Since they are reborn, they must be supported by the school beauties.

Chapter 189 Cuckoo Chicks
After the training on the management software was nearly complete, the salesman took the money and prepared to leave.

Chen Cheng suddenly remembered something and asked him, "By the way, may I ask you, are you a salesperson specifically for this software, or for a software sales company?"

The salesperson replied, "We are a software sales company. Our company is an agent for about 40 different kinds of software in China. I am usually responsible for the sales, installation and debugging of these software."

Chen Cheng nodded, thinking to himself that due to the lack of payment channels, even mature software companies do not have direct sales channels nowadays. Software sales agents are an indispensable part of software distribution and sales.

Even the currently popular Rising Antivirus and Jiangmin Antivirus still rely on offline distributors for sales.

In addition, game developers also rely on selling physical discs for both PC and PS games.

Relying on offline sales makes it difficult for any software company to develop its own sales network. This is why Apple and Android app stores, as well as Steam, were able to make so much money; they completely revolutionized the software sales model.

At one point, Chen Cheng also wondered if he could make this his entrepreneurial direction in the future.

But then I realized that I couldn't solve the online payment problem at all, nor could I create such a product.

Let alone selling software, even if they were to sell memberships to Renren.com, they would only be able to rely on internet cafes as their sales channels.

So Chen Cheng asked the salesperson, "By the way, do you usually deal with internet cafes a lot?"

"There are many."

The salesperson said with a smile, "Half of my clients are internet cafe owners. We not only distribute internet cafe management software, but also develop diskless internet cafe systems."

Chen Cheng became interested and asked him, "When you distribute internet cafe management software, do you usually distribute it only in Jiangcheng City or throughout the entire province?"

"The entire province."

The salesperson explained, "Currently, many prefecture-level and county-level cities do not have professional software sales companies. Although some small companies can also do sales, their staff training is inadequate and their technical capabilities are insufficient, so their after-sales service is not up to par. For this reason, users in other cities in the province also prefer to buy software from us. They only need to pay us an extra travel expense, and we can provide on-site service."

Chen Cheng nodded: "In other words, you know internet cafe owners in every city in the province, right?"

"of course."

The salesperson said, "I know at least a few internet cafe owners in every city."

Chen Cheng smiled and said, "Let's exchange contact information. There might be other opportunities for cooperation in the future."

The other party took out a business card and handed it to Chen Cheng, saying, "Manager Chen, this is my business card. Please feel free to contact me if you need anything."

Chen Cheng accepted the other party's business card. Seeing that the other party's name was Cao Wen, he extended his hand to shake hands with him and said, "Okay, Manager Cao, I'll contact you if I need anything."

Cao Wen nodded and said, "If there's nothing else, I'll head back now. If you have any questions about using the software, feel free to call me anytime."

After Cao Wen left, Zhao Siyan, seeing that it was almost time to open for business, said to Chen Cheng, "Manager Chen, I have to go now."

Chen Cheng nodded and said, "Okay, go ahead."

Not long after Zhao Siyan left, Su Zishan and Shen Luning entered the office together.

Both of them were pleasantly surprised to see Chen Cheng there.

Shen Luning's face was beaming with joy as she asked Chen Cheng with a smile, "Little brother, what brings you here today?"

Su Zishan always said one thing and meant another, so she deliberately teased Chen Cheng: "Oh dear, it's really not used to seeing Manager Chen on a weekday. What's Manager Chen so busy with?"

Chen Cheng laughed and said, "I'm just here to sort out the membership system. I'll order a batch of membership cards later and then we can officially launch it."

Without waiting for Su Zishan's response, he asked Shen Luning with a grin, "Sister Ning, have you been busy lately?"

Shen Luning looked at Chen Cheng and smiled with her eyes crinkling, saying, "It's alright. I mainly help my dad with administrative work. Recently, we've been cutting costs and increasing revenue, so the administrative work has been given to me as well."

Chen Cheng asked her, "How is Uncle Shen doing?"

"Not bad."

Shen Luning said meaningfully, "My dad has recently started paying attention to the taxi market in Jiangcheng. He's been beaming with joy every day, saying he's becoming more and more confident."

Chen Cheng understood the implication in her words. He guessed that Shen Zhou's recognition of him was increasing after discovering the skyrocketing price of the indicator, and he also believed more in the tips he had given him before.

So he smiled and said, "It's best if Uncle Shen has confidence; I believe the result won't disappoint him."

Su Zishan glanced at the two of them and muttered, "What are you two talking about? What kind of shady business are you up to?"

Shen Luning just smiled but didn't speak, and Chen Cheng also deliberately didn't answer.

Su Zishan rolled her eyes at the two of them and said to Chen Cheng, "I've taken some time today to work on the cartoon characters you asked me to design. Give me an email address later and I'll send them to you tonight."

Chen Cheng said, "Oh dear, I haven't even registered an email address yet. I'll register one when I get back tonight." Su Zishan asked in surprise, "You can create such a complicated website as Renren.com, but you don't even have an email address?"

Chen Cheng laughed and said, "That thing isn't very useful to me either."

Shen Luning suddenly suggested to him, "By the way, Chen Cheng, could you develop a feature to send pictures to friends on your school's intranet? It's so hard to send pictures to friends these days, even on QQ."

Chen Cheng asked in surprise, "QQ doesn't work?"

"correct."

Shen Luning said, "QQ has never been able to send pictures."

Chen Cheng asked her, "Can QQ take screenshots?"

"screenshot?"

Shen Luning asked in confusion, "What is a screenshot?"

Chen Cheng said, "It means capturing a portion of the image on your screen, or the entire screen."

Shen Luning shook her head and said, "I've never heard of this function before. If it were to be implemented, it would be quite convenient."

Su Zishan, who was standing next to her, casually said, "This function has always been there. Windows has this function built in, but it may not be very convenient to use. We used it when we used to make things on the computer."

Chen Cheng suddenly realized that since his rebirth, he hadn't really used QQ much. He couldn't even remember the QQ number he used back then. The QQ number he registered last time was just used to fool Yang Siqi. He hadn't really looked into what functions the current QQ supported.

Thinking about it carefully, QQ in 2002 really didn't have many functions. It was just text chat, and it didn't have video chat or screenshot functions.

The feature to send pictures to friends was launched at the same time as the screenshot function. Since there is no screenshot function, sending pictures is definitely not supported either.

Although the school's intranet also has a friend list and allows you to send messages to friends, it is not as convenient as QQ. This is mainly because Chen Cheng did not develop a new function for exchanging messages between friends within the site in order to save trouble. He used the same template for intranet messaging that is currently used in the forum.

Logically speaking, if the chat function among friends on the school's website could be improved, it could basically function as a communication service, just like QQ.

However, developing this system is not something that can be done in a day or two. There are only a few instant messaging software on the market, and none of them have any open-source code. There are no shortcuts in the development process.

Moreover, with a large user base, once the image sending function is enabled, the bandwidth demand may increase several times over. These days, bandwidth is extremely expensive, and only companies with deep pockets can afford it.

So Chen Cheng temporarily abandoned the plan and said to Shen Luning, "Sister Ning, if friends can send pictures to each other, our operating costs will probably more than double, so we can't do it for now."

Shen Luning nodded and said, "It's alright, you've done very well."

Although Chen Cheng had convinced himself and Shen Luning, he still felt a lingering sense of unease.

In the past, Renren.com in China eventually ceased operations and withdrew from the internet stage. Although the founders made a lot of money, it was still far behind Facebook in the United States.

In this lifetime, how much commercial value can Xiaonei.com unleash in my own hands?
Although Chen Cheng didn't know the answer to this question, he knew that the key to making a product bigger and stronger was not only to gather as many users as possible, but also to retain them as much as possible. The more time users spent on you, the more successful you will be.

Tencent does everything and has been the subject of much criticism in the internet industry for years. Its total revenue in 2024 was 6600 billion yuan.

ByteDance, relying on Douyin (TikTok) both domestically and internationally as its mothership, achieved a revenue of over 1.1 trillion yuan in 2024, nearly double that of Tencent.

The battles between giants have always been about snatching meat from someone else's bowl.

There are only so many internet users, and each person only has 24 hours a day. It's like eating from a communal pot; if others eat more, you have to eat less.

Therefore, Chen Cheng felt that he absolutely could not do things with a complacent mentality, and could not think that it was enough for him to be able to eat his fill, because none of the giants in this industry were good people, they were all cuckoo chicks. Not only did they want to be full, they also wanted you to die so that all the food would go to them. As long as you were in the same nest as them, they would definitely kill you.

Thinking about this, Chen Cheng realized two more key issues.

First, has any cuckoo chick already set its sights on me?
Secondly, although I am weak, I cannot sit idly by and wait to die. I cannot wait until the cuckoo chicks attack me before I react. I must first find a way to deal with it.

So, whose interests will be affected by my own school network in the short term?

NetEase, which originally planned to launch its photo album next year, was undoubtedly the first to be affected. They may have already started the photo album project and were caught off guard by their own actions.

Tencent, which wants to try its hand at everything, is probably the second one.

Historically, no matter what you do, as long as you do it well, Tencent will want to get involved. It's hard to think of any area in the internet business that Tencent hasn't done.

As for Sina and Sohu, both companies are relatively laid-back. Given their long-standing slow-paced approach, it's unlikely they have any intention of targeting Xiaonei.com at this time.

It seems I need to be fully prepared to prevent NetEase and Tencent from launching a sudden attack.

(End of this chapter)