Chinese Entertainment Intelligence King

Chapter 393: Raiding Tencent's Lair, Acquiring Sina's Platform, *Ghost Building Dream*

For the next few days, Yan Li stayed at Yi'an almost every day.

It serves both to research and discuss future development directions, to be present at the company to stabilize internal morale and spirits, and to consciously begin external communication and disclosure.

Previously, Yi An was a private company, and many things could be resolved internally, so it didn't matter what happened outside.

However, after going public, Yi'an will be a public company, and a lot of information, finance, and strategy will need to be carefully considered. The entire company, including Yan Li himself, will need to adapt to the changes.

So far, everything is going relatively smoothly.

After all, Yi'an has been preparing for its IPO for quite some time, and all the necessary preparations and teams are already in place. With a little adjustment, it will be on the right track.

Even in Yan Li's mind, he had already begun to consider Yi An as a potential new president.

As mentioned before, the current president of Yi'an's main job is to lead Yi'an to go public. Now that the company has achieved its listing goal, he will not leave immediately for the sake of the stock market, but he will not stay for too long either.

After he left, the position of president became vacant.

Yan Li, who also manages other companies, cannot stay in Yi'an every day. He hopes to find a qualified executor to help him lead Yi'an to continue its development.

Within Yi'an, there are only three or four people qualified to compete for the new president position, all of whom are at the vice president level.

Well, Fan Xiaopang also has some support, but he's just joining in the fun.

No matter how famous she is, her main profession is still acting. If she were to become the president of Yi An, Yi An's stock price would immediately plummet.

Yan Li didn't even assign her any position; she was just a company shareholder, nothing more.

Whether Fan Xiaopang will move behind the scenes in the future, or whether he has any ideas about senior management positions in the company, will be considered for future arrangements.

At best, she could only be a vice president or supervisor; she couldn't possibly take charge of Yi'an, which was already listed. She didn't have the ability, and the shareholders wouldn't agree.

Of these three or four candidates, Yan Li favored two the most: one was Xiao Guan, who was in charge of distribution.

Xiao Guan is a veteran of the company, having joined Yi'an a long time ago. He has made outstanding contributions, and his prestige and ability are both good. He also has a good personal relationship with Yan Li. His rise to power will not cause any turmoil in the company.

The downsides are that his abilities are not particularly outstanding, and since he mainly focuses on distribution, his content creation might be somewhat lacking. Also, the distribution department will definitely be restructured in the future, and whether he can take action against his old subordinates is a question.

The other is Du Guowei, the head of the film department. He hasn't been with the company for long, but he's very capable.

He has led Yi An Film Business to great success, especially in the last two years, and can be considered the most outstanding senior executive at Yi An today.

At the same time, Du Guowei comes from a film background and has an advantage in content business, which can help Yi'an Film and Television develop better.

His weakness is his relatively short tenure. The film department has only been independent for a short time, and his foundation in the company is shallow, making it difficult for him to control several powerful executives.

Whether it's restructuring the distribution sector or consolidating powerful cinema chains, he may not be able to maintain control.

If this leads to infighting between the president and the powerful vice president, it would be a significant loss for Yi'an.

Therefore, Yan Li hesitated between Xiao and Du, unable to make up his mind.

Fortunately, there is still time to observe and lay the groundwork, minimize internal friction, and allow the new president to take office smoothly.

...

Just when things were looking relatively stable for Yi'an, some setbacks occurred on Weibo.

After lengthy negotiations, Sina could no longer tolerate Weibo's delays and perfunctory responses, and began to deepen its contact with Tencent.

Meanwhile, Tencent overcame numerous internal conflicts and provided new support to Penguin Taotao, preparing to acquire Sina Weibo and Blog, and then launch a new round of microblogging wars with Weibo.

According to Yan Li's investigation, Tencent's actions were due to the realization that Yan Li's entertainment strategy would conflict with Tencent's overall plan, so they arranged for Tao Tao to hold back Weibo.

Weibo now holds an absolute advantage in market share, and even with the support of Tencent and Sina, Taotao's chances of winning are very low.

Even if they can't win, as long as they pose a certain threat to Weibo, they can force Weibo to continue competing with them, consuming resources and funds, and preventing Weibo from developing at its full potential.

It's a lose-lose situation; it's about taking advantage of one's wealth to bully others, and that's Tencent's usual tactic.

Yan Li remained relatively calm, having already prepared for this situation while relying on Sina.

During this period, Weibo took advantage of the widespread use of smartphones to launch a major offensive on mobile devices. It now has nearly 2 million users, and even if Sina and Tencent join forces, they are not a threat.

Moreover, it's uncertain how much support Sina can provide to Tencent's Taotao, and Tencent may not have the energy to deal with Weibo.

Limingxuan

Yan Li poured Boss Lei a cup of tea, and the latter was excitedly describing the new opportunity he had discovered.

A communication and voice exchange software that is more suitable for the mobile internet than QQ.

This put Lei Jun in a dilemma. He didn't expect that Xiaomi, which had only been established for a short time, would discover two projects that had the potential to reach a scale of 10 billion US dollars.

But soon he decided he couldn't let this opportunity slip by and was ready to take a gamble. After all, if it worked, it could be applied back to mobile phones and even realize his vision of "Internet + physical stores".

However, Mr. Lei was also well aware that this project was not so easy to do.

Putting aside other factors, a penguin whose home base has been raided will retaliate at all costs, and it will face immense competitive pressure.

In addition, product research and development and promotion require a lot of funds and resources. The money raised before was used to make mobile phones. To start a new project, we need to convince the shareholders.

So, Mr. Lei approached Yan Li, hoping to gain Yan Li's support as a shareholder and to cooperate with Weibo in order to obtain some technical and financial support.

He was even prepared to drag Yan Li down with him, because the pressure of going up against Tencent alone would be too great, but with Yan Li and Weibo, it would be a different story.

"Mr. Lei, I understand everything you're saying, but there's just one question: can you beat Tencent?"

Yan Li posed a profound question: It's not that no one noticed the opportunity, but discovering it and operating on it are two different things, and whether the operation can succeed is another matter entirely.

Penguins have too many advantages, and this is another attack on their home base. Little Ma will fight tooth and nail.

Upon hearing this, Mr. Lei's expression became much more serious: "We have studied it. If we can compare it with the first-mover advantage that Tencent has built up over the past six months, the chances of winning are still very high. At the very least, we can take half of the market share from QQ."

Yan Li shook his head: "Six months is impossible, even three months is unlikely."

"Penguins have a more impressive foundation than you think, and as far as I know, they have put effort into this area, but the direction is not yet fully determined."

"Once they realize what's happening, they'll go all out and launch new products very quickly."

Yan Li had fought with the penguins, gathered intelligence on them, and even knew some information about the future.

Therefore, he understood very well that in the instant messaging industry, he simply couldn't compete with Tencent.

But should we just give up if we can't win?!

Yan Li poured a cup of tea for the somewhat dejected Boss Lei: "If Weibo drives traffic to your product, along with various celebrity endorsements, what are your chances of winning?"

Boss Lei's eyes lit up instantly: "It should be at least 30%."

That's too optimistic!

Yan Li neither confirmed nor denied that Weibo could help Lei's new project attract traffic, and could even build a social loop of public and private domains, forming a complementary relationship.

However, Weibo is not an instant messaging software. Compared to Weibo, QQ and Tencent's new mobile communication products can be seamlessly connected. If Tencent migrates QQ users, it will generate a massive amount of traffic.

Lei Jun's new product is going to fail 90% of the time against Tencent's all-out effort.

So what? Penguin knew that Taotao was no match for Weibo, yet it still harmed others without benefiting itself.

Regardless of what Lei's new product is like, Yan Li still has to give Ma a hard time.

Yan Li had originally considered going himself, but now that Boss Lei was willing to take the lead, Yan Li was even more satisfied.

It doesn't matter if the odds of winning are slim, as long as the competition between the two sides is more intense and longer, consuming and consuming the penguin's energy and resources.

When Tencent is too busy to deal with Taotao, Yan Li will gather his strength, command Weibo to launch a fierce attack, and win the battle, thus ending this Weibo war that has lasted for several years.

Therefore, Yan Li gave Boss Lei a lot of support, hoping that he would teach Tencent a lesson.

If, by some stroke of luck, they actually win, Yan Li will be laughing his head off.

Weibo's support for Xiaomi wasn't free. The new project was spun off, and Weibo holds a significant stake. By supporting an internet communications giant that can rival or even replace Tencent, Weibo has made a huge profit.

Boss Lei arrived excitedly and left full of confidence. Not long after, the name of the new project was officially confirmed – MiTalk.

The name is also related to Yan Li. Back when Yan Li was planning to take over Tencent's escape route at a critical moment, he incubated an internal project called WeChat.

Lei Jun wanted to develop a new product, so Yan Li simply sent part of the WeChat team to support them, also to give Xiaomi some ideas and help them fight with Tencent for a while longer.

Many of Yan Li's ideas came from future intelligence, which was a treasure to Boss Lei, who was developing the project.

Whether he had this idea all along or wanted to curry favor with Weibo and deepen their partnership, Lei Jun simply named the new product MiTalk, aptly suggesting that each company should have its own unique name.

That's really sneaky!

The word "chat" is a product feature that anyone can use. If Mr. Lei really wanted to use only one word for each product, it should be "Miwei" or "Weimi", or even "Miweichat".

However, Yan Li genuinely felt that calling it WeChat was actually better than MiChat.

MiTalk is easily associated with Xiaomi phones, which can lead to it being mistaken for internal software. WeTalk doesn't have this problem and can also leverage Weibo.

But MiTalk is led by Xiaomi, and they definitely want their own company elements, so Yan Li doesn't need to fight for it. In any case, he's basically a discarded pawn.

While supporting Lei Jun, Yan Li also personally met with Sina's Chairman Cao to discuss the acquisition.

Sina and Tencent are linked together, which Yan Li can accept, but it would be best to weaken them if possible.

Sina didn't want to continue the fierce battle with Tencent in the Weibo war, so they focused their efforts on their new projects. Therefore, if Weibo showed any sincerity, they would be more willing to sell to Weibo.

Yan Li and Chairman Cao had a personal talk, which can be considered the final negotiation between the two parties.

If an agreement can be reached, then it's basically settled; if not, then we'll have to fight again.

During the negotiations, Chairman Cao was somewhat displeased. After all, Weibo had been quite unreliable this time, switching between talks and refusal, playing games with Sina Weibo several times. Therefore, Chairman Cao's attitude this time was very firm: either a deal was reached or it was over; further delays were not an option.

Yan Li smiled and apologized to Chairman Cao, but his tone remained firm.

Sina Weibo and its blogs are a double-edged sword for Weibo. The acquisition is defensive, essentially because they don't want Tencent to grow too big. But Weibo isn't afraid of a joint effort between Sina and Tencent, after all, they've been fighting each other before.

While the initiative may seem to be in Sina's hands, it actually still belongs to Weibo.

If Sina had any other options, it wouldn't have dragged this out for so long, repeatedly condoning Weibo's actions.

"Chairman Cao, I still mean it: $5000 million plus 1.5% of Weibo's shares. You get rid of a burden, and I get rid of a lot of trouble. Isn't that great?"

"Too low."

Chairman Cao shook his head repeatedly, saying that the price on Tencent was much higher than on Weibo. Yan Li smiled.

"We offered a low price because, in terms of actual revenue, microblogs and blogs have extremely limited impact on microblogging. In addition, considering the subsequent integration and operation costs, it would be a losing proposition for microblogging to offer a high price."

"Tencent offered a high price because they also want you to continue to contribute. Sina is still stuck in the mud and can't get out. If the competition becomes more intense in the future, the price Sina has to pay will be much more than this amount of money."

Chairman Cao said in a deep voice, "But if Sina and Tencent are together, the competition will become more difficult for you, and the price you have to pay will be higher than the price of acquiring Sina."

"That's it."

Yan Li nodded in agreement, then said, "But Weibo can afford to wait, but can Sina?"

Microblogs and blogs are barely surviving, Sina's stock price is declining, and things are not going well on all sides. The situation is forcing Sina to cut its losses rather than resort to desperate measures.

The atmosphere was somewhat silent. After a long while, Chairman Cao spoke up: "Chairman Yan is not accommodating at all. Isn't he afraid that the talks will fall apart?"

Yan Li nodded, and then said sincerely, "Chairman Cao, there are no outsiders here, so I'll speak from the bottom of my heart."

"If the negotiations break down today, even if Weibo makes a mistake and pays various prices, I can bear it. But if your company pays the price, can Chairman Cao bear it?"

Yan Li is the founder of Weibo and its largest shareholder in a significant sense.

As long as Weibo remains in power, he will not face any risk of stepping down. Even if Weibo continues to be dominant, the board of directors will not object, at most they will just give him a slap on the wrist.

But Cao Dong is different. Although he and Sina's management are the largest shareholders, their shareholding ratio is not high.

He wasn't a founder; he came to power later in life. Although he was highly respected, there were still dissenting voices within the organization.

These voices naturally disappeared when Sina was making great strides, but now that Sina is facing difficulties, or even a sharp downturn, it's becoming harder to suppress the various dissenting voices within Cao Dong's organization.

Under these circumstances, if Chairman Cao makes a wrong decision that causes damage to Sina, he might be ousted from his position.

"What a plan."

Chairman Cao finally understood Yan Li's scheme: to control not only Sina, but also him.

Sina couldn't afford to gamble, and neither could he. Taking money and shares and leaving was the safest option.

Yan Li smiled without saying a word. Whether it was scheming or plotting, if it were Chairman Cao who was in control of Weibo and him today, he might have been even more ruthless.

“5000 million is too low. Both platforms are valued at over 1 million US dollars. How about 8000 million US dollars, plus a funding spot? I have to give the board some explanation.”

Chairman Cao agreed to cooperate, but wanted to negotiate for better terms.

He didn't even dare to think about asking for shares directly; Yan Li definitely wouldn't budge. Getting more money and securing a financing spot would be good enough.

"The number of financing slots is negotiable; money and shares are the bottom line."

Yan Li remained unmoved. When it comes to financing, everyone's money is money. Sina also has some media and portal resources, which are beneficial to Weibo.

But forget about the money. Forget about valuation. Besides Tencent and Weibo, who else would buy it? There are no buyers, so no matter how much you value it, it's useless. The key is how much the seller is willing to pay.

The initiative is now in Weibo's hands. If they can get it for 5000 million, why spend more money? Why not save some funds and keep Yan Li to work on Tencent?

Yan Li wasn't worried about the negotiations falling apart. Firstly, he felt the other party wouldn't dare, and secondly, he had already figured out Sina's bottom line before the negotiations even started.

Chairman Cao's expression changed, his fists clenched, his chest heaved several times, and finally he sighed in despair.

"…it is good."

"Chairman Cao is so generous..."

Yan Li shook Cao Dong's hand with a beaming smile, his previous domineering attitude completely reversed, and began to shower him with praise.

Seeing Yan Li's changed expression, Chairman Cao couldn't help but speak with a mix of sarcasm and emotion.

"The younger generation is truly formidable. In all my years of hard work, Chairman Yan is the most difficult negotiating opponent I have ever encountered."

"I wouldn't dare accept that. I'm just shameless and taking advantage of my youth to act a bit cheeky. Chairman Cao is a senior, so please don't take offense. I'll treat you to a couple of drinks later."

Saying nice things doesn't cost anything. He's a senior in the industry, after all. He just made me really angry. Saying something gentler will make him feel better.

After taking all the substance, at least leave some face.

Yan Li lowered his stance, and Chairman Cao felt embarrassed to say anything, otherwise it would seem as if he lacked magnanimity.

More importantly, Yan Li changes his mind too quickly and is notoriously petty. He was worried that if he said too much, this bastard would turn on him again and ruin the cooperation they had agreed on. He decided to just say a few sarcastic remarks and then stop while he was ahead.

The two chairmen finalized the cooperation agreement, and the acquisition contract between Weibo and Sina is progressing very quickly.

After all, they had been talking for a long time, and they had discussed almost everything that needed to be discussed. All that was left was the crucial final decision.

Shortly after, Weibo and Sina officially announced that Weibo had acquired Sina Microblog and Sina Blog, and would launch in-depth cooperation between the two platforms and Weibo.

The term "deep cooperation" sounds polite, but in reality, it means "swallowing up" and incorporating the remaining value of Sina Weibo and blogs into the microblogging system.

Weibo's acquisition of Sina Weibo and Sina Blog didn't cause much of a stir in the outside world.

The main issue is that this matter was exposed a long time ago, and it has dragged on for so long, so everyone who needs to know already knows.

Even during the tug-of-war, many popular Sina bloggers joined Weibo to grab traffic in advance.

This is also why the acquisition price of Sina Weibo and Blog was low. They were almost drained dry. Sina itself has no shortage of resources, so it's no wonder they couldn't ask for a higher price.

While not exactly surprised, many people were still quite moved.

Blogs, which were once extremely popular, and microblogging platforms, which were the first to challenge microblogging, have all failed and some have even been acquired by microblogging.

Add to that Fanfou, which is practically defunct, and the microblogging platforms of NetEase and Sohu, which have hardly any users, and Weibo's only remaining competitor is Tencent's Taotao.

Considering the gap between Weibo and Taotao, the Weibo war, which was called a battle of heroes, has not officially ended, but the situation is already clear.

The Weibo team was very excited. No matter how depressed and declining microblogging and blogging were, they were still rivals. Now that the rivals are gone, everyone is naturally happy.

Once we defeat Taotao and completely dominate the social media field, Weibo can prepare for its IPO, and everyone can get rich with Boss Yan, just like Yi An did before.

Compared to Yi'an, which is only worth over 200 billion, Weibo has much greater prospects and market value, having raised over 35 billion US dollars during its initial funding round.

The current figure is even more staggering. It's safe to say that once Weibo goes public, reaching a scale of hundreds of billions is by no means difficult.

It's even possible that Weibo could reach a valuation of 100 billion RMB before it even goes public.

However, Yan Li thinks it is unlikely. Compared with Alibaba and Tencent, Weibo may be popular, but it has a fatal weakness: poor monetization ability.

This is extremely serious. If profits are weak, even if valuations and market capitalization rise, they will still fall.

Therefore, Yan Li's strategy of developing sub-platforms such as Weiyin and Weigou is to hope that their growth will provide a certain degree of financial support or investment returns, making Weibo's financial statements look better.

At the same time, Weibo is trying its best to explore commercialization while ensuring the platform's development, turning traffic into money and increasing profitability.

It's easy to burn money, but hard to make money.

Although Yan Li has the help of the system and a lot of clever ideas, either the timing is not right or the market has not been cultivated, so he can only wait and work hard.

...

As May arrived, the second installment of the new Four Great Classical Novels, "The Dream of the Red Chamber," was also broadcast on satellite TV.

Because the new Three Kingdoms series became a huge hit at the beginning of the year, everyone had high expectations for this series, and then a huge mess appeared.

Just two days after its premiere, the show was bombarded with criticism from netizens and viewers.

rotten!
thunder!
Horror movie!

From makeup and styling to plot, from soundtrack to costumes, from cinematography to actors, from screenwriter to director, everything was criticized.

Director Li Shaohong, who directed "Palace of Desire" and "The Orange is Red", fell from grace after revealing in an interview that she had not read the original novel. She was so criticized that she had to close the comment section on Weibo.

Yan Li also watched "The New Dream of the Red Chamber" because of its reputation, and even watched it with Bai Bing, who played Xue Baochai, hoping to enjoy the treatment that Baoyu received.

I watched half an episode and then turned off the TV. No wonder it was called "Ghost Building Dream"—it was so eerie and scary, even more frightening than watching "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio."

Even Bai Bing, the person directly involved, was completely dumbfounded!
They were relatively normal while filming, with some issues only in their makeup and photos. The actors' performances varied in quality, but I never expected that the post-production editing, with the addition of background music, would turn it into this awful mess.

Bai Bing plays the adult Xue Baochai. Now that the TV series is being criticized so badly and the ratings are plummeting, she doesn't even know if anyone will watch her when she appears on screen.

However, the poor quality of the new Dream of the Red Chamber disgusted the audience, which was frustrating for Bai Bing, one of the actors, but not necessarily a bad thing for Yi An.

While the new Three Kingdoms was popular, it also received a lot of criticism and accusations.

Now, with "The Dream of Red Mansions" as a foil, "Three Kingdoms" is simply a masterpiece of conscience. It even experienced a small surge in word-of-mouth just a few dozen days after the finale aired, and its Weibo rating also increased.

Yan Li was very disappointed. If "The Dream of Red Mansions" had been broadcast first, and then "The Three Kingdoms" had followed, it might have been praised to the skies.

However, the current effect isn't bad either. The strategy of first suppressing the initial impact and then striking back to gain momentum has even given "New Three Kingdoms" a minor resurgence in popularity, with increased reruns and viewership...

　(4000/287000)

　　
　
(End of this chapter)