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Chapter 273 0270 [The Event Goes Viral]

Zhang Chaoyang not only directed Sohu News to launch a full-scale attack, but also personally wrote a blog post about it.

This will give his Sohu blog some exposure.

Zhang Chaoyang's blog post is titled: "On the Basic Qualities of the Leader of an Internet Giant".

He didn't name names, but everyone knew who he was satirizing:

"...As the head of an internet giant, he doesn't know that China and the United States are the world's largest internet markets..."

"As a listed giant in the Chinese internet industry, it surrendered without a fight to its smaller competitors... and even conceded defeat to Vietnam..."

"His speech at the main forum of the China Internet Conference was riddled with errors and he made baseless accusations against his peers. Was he bewitched? Or was he just sleep-deprived?"

“I think someone should enroll in an MBA program to further their studies. But perhaps New Oriental would be a better fit for him.”

This blog post received over 10 views in just one day.

Many netizens who weren't Sohu Blog users came specifically to see what was going on after hearing the news.

It did bring traffic to Sohu Blog and also increased the number of registered users.

Netizens are thoroughly enjoying the gossip.

The last sentence of the article even became a popular saying, evolving on the internet into "New Oriental is more suitable for you".

Yu Minhong, the CEO of New Oriental, is quite nostalgic; he continues to stay on BlogChina.

Yu Minhong was surprised to find that her blog comments had surged. After some investigation, she figured out what was going on and wrote a blog post to mediate the dispute.

His entire article can be summarized in one sentence: "There's no need to argue like this. We're all bosses of listed companies. In the end, it won't have a good impact on anyone."

Guess what the keywords are?
A publicly listed company!

New Oriental just went public this month.

Yu Minhong wasn't there to mediate a fight; she was there to show off that her company had gone public, making her a listed company owner just like Li Yanhong and Zhang Chaoyang.

Chen Guiliang's speeches produced even more memorable quotes.

"It's only when you get old that you can't sleep."

"I am about to fight to the death, why does Your Majesty surrender first?"

"I've only ever seen people fight over food, never over excrement."

"Some people aren't stupid; they're just pretending."

Many netizens left messages on Chen Guiliang's personal homepages on Renren and HaiNei, hoping that he could write an article about this matter.

Chen Guiliang readily accepted this advice and wrote an article titled: "I will not offend others unless they offend me. If they do offend me, damn it!"

He claimed that he was not deliberately picking a fight, but had to fight back.

"As everyone knows, this is my first time giving a speech in such a large setting. I was very nervous and felt like I was walking on thin ice. Although I didn't lose sleep at night, I did spend several days racking my brains to revise my speech..."

"And what happened? My presentation was about the future development of Web 2.0, and before I even got on stage, people were already saying that Web 2.0 has no future..."

"What else can I do? Pretend I didn't hear anything and just stupidly read the whole speech?"

However, netizens focused their attention on the word "".

Everyone started asking, "Where is 'damn' from?"

Moreover, this character is difficult to type, so after checking the dictionary, netizens unanimously replaced it with the character "怼" (duì). Apart from the different tone, "怼" is actually more vivid and easier to understand.

On online forums and message boards, netizens frequently "criticize his mother."

Or, to put it another way, I'll beat you to a pulp!
Southern Metropolis Daily had previously reported that the battle between Baidu and Sohu was a farce, and this time it quickly published a commentary.

An excerpt is as follows:
"Actually, it was Zhang Chaoyang who first claimed that Web 2.0 was a bubble. The battle between Baidu and Sohu was ignited by this article. Sohu's special report criticizing Baidu was titled 'Baidu Copies MySpace: Web 2.0 Bubble-like Expansion'..."

"For some reason, just two months ago, Baidu was criticized by Sohu for blindly venturing into Web 2.0. Yet, two months later, Robin Li publicly expressed concern that Web 2.0 would trigger an internet bubble, which ended up dragging Chen Guiliang of ByteDance into the mess..."

"What's even more surprising is that Zhang Chaoyang, who has repeatedly predicted the demise of Web 2.0, has this time sided with Chen Guiliang and strongly supported the Web 2.0 development model..."

This report from Southern Metropolis Daily is so funny it's hilarious.

The change in Li Yanhong and Zhang Chaoyang's statements before and after gives the impression that they have switched minds.

Two lunatics!

The truly incisive commentary came from Computerworld.

This publication later published a report that shocked the industry, titled "Damn Tencent." It angrily denounced Tencent for doing everything, driving countless competitors to their deaths.

The headline of this issue of Computerworld is: "A dog-eat-dog fight."

In the article, the author satirizes Robin Li for being obsessed with money and having lost his basic conscience. Whether it's the sudden layoffs or the default on stock options, these actions have crossed the line for entrepreneurs. He's aggressively pushing into Web 2.0, yet he comes out to criticize the entire industry. He's either brainless or has no conscience.

Then he mocked Zhang Chaoyang, saying he'd gone crazy from drinking with female celebrities. While running his own Sohu blog, he also talked about the Web 2.0 bubble. He just finished criticizing Baidu for blindly entering Web 2.0, then turned around and joined forces with Chen Guiliang, a supporter of Web 2.0. Despite having a first-mover advantage, Sohu's search and blog businesses have always been following in others' footsteps.

The article then mocks Chen Guiliang, calling him a clever little devil who seized the opportunity to spout nonsense during Li Yanhong's speech, relentlessly pursuing his claim to be an industry leader. In reality, Chen Guiliang is perfectly aware that Li Yanhong and Zhang Chaoyang's concerns are valid, yet they deliberately inflate the bubble for their own company's sake. After reading the article, Chen Guiliang cursed inwardly, but couldn't help but admire them: "What an accurate judge of character!"

Damn it, this lousy publication is even funded by IDG.

Is it appropriate for you to insult your own people like this?

In fact, aren't Baidu and Computerworld also on the same side? IDG started withdrawing from Baidu in February of this year, and still has a small amount of shares left to divest.

Last time, because of the news program "Xinwen Lianbo" which reported on the game "Three Kingdoms Kill", the author of "Xinjing" deliberately contradicted and criticized Chen Guiliang. This time, the author has turned his guns on Chen Guiliang again and strongly supports him.

The stance of "The Beijing News" remains unchanged: whatever generates sales will do.

Because Baidu is a behemoth, while Chen Guiliang is a small fry. Therefore, supporting Chen Guiliang has unlimited benefits. The Beijing News can not only win public favor, but also take the opportunity to sell newspapers by picking hot topics.

The headline in The Beijing News was: "ByteDance challenges Baidu: A suicidal charge."

Chen Guiliang is portrayed as an idealist with a strong sense of justice, who launches a fearless and tragic challenge against industry giants.

China Computer News, an authoritative IT media outlet under the Ministry of Information Industry and hailed as a bellwether for China's IT industry, has this time titled: "Internet practitioners should strengthen their professional qualities."

The article doesn't name names, but everyone knows it's criticizing Robin Li.

Clearly, Robin Li made baseless accusations during his speech, claiming that China's internet user ratio was lower than Vietnam's and that the market capitalization of Chinese internet companies was less than one-tenth of that of Xiaomi. These remarks greatly displeased the relevant leaders.

If no one exposes it, that's fine; I guess even the leaders aren't entirely aware of the truth.

But Chen Guiliang exposed it on the spot. What would the leaders think?
This incident even reached Hong Kong, and then Singapore.

Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao, which is particularly fond of following news from China, published a full-page article providing a comprehensive report and detailing Chen Guiliang's background and resume.

Now even the common people of Lijiapo know that there is a very young internet upstart in China.

However, the Hong Kong media reports were the most interesting, with each headline being particularly sensational:
Computer Prodigy Strikes Off Internet Conference: Chen Guiliang Distributes Packages in Public, Li Yanhong Leaves with a Grudge!

Baidu CEO suffers major setback! During a speech, his wheel slams and is trampled by a new employee; the boss leaves in disgrace.

"The Internet Martial Arts Tournament Takes a Turn: A Newcomer Knows Baidu's CEO's Achilles' Heel and Exposes It On the Spot, Shattering the Search Myth!"

This incident has gone beyond its original scope.

The internet upstart's angry confrontation with industry giants is such a hot topic. Any newspaper that doesn't report it would be considered unprofessional.

Ordinary people don't care about Web 2.0, nor do they care about overheated venture capital or the dot-com bubble. They're just here to watch the show.

However, they could see that Li Yanhong's speech was full of "common sense" errors, which were completely refuted by a junior in the industry.

They naturally formed the preconceived notion: Is this all the Baidu CEO is capable of? That young man is far more impressive.

……

Li Yanhong himself has not made any response.

After leaving the Internet Conference, he lived a secluded life and went into seclusion.

However, Baidu issued six official statements in succession, warning media outlets and some companies not to take the opportunity to smear and spread rumors, otherwise they would be held legally responsible.

In the last major battle with Sohu, Baidu issued four official statements.

In the villa's garden, Li Yanhong stared blankly at the swimming pool.

He didn't know why things turned out this way.

He had heard of Chen Guiliang before, but had never taken him seriously, only regarding him as a relatively successful young entrepreneur.

How could things have gone wrong because of this person?
Li Yanhong couldn't understand it.

After returning home, he made a special call to several friends abroad to check Vietnam's definition of internet users and the market capitalization of Xiao Rizi Internet Co., Ltd. He realized that he had indeed made a mistake.

But it's not a big deal if he's wrong; he's just using examples to prove his point.

Although all the examples he gave were wrong, his point of view was correct.

Why doesn't everyone know how to focus on the key points?

"Mr. Li, a small company is taking advantage of the situation to cause trouble. They say that when you search for their trademark on Baidu, the first few results are all ads. They want to sue us for infringement, but the court hasn't accepted the case. So this person is going around to the media to publicize it. Now public opinion is very bad, and Google is also kicking us while we're down..."

"Let's temporarily adjust the search rankings."

"But what about the advertisers..."

“Reduce their advertising fees a bit; we have to pay that money first to let the storm pass. Calm the public opinion as soon as possible so as not to affect the stock price. Also, issue a statement saying we shouldn't issue any more statements or respond to anything. The more we respond, the longer this will drag on.”

"do nothing?"

"Doing anything now is wrong. Doing nothing is the best option."

Li Yanhong's approach to public opinion is simple: play dead!

(End of this chapter)