Restart life

Chapter 183 0180 [These days, accessing the internet on a mobile phone is a real pain]

The parent who brought their child to school stayed in room 404 and didn't leave.

He didn't mean anything by it; he just wanted to see a 19-year-old billionaire in person.

Jiang Junlai took them around the campus during the day, and then they had dinner at the No. 1 canteen before strolling back to the dormitory: "Chen Guiliang often doesn't go back to the dormitory; sometimes he just stays at the company."

"Aren't you going to check the dorm rooms?" asked Li Heng, the new roommate.

Jiang Junlai said, "We do room checks occasionally, but Chen Guiliang is different. Guo Feng, who is also the founder of ByteDance, used to live in room 404. Guo actually lived at the company more often. The people who do room checks know their situations very well."

A parent asked, "The first cohort of the Yuanpei Class, it seems they graduated this year? What's their situation like?"

Most of the Yuanpei Class students, including Jiang Junlai, are paying close attention to the first graduating class that graduated two months ago.

Jiang Junlai said, "10% continued to study for a bachelor's degree, and 90% have successfully graduated."

"So many students are delaying their graduation?" The parents were very surprised.

Jiang Junlai explained, "These undergraduate programs last five or six years. They basically choose their major in their second year and then choose a new major in their third year. In addition, the first cohort was admitted after enrollment, which means that they have to change their major almost every year from the time they enter the school until their third year."

New roommate Tong Zhihong said, "That would be such a waste of time."

“How could it be a waste of time?” Jiang Junlai said. “The courses they took were truly absorbed into their minds. They could have graduated smoothly without changing their majors, but they dared to change them in their third year, which shows that they have a firm will and have truly found their lifelong ambition.”

The parents nodded repeatedly as they listened, then asked, "What about those who graduated smoothly?"

Jiang Junlai has a good memory: "40% pursued postgraduate studies in China, 25% studied abroad, 25% joined large companies, and the remaining 10% joined government agencies or started their own businesses. Of course, this is just a rough estimate, and I rounded it up to the nearest whole number for easier memorization."

"That's really impressive," the parent exclaimed.

We chatted idly on our way back to the dorm, and the sound of typing came from room 404.

Jiang Junlai took out his keys and opened the door: "Chen Guiliang is back."

Two new students and a parent walked in with great anticipation, only to find Chen Guiliang typing rapidly.

Next to the keyboard are excerpts from the History of Ming and the Veritable Records of Ming.

The royalties for the second quarter of "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty" have been settled. While transferring the money, Li Xunhuan took the opportunity to urge Chen Guiliang to continue writing.

After a full six months, Chen Guiliang still hadn't finished writing the fourth volume.

However, his promise to Li Xunhuan was to complete the fourth and fifth volumes this year.

Chen Guiliang is not short of money now and really wants to become a eunuch.

But one must see things through to the end; no matter how slowly one writes, one must grit one's teeth and persevere.

"Hello, Mr. Chen!" the parent greeted warmly.

Chen Guiliang stood up and shook hands: "Hello, just call me by my name."

My two new roommates also came to shake hands. One was the second-highest scorer in the province's liberal arts exam, and the other was admitted to university through a chemistry competition.

Perhaps other departments learned from last year's experience and competed even more fiercely for top scorers this year. As a result, the 05 Yuanpei Class only admitted 8 provincial top scorers.

Chen Guiliang sat on the edge of the bed and chatted with them. The parent had a lot of questions, which made his son a little embarrassed.

After chatting for a full half hour, Ao Yanchen called: "Boss Chen, let's have a late-night snack at the cafeteria."

"Okay, I'll be right there." Chen Guiliang hung up the phone, apologized to the three of them, and took his leave.

Watching Chen Guiliang leave, the parents exclaimed in admiration, "A billionaire boss is still using a phone that costs only four or five hundred yuan. That's what you call frugality!"

Li Heng said with envy and admiration, "I also want to start a business in college."

……

When Chen Guiliang arrived at the first canteen, Ao Yanzhen was having a late-night snack with a girl.

So he also bought a bowl of wontons.

Ao Yanchen introduced, "This is Senior Sister Li Fan, from Anhui Province. She applied for advertising in college but transferred to the Yuanpei Class after entering the university. She majored in economics and management and took courses in sociology, communication, psychology, law, and politics. She earned a double degree in economics and journalism."

"During the summer after her freshman year, she interned at the magazine 'New Talent'. During the winter break of her sophomore year, she interned at the Anhui Provincial Education Press. In the following winter and summer breaks, she interned at the Beijing Times and CCTV's 'Economic Half Hour'."

"In the second semester of her senior year, she joined iResearch Consulting and became a full-time employee. Some time ago, the school said there was still one spot available for postgraduate recommendation, so Senior Sister Li resigned from iResearch Consulting."

Chen Guiliang exclaimed, "Senior Sister Li is truly amazing!"

They really know how to cause trouble!
Those four internship companies were completely unrelated to her, and even if her family had power and influence, it would be difficult for them to arrange it for her. It's likely that she earned them through her own abilities.

iResearch Consulting is also incredibly impressive; she actually started working there during her senior year, in the second semester. Even more remarkable, upon hearing that she could get a guaranteed spot in graduate school, she immediately quit her job at a large company.

“Junior brother, you are even more impressive,” Li Fan said with a smile. “When I was at iResearch Consulting, I often came into contact with materials from ByteDance and Game Science.”

This senior sister isn't particularly beautiful, but she has a remarkable temperament. She has short, ear-length hair and a clean, cheerful demeanor.

Ao Yanchen said, "Senior Sister Li wants to come to ByteDance as a part-time employee."

“Of course you’re welcome,” Chen Guiliang asked. “What’s your graduate program, senior?” Li Fan replied, “Communication Studies, Media Management.”

Chen Guiliang talked about the problems with Weibo and explained the situation in detail, wanting to test Li Fan for any suggestions.

Li Fan's eyes lit up: "This microblogging platform has a very promising market prospect!"

“The future may be promising, but I don’t think it will be easy to make it happen in the next two years,” Ao Yanzhen said, offering a different perspective.

Li Fan said, "The user base may not be very large in the past year or two, but it is definitely profitable. When I don't have a computer with me, I often log on to WAP websites to read news and use mobile QQ to contact friends."

Li Fan then pondered carefully: "Weibo's mobile version is different from previous products. It's equivalent to... well, a dual model of UGC + PGC. Moreover, it's open, which can break through Dunbar's number limitation. The mobile version is also more convenient; you can use it anytime, anywhere, even while walking down the street, and it only takes a few minutes. How should I describe this?"

“Fragmented time,” Chen Guiliang said with a smile.

Li Fan clapped his hands in admiration: "This description is very accurate. Perhaps I can use it as a research topic!"

Chen Guiliang smiled.

Xie Saobang still lacks theoretical knowledge. Look at Senior Sister Li, she speaks so eloquently.

Li Fan even went so far as to say: "Once we can break into the market, Weibo will completely dominate the current social media landscape! Moreover, it will be extremely profitable in terms of unlimited value-added services."

These days, a significant number of people use mobile phones to access the internet, as evidenced by the huge profits of Mobile QQ.

This year, they even launched an NBA text-based live broadcast service. Users can log in to the mobile internet service on their phones to receive real-time text information. For example, someone scored again, and the score was [score number].

Despite its monotonous and boring nature, this service has a large user base, with users spending around 10 yuan per month to watch NBA live streams on their phones.

Li Fan continued, "The key to hindering user growth is not user habits, but the cumbersome steps to log in to the WAP website. I almost went crazy the first time I logged in."

"It is indeed very complicated," Chen Guiliang said with some helplessness.

There are a total of seven steps to access the internet on your mobile phone, and the steps vary depending on the brand of the phone.

Fortunately, in order to compete for business, China Mobile and China Unicom subsidized mobile phone manufacturers in exchange for control of their respective button controls. The seven cumbersome steps were simplified into one: long press 0 to directly enter the Mobile Dream Network, and long press # to enter the Interactive Vision.

However, new users still need to send an SMS to activate the service upon login. If no data plan is selected, opening a webpage will cost 1 yuan.

Moreover, the one-click function is prone to errors during the first login.

If an error occurs, you must manually configure the parameters. This step is actually not difficult, but it will deter 90% of users who encounter errors!
Li Fan said, "This year seems to be a bit better; there aren't many errors from new users. I have a few friends who didn't encounter any errors when they logged in for the first time. But it's still annoying to type in the URL every time. Could we cooperate with mobile phone manufacturers?"

"We'll be working together in the future." Chen Guiliang was fairly satisfied with her.

Li Fan, being an outsider, actually thought of contacting mobile phone manufacturers from a purely user-centric perspective.

This year, Tencent paid 120 million yuan to have QQ Mobile's bookmarks pre-installed on 10 Nokia phone models. Users can now access QQ Mobile directly from the third line of their browser's bookmarks without having to type in the WAP URL.

But compared to mobile phone manufacturers, what's more important now is paying annual fees to China Mobile and China Unicom.

For example, by paying a minimum annual fee of 500,000 yuan to China Mobile, Kaixin001 can be included in the preset menu of China Mobile's mobile network. The higher the annual fee, the more prominent the position and the more likely it is to be seen by users.

Not charging an annual fee is fine, but it's not easy for users to notice, and it might be subject to traffic restrictions by the mobile network.

The annual fee for the top-tier menu is 600 million yuan plus other fees.

This year, Tencent ranked first, with a basic annual fee of 600 million yuan, a mobile terminal fee of 80 yuan, and a guaranteed revenue share of 500 million yuan. It took them a total of 1180 million yuan to rank first.

Sina ranks second, with a basic annual fee of 600 million yuan, a holiday activity fee of 50 yuan, plus an additional commission that is not guaranteed.

The third-ranked company is Kongzhong Corporation, with 600 million yuan plus 150 million yuan in terminal fees for all models.

This year, Chen Guiliang had no choice but to pay the minimum annual fee and install a pre-installed menu in some obscure corner—just hoping that China Mobile wouldn't throttle his data usage.

If Weibo proves to be profitable, Chen Guiliang will be willing to invest heavily next year.

He plans to pay 600 million yuan next year to get his app listed in the top-level menu. He'll also pay 150 million yuan for all mobile phone models, ensuring it's visible to users of all brands. Additionally, he'll give China Mobile an extra share without a minimum guarantee; the more share China Mobile receives that month, the higher Kaixin.com's ranking will be the following month.

Maybe it can even rank in the top three!

This is more effective than any advertisement; users who log in to the DreamNet network can see it, which can attract a large number of new users.

The specific price may go up or down.

Because the government has strengthened its management of unlimited value-added services, it can no longer arbitrarily impose hidden charges as before. As a result, website revenue has decreased sharply, and the annual fee is naturally lower.

The next day, Li Fan started working at ByteDance.

Although she's a part-time employee, she comes to work every day before school starts. She plans to continue coming frequently after school begins, as she intends to use the mobile version of Weibo as a research topic.

There's nothing to guard against. Li Fan doesn't understand technology; he studies business models. Moreover, he's been tracking and researching websites as Kaixin001 and Weibo have grown.

Once Weibo becomes popular, her research will no longer be a secret.

If Weibo weren't popular, few people would read her paper even if she wrote it.

Chen Guiliang had just sat down in his office when Xie Yang knocked on the door and came in: "We can't sign the Super Girl contestants for now; there's a contract dispute."

(End of this chapter)