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Chapter 567 0555 [A Battle to Decide the Fate]

In fact, besides cash red envelopes and vouchers, you can shake for other new things every night.

For example, on the second day of the event, you can shake to receive blessings from celebrities.

On the third day, you can draw a New Year's fortune slip and share it with your friends.

On the fourth day, you can shake out a customized greeting card. This card allows you to upload family photos or group photos with friends, automatically generating a New Year's group photo greeting card. You can also add your own blessings.

Day ...

The above content is all cumulative.

The closer it gets to Lunar New Year's Eve, the more items you can get by shaking the wheel.

Many merchants also realized the potential of this event and urgently contacted ByteDance for business cooperation.

Especially for group-buying companies, the fierce competition of hundreds and thousands of group-buying websites over the past two years has left only twenty or thirty large group-buying websites.

These websites are vying to partner with them, offering exclusive discounts from local cinemas, restaurants, supermarkets, and other businesses based on the user's location when they shake their phone.

These exclusive offers, which can be combined with individual discounts and group-buying discounts, are extremely useful around the Spring Festival—clearly a continuation of the group-buying wars. Those group-buying websites have gone crazy, throwing money at subsidies to try and kill off more competitors.

Users were further spurred into a frenzy by the incredible discounts. If they won these deals the night before, they'd immediately call up friends or bring their families to shop the next day.

Some people even ate out for several days in a row and took their boyfriends or girlfriends to the movies every day. Because these discounts are only available for a limited time!

Almost all of Chen Guiliang's companies and related businesses participated. Even A-site and Tudou.com offered limited-time VIP trial cards and recharge membership discount cards through a lottery system.

With three days left until Lunar New Year's Eve, the chance of getting "Thank you for participating" had dropped to 10%, and almost every time you shook your head, you got all sorts of random things.

Netizens also filmed videos and shared their tips.

Some people throw several cell phones onto a slimming machine and shake it, the kind that claims to vibrate rapidly to lose weight.

Some people were shaking several cell phones inside their clothes or blankets.

someone...

The eight immortals cross the sea, each showing their magical powers.

On New Year's Eve.

The real highlight is here: the vast majority of the 5 million yuan in cash prizes will be distributed within these few hours.

The largest single red envelope contains as much as 4999 yuan!
Furthermore, for every WeChat red envelope you shake out, you can also receive three additional red envelopes. These additional red envelopes cannot be opened by yourself; they can only be sent to WeChat friends. In short, it's the same viral marketing tactic—getting users to recruit more users to participate.

This year's Spring Festival Gala is undergoing reforms, with an urgent desire to attract young viewers.

Director Ha Wen is quite bold; she arranged a song and dance performance for the "shake for red envelopes" activity right after the host's opening remarks.

Singers and dancers, all dressed in bright red, sang and danced while shaking their phones. Television screens also displayed promotional text, encouraging viewers nationwide to download and install WeChat and shake their phones to receive red envelopes (digital cash rewards).

……

Xu Fengyin returned to her hometown to celebrate the Spring Festival with her parents.

The elderly couple lived in a company-allocated apartment, which was nearly twenty years old. She bought them a house in the city, but after the renovations were completed, it remained unoccupied for almost a year before they moved in.

The neighbors upstairs and downstairs all know each other, and they visit each other's homes after finishing their New Year's Eve dinner early.

Some chatted, some played cards, and the children made plans to set off fireworks and firecrackers. It had a really festive atmosphere.

Xu Fengyin played on her phone while watching her mother play cards.

While they were playing, the neighbor sitting across from them suddenly received a call from her child: "Mom, quickly take out your WeChat and use the Shake feature?"

The neighbor aunt was playing mahjong and asked, completely bewildered, "What's this 'shake' thing?"

"Oh, it's WeChat's Shake feature. You forgot WeChat? I downloaded and installed it for you last year, but you haven't used it much! Quickly take it out and shake for a red envelope, the biggest one is 4999 yuan!"

"How many?"

"4999!"

"I'll shake it right away!"

The neighbor auntie forgot about playing cards and quickly took out her phone to open WeChat. Then she asked Xu Fengyin, "Xiao Xu, how do I shake for a red envelope?"

Xu Fengyin smiled and said, "Click to shake..."

The neighbor lady quickly figured it out, snapped a picture of eight stripes, and grabbed her phone, waving it around vigorously.

Another aunt asked curiously, "Sister Cheng, what are you doing?"

My neighbor said, "They shake for red envelopes. The one with the most money inside is 4999 yuan."

The woman took out her phone: "4999? How do I do that? I'll try it too."

Xu Fengyin said, "Aunt Liu, yours is a feature phone, so you can't participate. Only smartphones can shake for red envelopes."

The third auntie also took out her phone: "Is mine okay?"

Xu Fengyin said, "Sure. Do you have WeChat?"

What is WeChat?

"I'll download and install it for you."

At the mahjong table, four middle-aged women, around fifty years old, even stopped playing mahjong and started huddling together to grab red envelopes.

One of them was using a feature phone and could only sit there watching. Feeling embarrassed, she muttered to herself, "My son also said he wanted to buy me a smartphone, but I don't think it's a waste of money. A phone that can make calls is enough..."

The residents of this old building, while not wealthy, are doing quite well and can easily afford a smartphone costing a little over a thousand yuan.

It's just that some people are used to being frugal and can use a feature phone for several years without replacing it.

"You shook out a New Year's card. What did you get?" "A Pacific Cinema coupon. I don't watch movies, so I don't need it."

"I won cash, 1.68 yuan."

"Wow, Aunt Zhang, you're so lucky. Most of the red envelopes are less than 1 yuan."

"Haha, looks like I'm having good luck this year."

"..."

Finally, the auntie who didn't have a smartphone couldn't stand the situation any longer and asked resentfully, "Are you still playing mahjong? If not, I'm going home to watch TV!"

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Wait a minute, I'll shake it again."

"My son sent me a red envelope, I opened it first... haha, I got 1 cents!"

"I also have a red envelope. Does anyone in our office still use WeChat? I'll send it to them as a New Year's greeting."

So, while the three aunties continued playing cards, they kept calling their friends or colleagues to ask if anyone had WeChat so they could send red envelopes and greeting cards.

Moreover, the phone calls were always accompanied by conversations like this: "Old Yang, do you have WeChat? You don't even use WeChat? You're so old-fashioned. Quickly have your daughter teach you how to use WeChat so you can grab red envelopes together. I have some red envelopes I can send you."

Prior to this, whether it was ByteDance's WeChat or Tencent's Zhangxun, the users were mainly young people.

There are very few middle-aged and elderly users.

The Spring Festival Gala's red envelope giveaway has led to many middle-aged and elderly people registering for WeChat accounts. And their enthusiasm for grabbing red envelopes is no less than that of young people.

Xu Fengyin now has a new task: to help her mother and aunts add newly registered WeChat friends and send out greeting cards, coupons, and red envelopes.

As time passed, the first wave of red envelope giveaways was nearing its end. Fewer and fewer cash red envelopes were available, with most of the giveaways consisting of other miscellaneous items.

At 10:30, the second wave of red envelopes appeared.

The aunties stopped playing cards. Three of them were having a great time shaking the shovel, while one of them sat there looking sullen.

"I'm not playing anymore, I'm going home to sleep!" The aunt who couldn't grab the red envelopes left in anger.

The remaining three women didn't bother to persuade them to stay; they were engrossed in shaking their phones.

Xu Fengyin was also shaking the app, and she was sending various items she got from shaking the app to Chen Guiliang, Tao Xue, and other close friends.

I'll also share it on Weibo and WeChat Moments.

After some time, Xu Fengyin saw a colleague's repost on WeChat Moments and exclaimed excitedly, "The first 4999 yuan red envelope has appeared! This person is so lucky!"

The netizen who won a 4999 yuan red envelope became an internet celebrity, and their Weibo and WeChat Moments were forwarded by countless people across the country.

Other large red envelopes include amounts of 100 yuan, 200 yuan, 500 yuan, 888 yuan, and 1000 yuan. Anyone who manages to win one of these amounts will inevitably post it online to show off, garnering countless likes and shares.

On this Lunar New Year's Eve, countless people across the country sat in front of their televisions watching the Spring Festival Gala and receiving red envelopes.

CCTV leaders were overjoyed; this year's Spring Festival Gala was a huge success in terms of both viewership and online buzz.

Finally, the third wave of red envelopes was all claimed, and the entire event officially came to an end.

The three aunties began to take stock of their spoils.

There are tons of coupons, and most of them are time-limited, so I don't know how to use them.

There were some things they had never even heard of. Xu Fengyin's mother even won a discount on a rare skin in the game "Three Kingdoms Kill".

"I won a total of 16.8 yuan."

"You're lucky, mine is less than 5 yuan. I wasted a whole night, I would have been better off winning more by playing mahjong."

"Sigh, I only won a little over a dollar. What kind of luck is this? I can't play cards this year, I'm sure I'll lose money if I do."

After a whole night of trying, I only managed to win a little over a dollar. I'm really unlucky.

But they all seemed to want more, wishing the activity could go on for a while longer, as shaking for red envelopes was much more fun than playing mahjong.

Xu Fengyin's new task is to help the aunties create e-cards. This involves taking photos from her phone, generating a card template using the template she draws, and allowing her to add various blessings and auspicious phrases.

The aunties like this too; they can show it off anytime they want.

After watching Xu Fengyin fiddle with it for a while, the aunties learned the basics and started handing out their winnings from the game. If they couldn't finish, they'd make phone calls, asking people they weren't very familiar with if they had WeChat IDs…

They even learned how to create WeChat groups and send WeChat red envelopes themselves. They chatted lively with old friends and colleagues in the groups using voice messages, and then sent red envelopes to wish each other a Happy New Year.

For middle-aged and elderly people, WeChat voice chat is very convenient because it is difficult for them to type and chat.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Chen Guiliang received a phone call: "Chairman, WeChat has over 2.8 million registered users!"

"Great! Let's strike while the iron is hot and continue with the activities," Chen Guiliang said happily.

Currently, the number of smartphones in China is approximately 3.5 million. Some statistics show 3.8 million, while others show 3.3 million.

With over 2.8 million registered users, WeChat means that 73%–84% of smartphone users have already installed and downloaded it. Furthermore, the buzz surrounding the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes hasn't completely dissipated and is expected to increase rapidly in the coming days.

One battle decides the outcome!

……

Pengcheng.

When Pony Ma saw the official data just released by ByteDance, he remained silent for several minutes.

Tencent lost, and lost completely.

(End of this chapter)