How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 203 No, this time we can play Dou Dizhu (a card game). [10,000-word update, please subscribe]

The core of the social media battle is user engagement. Why do video websites still have high valuations despite such heavy losses? It's because high user engagement time means higher advertising costs, and they can also squeeze out competitors. This dynamic of rising user engagement and falling user engagement gradually eliminates their rivals.

Adding a music section can at least give users more time to listen to a song, which is invaluable.

Trending topics and news don't take up much of users' time, which is the main reason why Tencent, while valuing the competition on Weibo, isn't worried about it.

So what if you're trending on social media 24/7?
Can you even match the user engagement and usage habits of Penguin users?

Theoretically, the only thing that could pose a threat to Tencent was Baidu's Tieba (forum), but unfortunately, it went astray in the end.

But this time, seeing the completely revamped new version of Ms not only alarmed Sina, but also Tencent.

Because this is no longer a simple social media battle. Ms wants to combine social media and music, to achieve two goals at once. Both companies have simultaneously increased their internal efforts to develop the built-in music function on Weibo, as well as the built-in trending comments function on music software.

However, it would take at least a month, so they could only rely on other channels to curb Ms's development. Relying on its influence as a giant in the Weibo field, Sina issued annual cooperation agreements to all domestic brokerage companies.

The government is demanding that all talent agencies sign exclusive cooperation agreements with the old Sina Weibo platform. If they don't sign, it may be difficult for them to trend on Weibo or have their trending topics removed in the future.

The old Sina Weibo is now undoubtedly the source of traffic for major entertainment companies in China, especially small and medium-sized companies. After seeing the cases of Qu Shou and Ma Ruo, who achieved great success with small investments, they have become more aware of the importance of internet traffic. Faced with the threat of the old Sina Weibo, they have almost no power to fight back.

We can't exactly go and rely on NetEase or Sohu, can we?

The combined user base of these two companies is still unknown, perhaps reaching tens of millions. As for Tencent Weibo, although it is backed by Tencent's massive traffic system, it has only been listed for a month and is still in the invitation-only stage, so it has hardly made any impact.

Their only advantage is that they have signed a series of superstar athletes such as Liu Xiang and Yao Ming, which clearly indicates that they are going to focus on the sports track, and their entertainment traffic is a concern.

Larger companies like Huayi and Bona are better off, as they have annual traffic agreements with Sina at the company level, and Sina also needs their top artists to boost its image, so they can switch between Ms/Sina.

Meanwhile, Tencent is attempting to curb MS's development in the music sector by initiating a music copyright strategy ahead of schedule, and beginning negotiations with major domestic and international companies to acquire or distribute legitimate music.

In 2010, 90% of the domestic music market was still a pirated market. Tencent only made some acquisitions of a few copyrights, and other music platforms basically only symbolically acquired some niche titles to expand their copyright library. They didn't dare to touch the copyrights of hit songs with over 7 million plays. This situation continued until the end of July when the "Sword Net Action" began.

However, Tencent had already been trying to acquire legitimate music, as its QQ Dance app was indeed very profitable. But when it was spurred on by Ms. (a popular Chinese music streaming platform) and prepared to act ahead of time, it discovered that someone else had already beaten it to it.

Universal, Warner, and Sony, the three major international record companies, have all signed long-term exclusive agency agreements in China. Meanwhile, several major domestic record companies, such as Huayan International, B'in Music, Taimai, and Tianyu, have also signed exclusive copyright agreements for top artists such as Mayday, Jay Chou, and S.H.E.

The parties to the contracts were all from a new company called Xinghuo Copyright, which, with a little investigation, pointed to Wang Yao, who has recently gained some fame in the e-commerce field.

Tencent estimates that the cost of this wave of legitimate distribution will not be less than 1 million yuan per year. It should be noted that the current digital music copyright market in China is less than 3 million yuan in size.

With such a large investment in legitimate products, a market size of at least 50 billion is needed to break even and make a profit. At this rate, it will take at least five or six years to develop. What's the point?
With its digital music rights plan stalled, Tencent has to find other ways to address the issue. It plans to integrate and acquire music platforms such as MiXia and GouKu ahead of schedule, and accelerate the development of bullet comments and hot comments to curb the growth of MS.

Wang Yao's two entertainment companies, Tianhuo and Xinghuo, naturally received an 'invitation' from Sina. Tianhuo currently has more than 200 'Taobao Girls' models. Since Meishe's collapse, Tianhuo's 520 company has become the most sought-after agency in the entire entertainment model industry, without exception.

Even Du Juan and Liu Wen, two models from the previously dominant New Ideas Model Agency, switched sides and signed Huaxia Business with Tianhuo.

The Tianhuo model itself relies on the influencer effect of social media platforms like Weibo. Although there was some unpleasantness between Sina and Wang Yao due to Qu Shou's signing with NetEase's Weibo, they later reconciled due to long-term cooperation. Sina even customized a special cooperation package for Tianhuo.
Originally, it was thought that Wang Yao would agree to an exclusive contract, but unexpectedly, he was rejected outright.

The management of Sina suddenly found themselves in an awkward situation.

If Tianhuo Group is banned, it will lose more than 300 attractive models and internet celebrities whose total fan base is close to 100 million. This loss would be a devastating blow to the current state of Sina.

It's not that I'm afraid fans will follow internet celebrities, but I'm worried about the lack of content to fill the beauty section. Tianhuo can create at least 10,000 pieces of content every day, and occasionally there are even small hits with over 100,000 views, which is equivalent to saving the platform millions of yuan in material purchase costs every month.

After two days of discussion, Sina decided to put the matter aside for now, but secretly limited the traffic and then transferred the traffic that originally belonged to Tianhuo to other brokerage companies and its own 'Micro Girl' team.

After Wang Yao's Taobao Girl model went viral, many of his "micro-girls" started appearing on social media. They also take on some e-commerce online photography jobs, but they mostly imitate Mulan Street by doing soft-plant promotions to earn advertising fees from merchants, and they have already developed into a small-scale operation.

The fire at the Japanese toilet not only ignited the jubilation of Chinese netizens, but also sparked a war between the social media and music industries.

But Korean netizens were even more enthusiastic than Chinese netizens.

Last month, the chain reaction triggered by the 'tragic event in the entertainment industry' brought up the Jang Ja-yeon case. After receiving support from international stars Nicole Kidman and Fan Bingbing, as well as various Feminism organizations, the Ewha Womans took to the streets and finally, after a week of sit-in in front of the stage, the authorities decided to reopen the Jang Ja-yeon case.

This success garnered significant feedback from the Korean women, leading to a surge in discussions about topics such as escort services and unspoken rules, with various 'suggestions' being made on MS.

In particular, the marketing campaign of "menstrual aphasia" by Huaxia Qu Shou a few months ago was brought up again, advocating change starting with rejecting menstrual shame, and the main base of Korean women is Ms (international version).

The quietly updated version of Ms, which combines the "trending stories + music" model, has already reached 5 million registered users in Korea, an increase of nearly 3 million in just one month. The daily active users have also increased from tens of thousands to a stable number of millions.

The main reason is that Korean women have too many things to complain about every day, with each user posting a terrifying 5 times a day on average.

When the "Japanese sacred toilet" incident first went viral, some people who were historically illiterate even lit candles to pray for its safety. However, other netizens quickly explained what the sacred toilet actually was, and it also brought up the "comfort women" issue that had been suppressed for many years.

Chinese netizens, constrained by the Great Firewall, can only discuss the issue domestically, but Korean netizens can directly engage in online discussions. The already highly motivated and cohesive Korean women once again led the charge into the Japanese section.

Last time they came to support the tragic case of the Japanese unspoken rules, this time they came to seek justice. The conflict has even spread to international social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Japan has not yet caught the suspects and is facing huge condemnation, and has suddenly fallen into internal and external troubles.

Moreover, it wasn't just the Korean region; netizens from other regions in East Asia also formed a victim alliance, registering on MS to participate in the condemnation.

This has brought the entire international version of Ms (the new version) back into the spotlight for netizens worldwide.

A week later, Wang Yao returned to Hong Kong ahead of schedule after concluding his trip to Japan.

Ms (international version) has reached 5000 million new users, with peak daily active users in the tens of millions and a stable level in the millions. (This was mainly driven by the infighting between the Korean and Japanese regions, which boosted the number of new users across the entire East Asian region.)
Ms (domestic version) has surpassed 1000 million users, with a stable daily active user base of over one million.

Engaging in heated debates is the best way to gain followers.

Due to the new versions, the average user time on both platforms reached 66 minutes, surpassing Facebook's 55 minutes to become the world's longest-used music social media platform.

After five years, Ms. has finally solidified the concept of music social media.

NetEase Cloud's model is indeed more effective in spreading and engaging in the current internet environment. The platform that NetEase Cloud imitated, SoundCloud, achieved a valuation of $12 billion in 2014 and had over 100 million users.

Ms.'s resurgence has attracted great attention from the media group, and Global President Deng Wendi has once again appeared in reports from major Western media outlets, being crowned the 'Queen of Social Media'.

Although MS has not yet returned to its peak of hundreds of millions of users, and its user base is less than one-tenth of Facebook/Twitter's, this revival is certainly enough to catch the eye of Silicon Valley and Western media.

Moreover, her husband wouldn't miss such a valuable opportunity. After helping Deng Wendi hype it up, he also boosted the group's stock price.

Deng Wendi's popularity even overshadowed that of Carol, who was appointed to the position in a time of crisis.

"Little brother, you're simply my lucky star." Deng Wendi seemed to have regained her youth and gave Wang Yao a big hug as soon as they met.

"I can only say that Sister Di is a woman of destiny; she managed to seize this opportunity," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Opportunities are for those who are prepared. If we hadn't made some arrangements by chance in Korea, it would have been very difficult to take advantage of this opportunity." Deng Wendi felt like she was dreaming.

When she heard about the fire at the public toilet a week ago, she just thought it was news. Little did she know that the fire would ignite her business in just two days. The report that the server crashed due to the addition of tens of millions of new users overnight has been framed and displayed in a museum by her husband.

She's not just a pretty face. During her time working with Wang Yao, she immersed herself in various companies and startups in Silicon Valley, absorbing a vast amount of knowledge. She's gone from knowing absolutely nothing about MS development to now having a basic understanding. And she's very clear about what truly matters.

This is the amazing boy in front of me!

"With the platform suddenly becoming incredibly popular and the version updates, the company's operating funds are almost depleted. Does headquarters have any financing plans?" Wang Yao asked.

The main purpose of this trip to Hong Kong was to get money from Deng Wendi.

Not only does the operation and maintenance of Ms (domestic version) require money, but Wang Yao also needs money for the operation of other sectors. Although he still has nearly 10 billion yuan in working capital, it is his own money.

How can you use your own money to do other people's things?
That's not reversing the Heavenly Stems.

You can only use other people's money to do your own thing.

"Don't even mention money, I can give you my life if you want it." Deng Wendi smiled gently; the dreamlike feeling of being in power was too wonderful.

She had suppressed her emotions for so many years, and her seemingly stable state of mind was actually more fragile than ever. She inadvertently revealed her true colors in front of Wang Yao.

"You should save your life for making money," Wang Yao chuckled.

"The new version of MS is so powerful that even Zuckerberg made a special trip to my office the day before yesterday. However, it was also a little embarrassing because SoundCloud said we plagiarized their idea and are preparing to sue us." Deng Wendi's face was full of smugness.

"Sue them? They haven't even released the beta version yet." Wang Yao scoffed. "These things are beyond the capabilities of a lowly worker like me. Sister Di, you should help me think about money."

"Looks like you've fallen for money." Deng Wendi smiled. "The old man is really taking this seriously this time. He directly lent me 200 million US dollars, requiring that by the end of the year, the number of users exceed 100 million, and the daily active users be stable at tens of millions. This is mainly in the Western region, where we currently only have less than 10 million users. By the way, besides advertising revenue, does our platform have any other revenue streams?"

For Silicon Valley, MS is basically in East Asia, which is the region with the lowest global purchasing power. No matter how many users there are, it's useless. The Western regions are the valuable ones.

"Yes, the international version can be distributed through music downloads, but we need to negotiate with the copyright holders. In China, due to complex payment methods, the model of charging a few yuan per download isn't feasible for now; we'll have to wait until next year."

The other aspect is monetizing traffic. You can sign some independent musicians and use the platform to promote and package them. If you can discover some outstanding singers, it will be very profitable.” Wang Yao nodded.

"Oh, I see. So, do we also need to acquire a talent agency?" Deng Wendi asked, frowning.

“Next month I plan to expand my business overseas. Sister Di can invest in my company. The Skyfire model is doing quite well in China and Korea,” Wang Yao said with a smile.

“No problem.” Deng Wendi smiled.

Wang Yao's all-inclusive service is so thoughtful.

"However, the real opportunity for MS to rise does not lie on the PC. The popularity of the iPhone 4 has officially fired the first shot in the mobile era, and the sunset of the PC era has begun to count down." Wang Yao changed the subject, and his tone suddenly became much more solemn.

"I believe you." Deng Wendi also stopped smiling, and her gaze became sharp.

Wang Yao said four months ago that mobile is the future.

If Deng Wendi had previously harbored doubts about Wang Yao, Ms's miraculous recovery was enough to make her trust him completely.

"My team has developed the mobile version of MS to the internal testing stage. It is currently adapted for the iOS system. We have invested 50 engineers and more than 200 outsourced teams in the development, with a total development cost of nearly 4000 million US dollars," Wang Yao said in a deep voice.

Deng Wendi raised an eyebrow. She knew Wang Yao had some money, but she didn't expect him to be this rich. This was a development cost of nearly 2 million RMB. Although there was definitely some exaggeration involved, it was still an absolutely huge investment.

Moreover, this investment was made before Ms was even brought back to life.

It's understandable that he went all in when he had a million dollars.

But he already has forty million US dollars, and he's still going all in? Isn't that a bit too aggressive?
"It seems that e-commerce is indeed very profitable. Can you tell me, sister, whether your monthly turnover has exceeded 100 million yuan thanks to e-commerce?" Deng Wendi asked curiously.

“That’s a trade secret.” Wang Yao smiled and shook his head. “If Ms develops it herself, it might not cost that much money, about 2000 million US dollars would be enough, but the cycle might take 5 to 8 months. After all, the international version and the domestic version are two different companies, so Sister Di, you should consider whether to purchase it directly or develop it yourself.”

Facebook's mobile app will be released at the end of the year, but the project should have started at the beginning of the year. At that time, it cost less than 3000 million. The functionality of MS is smaller, so the actual cost was less than 2000 million.

"Time is money, and I can still make that calculation," Deng Wendi said with a light laugh.

“Okay, then let’s make a purchase of 5000 million US dollars and announce it before the end of next month.” Wang Yao nodded.

"? It increased by 1000 million just by opening and closing its little mouth?" Deng Wendi was stunned, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

"There's nothing we can do. Time is money. 4000 million is the price at the end of the year," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"You bit off a quarter of my flesh in one go, you're too ruthless," Deng Wendi said with a laugh.

If MS really reaches tens of millions of daily active users, then the basic operating cost will be at least 1 million yuan per year, not including R&D, marketing, and administrative expenses.

She was terrified that Wang Yao would eat her up if he opened his mouth again.

“The domestic version is responsible for the main information output. Although the number of users will only be stable at around one million daily active users by the end of the year, the cost of content acquisition is very high, so I need a budget of at least 5000 million US dollars,” Wang Yao said in a deep voice.

The domestic version is less than one-eighth the size, but it requires a quarter of the budget, which is obviously unreasonable.

However, Deng Wendi is well aware that the current output of water stickers and rhythm stickers on Ms is mainly provided by the domestic version, and the cost of this part is very opaque, but she has no choice but to rely on the other party for the time being.

"No problem." Deng Wendi readily agreed with a smile.

At least for now, Wang Yao's role is irreplaceable.

"I guess once you reach 100 million users, you'll start preparing for fundraising, right? Sister Di, do you have any other plans?" Wang Yao asked, raising an eyebrow as he saw her agree so readily.

"What are your thoughts?" Deng Wendi asked in return.

"I'm confident that Ms can reach the top five globally because it's a social media traffic portal, and there's still potential for future increases in e-commerce. Yahoo is already past its prime."

But Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan are both promising companies. If possible, I hope Ms. can participate in Yahoo! Japan in the future. If there is an opportunity, I hope that you, Sister Di, will be the next CEO of Yahoo! Japan.” Wang Yao curled the corners of his mouth, revealing a warm and gentle smile that was as comforting as a spring breeze.

Deng Wendi's breathing quickened. Facebook's current market value is nearly 40 billion US dollars. Even if it's only one-fifth of its size, it will still be close to 10 billion US dollars in the future.

Yahu is a behemoth worth over 500 billion, but Wang Yao has already begun to want to get his hands on it.

She originally thought she was one of the few ambitious people.

But now it seems that the new generation is indeed surpassing the old.

"Is going all in a game a kind of wisdom?" Deng Wendi raised an eyebrow slightly.

Wang Yao smiled broadly.

"No, this time we can play Dou Dizhu (a card game)."

(End of this chapter)