Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 333 Let's give our old employer, Tencent, a taste of their own medicine!
"What exactly happened?"

Gu Bei sat up straight and asked in a calm tone.

Gu Bei's calmness reassured Peng Shaobing somewhat.

"I don't know exactly what happened either."

He told Gu Bei everything he knew: "According to the information on Fanfou and Tieba, it suddenly stopped updating at 11 p.m., and it became impossible to log in after midnight."

The key is,

We also received a notification from the telecommunications company.

Let's suspend updates for all users, or we'll shut down our servers!

But when I called the leaders in Hangzhou, they gave me the completely opposite answer.
It means we should ignore the telecommunications company.

Simply maintain the current level of scrutiny!

Information is very complex nowadays.

But judging from the speed at which Fanfou shut down...

Gu Bei doesn't have much time left to make a decision!
When Gu Bei returned to China in his previous life, microblogging was already dominated by Sina.com. Before his rebirth, Gu Bei had never even heard of Fanfou. Therefore, his memories from his rebirth could not help him make a decision.

Now, he has two paths before him.
One option is to listen to the telecom company, cut off one arm first, and pray for the possibility of a future return.
Another option is to listen to Hangzhou's advice and believe that Hangzhou can protect Weibo.

From the limited information available to him, Gu Bei saw a glimmer of hope.
There must have been some information that triggered this reaction, which led to the power outage at the telecommunications level.

However, when he returned to China, the review process had already been reformed, so theoretically there shouldn't be any problems.

Moreover, judging from Hangzhou's attitude, there is a very strong desire to take advantage of Weibo.

"Business as usual!"

A decisive glint flashed in Gu Bei's eyes as he began to give orders to Peng Shaobing, "From now on, strengthen the review process. All user posts must be reviewed before they can be seen."

Competition on the internet is extremely fierce.

If we now suspend the update function for all users...

That would be equivalent to handing over all the first-mover advantage gained over the past ten months to Xinlang.

He ultimately chose the Hangzhou route, ignoring the telecommunications company's warnings, and simply continued to strengthen the censorship of Weibo.

"Understood, Mr. Gu, I'll get on it right away!"

Peng Shaobing breathed a sigh of relief and immediately went to carry out the order.

He's under so much pressure right now.

It's like being in a fog.
The constant noises from all directions left him completely disoriented, unsure of which direction to take.

But after receiving Gu Bei's instructions, Peng Shaobing found direction in the fog. Having such a responsible person gave Peng Shaobing a lot of sense of security.

After hanging up the phone,
Gu Bei looked at the empty coffee table.

I suddenly remembered the scene in "In the Name of the People" where Gao Yuliang was smoking.
He almost never smokes, but in this situation, he suddenly had the urge to have one.

Fanfou never shuts down, neither early nor late.
It just so happened that on the very night after he provoked the penguins,

It was suddenly shut down within a few hours!

Even though Gu Bei instinctively felt that penguins didn't have that much power,

But the idea remained firmly rooted in his mind, and he couldn't shake it off.

This idea took root even more deeply after he discovered that Fanfou's headquarters, like Tencent's, was located in Shenzhen.

Just as Gu Bei was lost in thought,
Liu Yifei placed her two delicate hands on Gu Bei's head from behind. Her fingers were cool and soft, with a slight elasticity, bringing a refreshing sensation to Gu Bei's overheated head.

"What's wrong?" Liu Yifei asked softly.

"It's just that I've encountered the biggest hurdle of my life."

Gu Bei felt much more at ease and spoke in a calm tone.

"It's okay, you still have me!" Liu Yifei said matter-of-factly. "Even if you go bankrupt, you can take any money I have here!"

"That doesn't mean..."

Gu Bei smiled.

Even if Weibo completely collapses,
It won't affect Gu Bei's Linlang Entertainment.
It will not affect My World Foundation, which is located in Europe.
Not to mention that Gu Bei also has best-selling book royalties and a newly established pie as a guarantee for the future.

For anyone born after 1985, the "big pie" (a type of virtual currency) is the best and most cost-effective safety net. All you need is a basic level of English (equivalent to a CET-4 or a Level 2 computer certificate) to play it.

Gu Bei looked up at Liu Yifei and said with a smile, "What? You'll support me if I go bankrupt?"

"keep!"

Liu Yifei said without hesitation.

"Then I won't give you that chance!"

Gu Bei pinched Liu Yifei's delicate nose, causing her to frown.

He smiled and said to Liu Yifei, "What I'm afraid of now isn't bankruptcy, but rather the fear of not having enough firepower!"

After saying that, Gu Bei stood up and stretched: "Let's go back to sleep first. There's one last roadshow tomorrow."

However, we need to change our tickets for tomorrow; the destination will have to be changed!

"Where to go?"

"Guangzhou!"

the next day.

Gu Bei first visited Fanfou, which had just closed down.

Besides checking out the situation here, it was also a way to get in touch with Wang Xing.

After all, after Fanfou shut down, Wang Xing's next venture was Meituan.

Gu Bei remembered that Meituan was founded in Kyoto. This time, Fanfou was starting up in Shenzhen, while Meituan returned to Kyoto, which further deepened his thoughts.

Regardless of whether the shutdown of Fanfou was a warning from Tencent, Gu Bei was determined to give Tencent a hard time!

"Mr. Wang, did Gu Bei come over to mock us?" A Fanfou employee asked Wang Xing, who was standing next to him, with some dissatisfaction.

“No!” Wang Xing shook his head. “He probably doesn’t know about that matter. He was just passing by this time.”

After a pause,

Wang Xing looked at Gu Bei's departing figure with a hint of regret in his eyes: "We deserved it. We wanted to stir up trouble on Weibo through Tianya, but we didn't gain many users. Instead, we were the ones who got shut down."

Judging from Gu Bei's review system, he understands the Chinese market better than we do!

That night,

Fanfou's servers were shut down immediately.
All domain names are unresolved.

When Gu Bei finished his roadshow and flew to Guangzhou, he found that he could not log in to two microblogging websites, Jiwai.com and Digu.com.

This made Gu Bei feel an increasing sense of urgency.

He rested for a night.

Inside the teahouses of Guangzhou,

He met his target this time, Zhang Xiaolong.

If we're talking about doing something drastic to Tencent, then nothing beats poaching Zhang Xiaolong.

After all, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that WeChat is essentially a reincarnation of Tencent.

Of course, would WeChat have been able to succeed without Tencent's resources?
Gu Bei was unaware that he hadn't planned to develop WeChat, only WhatsApp, because he lacked confidence and didn't want to waste money. But now, Tencent was practically forcing him into a corner.
Even if Gu Bei can't poach Zhang Xiaolong, he's still going to give it his all!

Even if he fails, he will only lose a few hundred million in cash. The future value of the pie he digs for in one day can make up for that small cash loss.

Let him personally verify whether WeChat without the penguin can beat the penguin without WeChat!
"Mr. Zhang, it's an honor to meet you!"

Gu Bei smiled and shook hands with Zhang Xiaolong, then introduced Liu Yifei beside him, "This is my girlfriend, Liu Yifei!"

Liu Yifei also looked Zhang Xiaolong up and down with curiosity: "Hello, Mr. Zhang."

"Hello."

Zhang Xiaolong's attitude was neither warm nor cold.

After Gu Bei sat down, he said very honestly, "Actually, given my current status, I shouldn't be meeting with Director Gu."

"But you came!"

Gu Bei pointed this out with a smile.

Tencent is taking Weibo very seriously, so Zhang Xiaolong's meeting with Gu Bei at this time is bound to cause controversy.

"Because the phone call you gave me definitely piqued my curiosity."

Zhang Xiaolong frankly stated, "I'm not afraid at all. I've never participated in the competition for the Penguin Weibo proposal, and Pony knows that I'm not very interested in this product."

Although it was Zhang Xiaolong who brought Tencent Mail to the first seven-star application.

But interestingly,
The Tencent Mail team is located in Shenpeng City.

However, Zhang Xiaolong was too fond of the environment of Guangzhou.
So he and the Foxmail team that had been acquired earlier stayed in Guangzhou.

"Mr. Zhang, you don't think I'm trying to poach you from Weibo, do you?" Gu Bei asked with a smile.

"Isn't it?"

Zhang Xiaolong had always been lukewarm towards him.

But upon hearing that Gu Bei's purpose this time had nothing to do with Weibo...
Instead, it made him show an expression of interest.

"Actually, before Tencent invited me, I never associated Weibo with social media, but then I thought, the person who understands you best is your opponent."

Gu Bei slowly said, "Then I discovered that Weibo not only has media attributes, but also social attributes, which even account for a large part of it."

"interesting."

Zhang Xiaolong said this, but his attitude turned cold.

"That's where I started, and then I discovered that, looking at the whole of China, there was a crucial product missing: a social product that is entirely based on familiar relationships."

Gu Bei calmly and methodically unleashed his ultimate move.

“Isn’t a penguin one?” Zhang Xiaolong retorted.

"Penguins have indeed covered social interactions between strangers and acquaintances in the computer era, but if the iPhone hadn't come out, I wouldn't have tried to challenge the penguin at all."

However, the future belongs to the mobile internet era, and mobile phones will always be more convenient than computers.
Weibo can challenge Tencent's stranger-based social networking and a small portion of its acquaintance-based social networking, so why can't there be a product that can replace Tencent?

"QQ has 5000 million monthly active users!"

Do you need it?

Gu Bei's words struck a chord with Zhang Xiaolong.

Without a doubt, QQ was a bloated and difficult-to-use product for him.

If Tencent were to use a product like this to navigate the blue ocean of the mobile internet era, it might actually lose, and that possibility is its greatest hope!

After a moment of silence, Zhang Xiaolong asked, "Why are you looking for me?"

Have the opportunity!
Gu Bei sensed a glimmer of hope.
He couldn't possibly have revealed the design of WeChat to Zhang Xiaolong.

However, he has a significant advantage: when he attended an exchange at WXG (WeChat Business Unit), he heard about WeChat's core concepts.

They're using the core concepts of WeChat, which Zhang Xiaolong perfected over ten years, to tempt the current Zhang Xiaolong.

Success or failure hinges on this moment!
"Because what I want is not a penguin on a phone, but a software that allows people to have a natural sense of trust in chatting."

Penguin has perfected the chat function, but real communication doesn't need so many fancy features; it's simply the process of two lonely souls talking to each other.

The goal of this product is to become an electronic ID card.

Whether you know the other person or not, you're willing to believe that the person on the other end of the software is a real person.
I believe the product that came closest to this in the computer age is email, and you are the best email provider of all!

Gu Bei has already revealed his most trump card.

The identity card of the mobile internet era is why the WeChat business unit doesn't offer dual-account functionality or other features—it's to avoid undermining this sense of trust.

Even though mobile phone manufacturers have enabled dual WeChat accounts, most people don't think about whether it's the other person's secondary WeChat account when they chat.

This sense of trust is something that QQ can never achieve.

After listening, Zhang Xiaolong lowered his head and remained silent for a long time.

Before he came, he was just curious about what Gu Bei had said on the phone about why he was incompatible with penguins, and he even made up his mind to just listen to it.

But after hearing Gu Bei's words...
He suddenly realized that he really didn't fit in with penguins!

He founded Foxmail in 97, sold it to Broadcom four years later, and then Broadcom sold him and his team to Tencent five years later.

All things considered,

He only stayed at Penguin for four years.
Before Gu Bei came, he had never thought about leaving Tencent, but now he was really tempted.

In the computer age, he spent nearly ten years focusing solely on email.
Now that the mobile phone era has arrived, shouldn't we really switch to doing something else?

“Tencent won’t let me go. Even if I resign, I still have a one-year non-compete agreement.” Zhang Xiaolong gave Gu Bei a reason to refuse him. “Besides, I don’t want to leave Guangzhou.”

"I can wait a year!"

Gu Bei said without hesitation, "You don't need to leave Guangzhou. This project shouldn't be too closely linked to Weibo anyway. I support you building a team in Guangzhou!"

"I'll think about it for one night."

After Zhang Xiaolong finished speaking, he got up and left.

He dared not stay in the tea room any longer.

Before he came, he thought he would never consider leaving;
After listening for half an hour, he began to feel that penguins were not suitable for him;

If he stays any longer, he'll probably have to call and resign.

Gu Bei did not stop him.

Zhang Xiaolong's personality

Forcing him will only backfire.

the next day.

Gu Bei received a tired call from Zhang Xiaolong: "I'll join."

"Row!"

Gu Bei immediately agreed, "I'll find you a position that covers the non-compete agreement first. Mr. Zhang, would you be interested in pursuing your dream in the entertainment industry for a year?"

"You're provoking the penguins!"

Zhang Xiaolong was having a headache; Gu Bei was even more flamboyant than he had imagined.

Gu Bei said calmly, "The penguins made the first move!"

At this time,
The employees of Tencent's Guangzhou branch gathered downstairs in the office building.
Looking at the gate that was blocked off by more than a dozen security guards,
What happened last night?
(End of this chapter)