions are a way of observing and selecting people to see who would be suitable for this kind of project.”

Yu Xing pondered for a moment and said, "I really hadn't thought about it that way. I just wanted to think about it with everyone when we had some free time."

After saying that, he habitually asked, "What do you think of these two companies?"

Lü Haiying is also someone who rarely expresses her opinion in daily discussions.

“Senior, look at you, the moment you ask that, I feel like you’re testing me. But if you really are testing me, I’ll preemptively state that I’m willing to try this kind of project within the company.” She said seriously, then replied, “I don’t know if Instagram will work, but Vine seems to have a lot of problems.”

Yu Xing continued to listen without giving a direct answer.

“Instagram is primarily a photo-sharing app. Adding short video functionality feels more like a supplement. In other words, its core focus remains photos. If short videos can achieve a sufficiently broad market, treating video functionality as a supplement might not be feasible,” said Lü Haiying, sharing her thoughts. “As for Vine, frankly, its minimalist concept coupled with its rapid user growth is quite impressive.”

"With the market performing like this, even Instagram is copying it. How can we easily deny its prospects?"

“But a few days ago, when I took my beloved shopping, we met a passenger using Tencent Video on the subway.”

“She was acting strangely. I saw her open the Weishi app, but then she closed it without filming anything.”

"I was curious, so I switched places with the person next to me and asked her. She gave me a very simple reason: she said the photo wouldn't turn out well."

“Weishi basically replicated Vine’s minimalism. When I looked at Vine again using the excuse of ‘not being able to shoot well,’ I immediately realized that Instagram’s flashy style actually served a very important purpose.”

"That means lowering the barrier to entry for users to create content."

Lü Haiying spoke eloquently, mentioning the barriers to entry for content platforms.

Vine doesn't have filters, but Instagram does, and it directly uses the mature technology of Vine's image filters, offering 13 filters.

Vine allows for a single 6-second shot, while Instagram supports 3-15 second segmented shooting and editing, and also features image stabilization technology.

The two products have very obvious differences.

Before the product competition has determined the winner, Lü Haiying, who is in charge of creating the latest trending content this year, has been a clear supporter of Instagram because its various features are more conducive to user content creation.

A content platform can only hope to become a vibrant force if it can continuously attract users to create content.

From this perspective, Vine's so-called minimalism is not conducive to the long-term development of a content platform.

Lu Haiying shared her thoughts and reflections, and finally shook her head, saying, "Vine can only shoot in its raw state. Users have to figure out things like ambient lighting and scene design themselves. Aside from trying it out at the beginning, you still need to learn if you really want to shoot good results."

"If you don't learn, the things you shoot won't have positive feedback, and it will be difficult to maintain the shooting frequency later on."

"In my opinion, Instagram hasn't lowered the barrier to content creation enough. Its filters are fixed; you can only choose them before shooting, and you can't edit them afterward. I think it should be lowered to the bottom, and ideally, a template that can be created with one click should be developed."

"Didn't WeChat simplify the registration process with a single click when it was promoting itself? Short videos should do the same."

Lu Haiying was referring to the registration process from PC to mobile software. The former requires various security questions and such, while the latter only requires entering a mobile phone number and a verification code. Yu Xing looked at Lu Haiying, who seemed to be enjoying herself, and sighed, "No wonder Liu Bang only needed one talented person from Pei County to conquer the world."

"Haha, senior brother, are you praising me? You only need talents from our school to conquer the world, right?" Lü Haiying laughed.

“Instagram just launched short videos, hmm, Xiaoying, your observation and thinking… are indeed reasonable.” Yu Xing said seriously, “Weishi has Tencent, Miaopai has Weibo, Vine has Twitter, and Instagram has Facebook. Everyone has a lot of traffic. If we also do this project, traffic is important, but it shouldn’t be the most important thing. The highest priority is to clearly define the positioning of the content platform.”

It's not about not wanting traffic, but about how to build a content platform when you already have a certain amount of traffic.

Lü Haiying nodded and asked, "Senior brother, shall we do this part?"

Yu Xing gave a relatively definite answer this time: "Let's stir things up with Weishi first. There's no need to rush. We need to refine the content, traffic, and algorithm."

Lu Haiying smiled slightly, feeling that if a new position were to be offered, she would likely be among the top candidates.

The company is paying close attention to any potential new projects, because things are different now than when they first started. WiFi Master Key and the latest hotspots now generate a significant amount of data traffic.

……

Tencent's Weishi quietly conducted a phased test of its new feature with a group of users.

Yu Xing, a user, was among them.

Xing Hongyu personally arranged for President Yu to be placed there.

He wanted to notify President Yu immediately, but then felt it wasn't a good idea, since the other party wasn't really his colleague next door. So he held back, hoping that President Yu would find out on his own.

However, after a week of gray testing, President Yu remained silent.

Finally, at the end of July, a message from President Yu popped up on WeChat, which made Xing Hongyu quite excited.

Yu Xing: "Huh? You guys on Weishi have opened up 15-second recording?"

Xing Hongyu remained reserved: "Yes, that's right."

Yu Xing: "It's pretty good. This is how Weishi should be changed. Did you change it because you saw that Instagram had released this feature?"

Xing Hongyu wanted to deny it, but couldn't bring himself to do so. He could only say tactfully, "We are willing to get closer to user needs. We are currently conducting gray-scale testing. If the response is good, we will push it to more users later. Weishi still has a lot of consideration for its functions, and it will get better and better."

Remembering Mr. Yu's pessimistic outlook last time, he added, "Weishi has gained a lot of resources and autonomy. Mr. Yu, do you still think we can't do well?"

Yu Xing: "For Weishi to succeed, it's not just a matter of whether your project is good or bad; there are also external issues. Keep it up!"

Xing Hongyu naturally knew that Weibo had launched a similar platform called Miaopai. He sent a smiley face emoji and asked, "Mr. Yu, are you talking about Miaopai's competition with us? I'm quite confident in that regard."

After sending that message, he waited for a long time but didn't receive a reply from President Yu.

The dialog box didn't respond until the evening.

Yu Xing: "There was a last-minute meeting before. I wasn't talking about Miaopai, I was talking about myself."

Xing Hongyu paused upon seeing the message: "President Yu, what do you mean?"

Yu Xing: "I have a great idea."

Xing Hongyu stared at the message sent by President Yu, his fingers lifting and lowering on the phone screen. The identity of the other party and the operations team flashed through his mind, and suddenly he felt a chill run down his spine.

Who's the problem? Mr. Yu is the problem!
He wrote a long reply in the chat box, then deleted it several times, and finally deleted it completely.

Late at night, Xing Hongyu sent a simple message: "President Yu, don't do this..."

He waited for a long time, but didn't see a reply before going to bed, didn't see one when he woke up the next day, and still didn't see one when he got off work.

Xing Hongyu felt a heavy weight on his mind, as if a shadow was looming over his heart, or perhaps also over his WeChat account.

(End of this chapter)