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

Chapter 241 Facebook Project
Many rumors spread fastest on the internet.

The fact that this post can be seen online proves that the matter has already spread to a certain extent in the local area.

So, he called Shen Luning the next day and asked her, "Sister Ning, are you busy lately?"

Shen Luning said, "Still the same. What about you? Your Renren website has been so popular lately, you must be swamped with work, right?"

Chen Cheng laughed and said, "It's alright. Now that there are many people in the company, I don't have to do many things myself."

After exchanging a few pleasantries, he got straight to the point and asked Shen Luning, "By the way, Sister Ning, what's the situation at your company now?"

Shen Luning sighed softly, "There's been no improvement, and sales are getting worse and worse. We still have a lot of inventory left, and the people in Yangcheng aren't communicating with us anymore. They said they would resolve the issue according to the contract terms when the contract expires."

Chen Cheng then asked, "How has Uncle been lately?"

Shen Luning said, "It's not as good as it was a while ago. A while ago, I was inspired by you and always felt that I would definitely get an opportunity. But now that I see the taxi license plate market has fallen so much, I'm a bit pessimistic. I feel that opportunities often contain dangers. If you step on the right step, you can make a fortune like you. If you step on the wrong step, you'll be like those fools who rushed in at the high point and lost everything."

Chen Cheng smiled slightly and said, "Ask your uncle if he has time to have dinner together tonight. I think I've found a clue. I'll meet with him and have a good chat."

Shen Luning asked in surprise, "What clue did you find? A clue about the pharmaceutical company?"

"Correct."

Chen Cheng frankly said, "I think it's an opportunity, but I don't know what my uncle thinks, so I want to talk to him."

"That would be great!"

Shen Luning agreed without hesitation, saying, "Wait a moment, I'll go and confirm the time with my dad right away, he should be fine with it."

After saying that, Shen Luning didn't hang up the phone. She went straight to Shen Zhou's office and asked him, "Dad, do you have time tonight? Chen Cheng wants to invite you to dinner. He said he's found some clues related to the pharmaceutical factory."

"is it?"

Shen Zhou was also a little excited and immediately said, "I have time. Tell Xiao Chen to meet at the Jiangcheng Hotel tonight! He'll decide the time!"

Shen Luning put the phone to her ear and asked, "Chen Cheng, what time is convenient for you?"

Chen Cheng said, "Six-thirty, I guess."

"Okay, then it'll be 6:30!"

In the afternoon, Chen Cheng skipped a class and went to the company first.

When he went to the company this time, he brought along a group of key technical personnel, including Chen Wei, Xiao Peng, and Tang Jiakai, from the second floor of the Sichuan restaurant.

In this meeting, he plans to clarify the recent product development and then discuss the strategic plan for the next stage.

At the meeting, Chen Cheng designated the development of the "Campus Game Client" as the core task for the last month of the year for Campus Network.

The development of the campus game was entirely handled by Jin Xin's team. When Jin Xin left Lianzhong, he brought more than 20 technical staff with him. In addition, most of the staff had participated in the development of the Lianzhong client, so everyone was very adept at developing a new client.

The first client for Renren.com was not developed for Renren.com, but for a game platform, which puzzled most of the early employees.

Originally, everyone suggested that we could develop a client for Renren.com, just like QQ, integrating the friend list, messaging, and most of the functions into the client, just like QQ. However, Chen Cheng has not agreed to this.

Initially, everyone assumed it was due to insufficient development capabilities and manpower, which led to the creation of a lightweight chat application. However, unexpectedly, even now that they have the personnel and funding, Chen Cheng still doesn't want to develop a client-side application. Chen Cheng has two main reasons for not wanting to develop a client-side application: firstly, developing a client-side application would inevitably lead to a direct confrontation with Tencent, resulting in unbearable pressure; secondly, client-side applications are quite troublesome, both in development and deployment. If the goal is to create a product like Facebook, a client-side application is essentially unnecessary.

In its previous life, Facebook didn't launch a PC application until 2011, but it never really took off, and eventually they simply stopped providing technical support.

Chen Cheng felt that since Facebook hadn't taken PC clients seriously for so many years, there was no need for him to waste too much energy. If users didn't have a strong demand for a client, developing one now would be pointless. It would be better to wait until users felt the need for a similar product and then launch it naturally.

If users never care about PC clients, then just don't bother developing one. As long as you develop a mobile client as soon as mobile internet arrives, you'll be pretty much set.

However, it's not feasible to play games on campus without a client application.

For card and board games, the most important thing is a smooth user experience with stable refresh rates and connections. This is a drawback that is almost impossible to overcome for web-based versions. Moreover, the probability of web-based games crashing or being accidentally closed is much higher than that of web-based games. Once a game crashes and exits, it has a significant impact on the experience of the entire game table.

Therefore, Chen Cheng planned to first launch the client using the campus games platform. Once everyone accepted and downloaded the campus games client, it would be like placing a vanguard on the PC desktop. If he wanted to launch other clients in the future, he could directly promote them through the campus games client. A pop-up prompt would appear, and users could simply click to confirm and install other software with one click. This is the classic strategy of those bundled software packages.

I don't intend to use it to make any malware; I'll just use it to distribute Renren.com products. In the future, when distributing Renren.com's chat client, it can also be installed with a game client using a one-click installation.

Therefore, he made a special request at the meeting: that a backdoor for push notifications, downloads, and local automated installation must be embedded in the second version of the campus game client.

Xiao Peng, who was most enthusiastic about the campus client, asked Chen Cheng at the meeting: "President Chen, after our campus game client goes online, can we make a chat client for the campus network?"

"Not yet."

Chen Cheng said, "In the next phase, Xiaonei.com will be renamed Facebook. The two names will coexist for a period of time, and then the name Xiaonei.com will be gradually phased out. So after our Xiaonei Games is launched, it will be called Xiaonei Facebook Games. At the same time, our website will be renamed Facebook for all non-university students. At that time, the Facebook domain name will also be officially launched. Before the Xiaonei.com client is launched, we need to get the vast majority of users to accept the name Facebook. If we launch a chat client, the client's name will definitely be Facebook, not Xiaonei.com."

This was the first time Chen Cheng had shared Facebook's strategic plans with his team members.

Most of the team members couldn't understand it, because the name "Xiaonei" seemed so good to them, exceptionally good, while "Facebook" sounded so ordinary.

Chen Cheng smiled and said, "I understand why everyone likes the name 'Xiaonei' (校内). After all, everyone here, including myself, includes current university students, graduate students, and graduates. Everyone has a deep affection for universities, so it's only natural that you like the name 'Xiaonei.' But think about it: as long as we call ourselves Xiaonei.com, it means we're classifying ourselves as a vertical website. The biggest difference between a vertical website and a portal website is that portal websites cover every niche area and have a large user base. Let me give you an example: China University Student News Network and China News Network. If you put these two names together, which one do you think can grow bigger and stronger?"

At first, people didn't really feel anything about it on campus or Facebook.

However, when the names China University Student News Network and China News Network are put together, the difference in size becomes very obvious.

Everyone instantly understood Chen Cheng's true intention.

No matter how well Renren.com is made, it is still a "Renren" website.

The world outside of school is much wider.

After everyone understood their strategic goals, Chen Cheng wrote the words "Facebook Plan" in large letters on the blackboard and then said to everyone: "Currently, the only product on our Renren.com that both college students and non-college students like is 'Message in a Bottle.' For non-college students, they don't have many friends on Renren.com, so their chatting needs won't be met through Renren.com. Therefore, what we need to focus on next is to launch as many products as possible, like 'Message in a Bottle,' that everyone will like. The gaming platform is of paramount importance. In addition, if anyone has other ideas, please feel free to offer suggestions. If there are good product directions, we will continue to develop similar products."

At this point, Chen Cheng added, "When guiding users, you can't make them feel like they're being led by the nose from the very beginning, as that will trigger their resistance. If you really want to guide users, you have to do things subtly and deliberately. At this stage, our chat function can't attract users outside of Renren. At this point, making a chat client for Renren would be useless to them. So our best approach is to use other products to bring them all in and then let them gradually adapt."

Tang Jiakai, who is skilled in cybersecurity, raised his hand and said, "Is it possible for us to develop an antivirus software? Every user would probably need that, right?"

Chen Cheng shook his head: "Most users go online in internet cafes. They don't have much of a concept of network security or virus scanning and removal. Moreover, antivirus software development is costly and time-consuming. We don't have the capability for that right now. Everyone should think about what software a netizen uses, whether on their own computer or in an internet cafe, and which of those can we do?"

Everyone fell silent for a moment, and no one could come up with a product that met the requirements in a short time.

Chen Cheng wasn't disappointed, but encouraged them: "If you can't think of anything, take your time. But right now, we need to focus on developing the game platform. Once you've finished building the basic infrastructure, I'll share two very interesting card and board games with you, and we'll integrate them into the game platform then."

(End of this chapter)