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

Chapter 222 The 2002 theme song for Renren.com is born!
When Chen Cheng returned to the recording studio, Liu Shiyu couldn't help but ask him, "Chen Cheng, why did you spend 100,000 yuan to buy that song? That song was so mediocre..."

Chen Cheng laughed and said, "I think that song is pretty good. The melody is simple and catchy. If we buy it and put it on the campus website, it might become a hit."

Liu Shiyu didn't understand and wasn't optimistic, so she said very seriously, "It seems unlikely that this kind of song will become popular. It's too vulgar."

Chen Cheng shook his head and said, "What society as a whole is pursuing is a kind of music that is appreciated by both the refined and the common people, and sometimes we need songs like this."

"Ok."

Liu Shiyu stopped trying to persuade him, but she still wasn't optimistic about the song's future.

Immediately afterwards, the two began their intensive recording work.

Chen Cheng's singing level is above average. He struggled a bit with Eason Chan's songs, but he still managed to pull it off. Since other listeners didn't have the original versions to compare with, it made him feel much more at ease.

On his way back to school, Chen Cheng asked Shen Luning to introduce him to a lawyer. After arranging a time and place with the lawyer, he gave the information to Yang Chengang.

The next day at noon, Chen Cheng and Yang Chengang met at the law firm. In the presence of a lawyer, they signed a permanent copyright transfer agreement. Chen Cheng bought out all the copyrights of the song for 10 yuan, which means that Yang Chengang will not be allowed to sing the song in any public place without Chen Cheng's permission.

Although the conditions were harsh, Yang Chenggang felt that compared to 10 yuan, what was that?
Even if Chen Cheng were to be credited as the lyricist and composer, it wouldn't matter; this 10 yuan would already be a huge profit for him.

So the two parties signed an agreement. The agreement also included the lyrics and sheet music of the song, in case there was any attempt to achieve their goals indirectly in the future.

Of course, the lyrics used were the version revised by Chen Cheng.

Yang Chengang then understood why Chen Cheng had spent 10 yuan to buy his song; it turned out to be for the purpose of promoting Renren.com.

As he happened to be a user of Renren.com himself, he asked Chen Cheng, "Dude, do you work for Renren.com?"

"No."

Chen Cheng smiled slightly and said, "I am the founder of Renren.com."

Yang Chengang listened, speechless.

Founder?
Isn't that the boss?
He quickly extended his hand to Chen Cheng and said, "Oh, my apologies! I didn't expect you to be so capable at such a young age."

After saying that, thinking that he would have to make money by writing songs and performing at various venues in the future, he volunteered, "Dude, if your Renren.com needs songs for promotion in the future, I can try to write a few more for you to listen to. We can customize songs specifically for Renren.com, which will definitely be more effective than changing a sentence or two like you do."

Chen Cheng nodded: "No problem. Once you've finished writing it, record a short sample and send it to me. If I like it, I'll buy it."

Although that was just a polite remark, Chen Cheng believed that it would be difficult for Yang Chengang to write another hit song like "Mice Love Rice".

In the afternoon, Yang Chengang went to the recording studio of Jiangcheng Conservatory of Music again. He re-recorded a version that he was more satisfied with, based on the script revised by Chen Cheng.

After Chen Chen finished her afternoon classes, she went to the recording studio to meet him. After getting the source file of the song, she gave Yang Chengang 10,000 yuan as a reward for his hard work.

Yang Chengang himself was a little embarrassed and said, "Dude, it doesn't seem like it would cost that much to re-record it for you. I feel a bit bad about it. How about I take half?"

Chen Cheng patted him on the shoulder: "Brother Yang, what's there to be embarrassed about? It's business. No matter how much or how little we give, as long as we both feel it's okay, there's no problem."

His subtext was that if you feel the song sold for a low price in the future, don't be upset. Just don't be like Lin Zhenbang, who's ignorant of the law, and come to me to break the contract.

Hearing this, Yang Chengang felt reassured and happily said, "Buddy, if you ever need anything, just let me know!"

After returning home, Chen Cheng listened to the song repeatedly with his headphones on. It was basically the same as the song from his previous life, even the accompaniment was exactly the same. The only difference was the two lines of lyrics about Renren.com.

With everything in place, Chen Cheng began to think about how to release and promote the song.

He planned to release the entire song publicly, making it available for listening and downloading directly on the school's intranet. This meant he couldn't use the song as background music, since background music is for members only, while everyone could hear this song.

He considered several options and finally decided to release the song directly as the theme song for Renren.com in 2002.

Just send a push notification using the official account, add a string of audio playback code, and put this song on the push notification page. As long as you can listen to the whole song, you'll get a set of "Mice Love Rice" exclusive campus show.

Of course, this exclusive campus showcase has a very short validity period; otherwise, everyone would just claim the free version, and who would spend money to buy it?

Therefore, the validity period should not be one week, three days, just three days, no more.

Even the slightest bit of stimulation is enough to get users to try it. Anyway, the song itself is of explosive quality, so once people listen to it, they will definitely like it and spread it widely.

The key is that I don't do any anti-piracy measures myself. I even put the download link directly on the page. Then I'll add a reprint statement. Any website can legally reprint this song as long as it indicates that it was the theme song of Renren.com in 2002, and I don't need to pay a penny.

Although they don't spend a penny to piracy, it's still stealing other people's things. Even a lawless scoundrel would have some psychological burden. Now they don't need to steal anymore. The owner just puts the food on the table, and people can take it if they need it. They just need to tell others that it's only for the owner when they eat it, and they're naturally willing to do so.

So now all that's missing is a campus talent show featuring mice loving rice.

Although many art academy graduates have already put on campus shows for themselves, Chen Cheng still immediately thought of Su Zishan for this arduous task.

He called Su Zishan and explained his request. He wanted a cartoon mouse holding a cartoon rice character in a cartoon show, with two gender themes: one with a male mouse holding a female rice character, and the other with a female mouse holding a male rice character.

Su Zishan couldn't understand his twisted sense of humor and asked him, "Why do you have a cartoon mouse hugging a cartoon rice? Is it so he can eat rice?"

"no no."

Chen Cheng explained with a smile: "Whether it's a cartoon mouse or a cartoon rice, it has to be anthropomorphic. And the rice can't be made too small. The rice has to be about the same size as the mouse. The core theme is, I love you, just like a mouse loves rice."

"whispering sound……"

Chen Chengguang could tell from Su Zishan's voice that she must be looking at him with disdain.

Sure enough, Su Zishan immediately retorted sarcastically, "When did you become so vulgar? This isn't like you at all."

Chen Cheng laughed and said, "It's good to be a little vulgar, it's down-to-earth. Sis, can you help me with this? Can you give it to me tomorrow? We have a theme song that will be released tomorrow, and we need to match it with your cartoon show."

"Theme song?"

Su Zishan asked in surprise, "Your Renren website even has a theme song now?"

"Just now."

Chen Cheng said, "I bought it for 10 yuan, will it work?"

"Yes, it's possible."

Su Zishan said helplessly, "That's how it is. Can I say no? I'll just indulge you. I'll draw it for you tonight and send it to you at noon tomorrow."

"Thank you so much, Sister Shan!"

Since the cartoon show can be produced tomorrow, Chen Cheng has decided to release the song directly tomorrow.
-
While Renren.com was booming, QQ Alumni Directory is now in a very awkward situation.

Although the alumni directory has been completed and the connection with QQ friends has been completely severed, the website remains stagnant.

The membership giveaway event continued, but the users who received the memberships didn't actually use the website properly.

Even though QQ has clearly stated that they will not disclose the information they provide to any QQ friends when they complete their alumni profiles, they still haven't taken this website seriously.

According to internal statistics from Tencent, the most frequently used name in QQ Alumni Directory is "Ah Ah Ah" because it's the easiest to type.

Let alone an alumni directory with tens of millions of users, even a yearbook with only a few dozen pages might have a few people writing their names like "Ah Ah Ah" in the comments. If you don't know who's who, you'd want to just throw the whole yearbook away.

Therefore, QQ Alumni Directory officially canceled the series of benefits that included free membership upon registration just three days after its launch.

Users who didn't get to snag the three-month membership naturally complained, while those who did get it never said a good word about Tencent. They all felt they got it through their own abilities, so why should they thank others?

After the benefits were canceled, the daily active users of the alumni website dropped from hundreds of millions to less than tens of thousands per day.

Moreover, according to their internal statistics, 80% of these tens of thousands of people are non-login users.

The logged-in users are mostly those who haven't received a membership.

The general feeling is that now, the people opening the alumni directory are mostly people hoping to get a membership, while those who have already gotten a membership are no longer opening or logging in.

This was extremely frustrating for the Tencent team. They never expected their users to be so awful, turning their backs on them after taking all the benefits.

Although the alumni directory has now been completely debunked, Tencent has not stopped parsing and serving this page for the time being.

The main reason is that it would be too embarrassing to shut down the network service after only a few days of operation.

They decided to keep the website running indefinitely, since the number of users would gradually decrease until it was almost zero. At that point, the website would have no cost, just like a fraudulent advertisement that you've printed out and pasted on a telephone pole. All the cost is in the process of pasting it up; once it's up and hanging there, there's no more cost.

Mr. Ma was in a very bad mood for several days because of this.

In total, approximately 20 to 30 million members were sent out, of which nearly 3 million were already members.

Let's do the simplest math: these three million people would have brought Tencent around 30 million yuan in revenue each month, which would amount to about 100 million yuan in three months.

But because of his questionable decision to give away memberships, he's definitely lost that 100 million.

He knew that once the members were given away, they were gone forever, so he made a painful decision to focus on developing his QQ Show and use it to earn back the 100 million yuan in revenue.

Therefore, he needs to focus his efforts on making QQ Show even better, more diverse, and more sophisticated than Renren Show.

What he didn't know was that Chen Cheng had already started working on the theme, and in just a few days, the highly influential online subculture of "Singles' Day" would be born from Renren.com!

(End of this chapter)