Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 570 Intensive Preparations, Moving to Hengdian

The announcement of WeChat's launch swept through the domestic entertainment and internet industries in a short period of time.

The reason this has impacted the entertainment industry is entirely due to the behind-the-scenes manipulator instructing his lackey Yang Siwei to fabricate a story to give him a legitimate reason for his actions. Yang Siwei himself then used this opportunity to curry favor with the boss's wife, thus stirring up another wave of public opinion.

Objectively speaking, this instant messaging software, which is still shrouded in mystery except for its name, is already widely known.

WeChat, a name that Zhang Xiaolong found strangely familiar and precise, became a key subject of study in the industry from that afternoon onwards.

While internally chanting "Where's the money?", managers, product managers, programmers, and operations staff at various companies ended their holidays early and returned to work.

Upon seeing the so-called boot animation in the announcement, people from all walks of life gained even more information.

While celebrity fans were busy fighting, large and small companies, as well as upstream and downstream enterprises, all agreed that this was the birth of another heavyweight mobile internet product from Wenjie, following Wenjie Ticketing APP, Wenjie Mall APP, and Weibo APP.

Since China Mobile officially launched the "Mobile Dream Network" plan and opened its WAP platform in November 2000, to the advent of Apple's smartphone in 2007 and the issuance of the first 3G license in China in 2009, the professional internet term "mobile internet" has become an absolute industry consensus.

In August 2009, the newly launched Sina Weibo was a seamless integration of mobile and PC versions. After the number of applications on Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market exploded, and games such as Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja proved the unique charm of mobile devices, the entire industry saw new user needs and business models that surpassed those of PCs.

Now, the first company in China to propose to create instant messaging for the mobile internet era has emerged, and it's not Tencent, which is quite intriguing.

Moreover, the packaging and diversion of this entertainment industry media storm orchestrated by Yang Siwei significantly weakened the sense of this blatant strategic showdown, and also caused the negotiation situation between Ma Xiaowei and Ma Da to reverse once again.

At 11 p.m. on the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, the investment conditions that the two parties had previously agreed upon were overturned again. Even SoftBank, which had been "recruited" by Ma Huateng, remained silent and strongly supported Ma Yun's demand to tear up the previous agreement and renegotiate the details of the cooperation.

For example, the name of the software after the merger of Tencent Tenpay and Alipay should be based on which one;

For example, the two parties adjusted the shareholding ratio and valuation, and the issue of Ma Yun's say under the new shareholding structure after the investment, who originally held absolute decision-making power.

For example, how can Ali's e-commerce ecosystem, user data, and brand value continue to maintain their individual independence?

Obviously, even though Little Ma had some suspicions and warnings beforehand, the Penguin side was still stunned by the time traveler's palm strike that came from the sky.

Under such circumstances, Lao Ma didn't even need to make a big fuss. He only needed to point out that Wenjie was about to enter the instant messaging market and that Tencent was about to be dragged into a war that it had to fight with all its might, and he had already gained a temporary negotiating advantage.

Boss Lu's underhanded move successfully steered the negotiations between Penguin and Ali, which were originally "clearly divided in strength," back to a balance of power characterized by "each harboring their own ulterior motives and mutual suspicion." This also bought him valuable strategic time to consolidate his e-commerce advantages and fully develop WeChat.

After all, it's a multi-front war, so it's best to stabilize one front at a time.

However, the next time news of cooperation negotiations between the two sides is released, it will likely be when the domestic internet landscape undergoes another major change.

After feeding the paparazzi in the Chinese entertainment industry, the time traveler also spurred the first post-holiday articles for internet magazines and media.

The title of "Business Value" is "The Overt Scheme of the Boundaries".

The most skillful competition is to make your opponent engage in internal strife.

Wenjie's announcement on WeChat is a classic example of a "open strategy." It openly tells its opponent its strategic direction, yet forces the opponent to respond.

Its brilliance lies in the timing: it was chosen at a crucial juncture in the negotiations between the penguin and Ali, and the effect was immediate.

With SoftBank and other investors changing their stance, Ma Yun has regained the upper hand in negotiations. This means that if Tencent wants to successfully integrate Ali to develop its long-coveted e-commerce and payment businesses, it must pay a higher price and grant more autonomy.

Without deploying a single soldier, Wenjie successfully sowed discord among potential alliances solely through strategic announcements, shifting the industry from a "two-against-one" dynamic back to a balanced "triangular game." This masterful maneuver, achieving maximum impact with minimal effort, is a classic example.

……

Caijing magazine published a serious commentary titled "Wenjie's Surprise Attack on Tencent's Heartland: A 'Pearl Harbor' Attack That Reshaped the Internet Landscape."
Wenjie's decision to launch WeChat in the first year of 3G commercialization is a precise strike against Tencent's core business. WeChat's boot animation uses the imagery of NASA's blue marble, subtly alluding to its ambition to connect the world.

It is worth noting that Wenjie has formed an ecological closed loop encompassing Weibo, video, payment, e-commerce, and WeChat.

Weibo addresses social relationship chains, Alipay connects financial scenarios, and video provides content stickiness; this synergy far exceeds the simple addition of functions.

While Tencent certainly has a deep foundation, if it cannot quickly find a way to break the deadlock, the communication moat it has built may collapse, just like Ali, who has already been forced into a strategic corner.

The First Financial Daily reported on this from an industrial economic perspective, titled "The First Prototype of a Super App in the Mobile Internet Era is Born":
The birth of WeChat marks the beginning of the "ecosystem war" phase in the Chinese internet.

From the public opinion arena on Weibo to the transaction scenarios of Wenjie Mall, and then to the financial tools of Payment Connect, WeChat may become the core link connecting all of Wenjie's businesses.

In contrast, while Tencent has QQ and Tenpay, its e-commerce capabilities are clearly weak, and Ali is strong in transactions but lacks social networking features.

The advantage of Wenjie lies in the strong synergy between its various segments. If WeChat can integrate the entertainment content of Zhijie Video, the social communication of Weibo, and the convenient payment of Zhizhitong, its commercial potential may even surpass that of a single IM tool, becoming an "operating system-level" application in the mobile Internet era.

……

This time, Hu, the editor-in-chief of Caixin and a friend of Chairman Liu, did not interfere with the reporting and instead offered his own conclusions based on the facts.
The birth of WeChat was not a simple product competition, but a direct confrontation between the world and Tencent over the underlying infrastructure of the Internet.

Wenjie already has three pillars: payment, microblog (social communication), and Zhijie video (content), but it lacks the key connector of instant messaging.

If WeChat succeeds, Wenjie will achieve a complete closed loop from information flow to capital flow, directly threatening Tencent's social moat.

But Tencent's defenses are equally robust: QQ's real-time communication, Q-Zone's social network, Tenpay's payment capabilities, and the cash flow support from its gaming business.

The outcome of this battle may determine the allocation of internet traffic in China over the next decade.

……

While some are optimistic, others are pessimistic, and there are also rational analyses of the competitive landscape between the two companies. *IT Manager World* has raised concerns about the synergistic effects and hidden dangers of WeChat's integration with the platform:
From a business perspective, the advent of WeChat completed the final piece of the puzzle in the Wenjie ecosystem: real-time communication.

Weibo addresses public social interaction, while WeChat focuses on private communication; the two complement each other, and PaymentTong provides a closed loop for transaction scenarios.

But the challenges are equally significant:
First, the cost of migrating user habits is high, and QQ's social network is difficult to replicate easily;

Second, multi-business collaboration may lead to product bloat. Weibo's success stems from its focus, while WeChat needs to avoid becoming a "functional Frankenstein's monster."
Third, Tencent will undoubtedly launch a full-scale counterattack, potentially putting pressure on Wenjie in its strong areas such as gaming and music. Wenjie's breakthrough may lie in differentiated experiences rather than a direct confrontation. The industry is undoubtedly eagerly anticipating this protracted and epic showdown between internet giants!
On the night of the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, some families were happy while others were sad.

Besides the various internet companies and Tencent and Ali, who were at the center of the storm, there was also a disheartened individual who, after crying and experiencing the warmth of family on this somber seventh day of the Lunar New Year, returned to his room to continue facing the storm of public opinion alone.

Yang Mi remained silent and hesitant for a long time, looking at the various denigrations and discussions online, and remained speechless for a long time.

This time, she managed to become popular for a while through various ingenious designs. Even though she has been debunked in various ways, at most her popularity has been mixed with some negative publicity, and the level of discussion has not decreased at all.

But what her father had just done at the bottom of the building had temporarily overwhelmed her emotions. Now, facing the blue light of the screen, she numbly typed on the keyboard.

As the buzz generated by the numerous debunking posts gradually cooled down, Da Mimi decisively sent out a pre-prepared blog post in the early hours of the morning.

It's late at night, and I originally wanted to have a quiet New Year, but seeing the increasingly rampant rumors and so-called "exposés" online, I feel it's necessary to say a few words.

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all my friends and fans who care about me. This Spring Festival, some unfounded rumors have caused everyone concern.

The recent rumors circulating about my "academic genius persona," "the behind-the-scenes story of casting for 'The Return of the Condor Heroes,'" and exaggerated descriptions of my personal academic background are all untrue and have never been confirmed or authorized by me or my studio. These claims are largely fabricated and over-interpreted online, containing a large amount of false information and misleading statements.

I firmly believe that the foundation of an actor's career lies in their work and acting skills, not in any additional labels or titles. My past achievements were inseparable from luck and the help of many people, and I will continue to take each step steadily and rely on my abilities to move forward.

It is particularly important to note that I have always maintained a good relationship with @刘伊妃. We met when we were both young and have been through a lot together. We respect each other and wish each other well.

The speculation that there is "competition" or even "discord" between us is pure nonsense and a narrow-minded view of female friendship. She is a colleague and friend whom I greatly admire and respect.

The internet is not a lawless zone. My studio has commissioned lawyers to collect evidence regarding the continued dissemination of false information, malicious fabrication of facts, and infringement of my right to reputation, and will resolutely safeguard my rights through legal means.

In the new year, I hope everyone can focus more on the work and less on gossip.

Thank you again for your understanding and support. May we all be treated with kindness.

……

This bizarre move—where the person who fabricated the rumors came forward to refute them and even threatened to sue the marketing account—was originally intended to be the final step in this round of marketing.

However, even the core members of LeEco Culture, including Xu Duojin, did not expect that the "Chinese Entertainment Couples Ranking" would be broken after less than two days of hype.

Now we can only launch the initiative ahead of schedule, following the local conditions.

Even though Nanfang's activities and the hype surrounding the advertorials have brought Da Mimi considerable popularity and discussion, it still feels somewhat like a premature end to her career.

From a public relations perspective, the core function of this clarification post is to decouple risk and regain control.

By decisively attributing all previous over-hyped or even fabricated marketing content to online fabrication, the company distanced itself from potential credibility crises and legal risks.

The initiative to mention and associate with Liu Yifei is a pragmatic defensive move to mitigate damage after Yang Siwei's "romantic narrative" has secured the moral high ground. It aims to ease the sharp conflict with Liu Yifei's large fan base and leave room for maneuver in future actions.

As for Yang Mi herself, even after experiencing a baptism of fatherly love at night, she can only continue down this path because her capital ties with LeEco Culture are deeply ingrained.

LeEco Culture has placed a huge bet on her, needing female celebrities to continuously generate high popularity and buzz to promote the company's IPO. She has become an indispensable part of the capital narrative, and the cage of Dongshan Villa is a carefully designed scheme by Xu Duojin.

On the other hand, through this controversial hype, she has indeed gained unprecedented attention, with her Weibo followers skyrocketing and discussions remaining high. Under this traffic logic of "being famous even if it's not good," she has developed a serious path dependency that is difficult to reverse.

Even though Yang Siwei disrupted the rhythm with her unexpected move, from a purely commercial perspective, this incident objectively brought unprecedented pressure to boost the female celebrity's popularity, pushing the discussion surrounding the name Yang Mi to a boiling point.

Having gone through this ordeal, Yang Mi has inevitably slid towards a controversial "black-and-red" image. On this path to stardom paved by capital, she has no way out.

The scumbag Lu Kuan dropped a bombshell on the world from behind the scenes and then disappeared without a trace, continuing his career with his wife Liu Yifei. He remained completely silent throughout the entire Yang Mi incident, leaving the matter entirely to the mature Yang Siwei to handle and clean up.

Meanwhile, WeChat, which Zhang Xiaolong led the design and development of, is in the midst of its first round of intensive development before rapid internal testing.

The so-called rapid internal testing refers to the internal verification of the stability of the basic communication link and the core experience.

The WeChat 1.0 Beta version, which is currently undergoing post-launch cleanup, is an internal test version with extremely limited functionality and is not even publicly available for download. Its main functions are limited to an account system based on the phone's address book and one-on-one text message sending and receiving.

The interface is extremely simple, even somewhat rough.

According to the development logs and schedule, the product will be launched in a limited public beta in mid-June to conduct stress tests in a real network environment and initially accumulate seed users.

As a novice time traveler, he still only provided the WeChat team with a development approach based on the perspective of users from later generations:

Rapid iteration, small steps and quick progress, prioritizing core functions, seizing market opportunities with a minimum viable product, and then rapidly iterating and optimizing based on user feedback and data-driven approaches.

This is a clear, pragmatic strategy that fully considers the competitive landscape with penguins.

Unlike Tencent's WeChat and Lei Jun's MiTalk in the previous era, MiTalk's success was mainly due to its superior strategic thinking and overwhelming user base, without creating a fierce competitive situation.

Meanwhile, as part of the promotional strategy, the WeChat user interface will appear in the entire series of "My Love from the Star," which will be released simultaneously.

As a fashion queen with consistently high popularity in China, Bingbing and this fashion drama, which has already recouped some of its costs through investment promotion, will conduct subtle WeChat marketing and promotion through various means.

On March 20, 2010, the crew of "The Book of Peace" moved to Hengdian after finishing filming their scenes at the China Film Group Huairou Base in Beiping. Lu Kuan, who was working day and night on the post-production of "Ball Lightning", also took some time to go to Dongyang with his wife and mother-in-law.

Because of the long-term filming schedule, this was a temporary relocation for the whole family. They brought Youyou and Tiedan to their new home in another city. The old father was worried and came along to inspect the environment and check on the property his wife had bought in the past few months.

It wasn't until after he got off the plane and arrived at his destination, after making phone calls the whole way, that Boss Lu stared in disbelief at the "Dragon Mountain and Phoenix Lake" before him.

"This is the farm stay you were talking about?"

(End of this chapter)