Internet moguls are being held hostage by the entertainment system!

Chapter 290: The Development of TikTok, Launch of Dou+
Yingdu Building, Douyin Company.

Chen Xiu, who came to the meeting, looked at the already somewhat crowded office environment and thought to herself: It's about time we moved to a bigger office building.

Upon arriving at the conference room, Chen Xiu knocked twice, slowly pushed the door open, and greeted the three people sitting inside.

"Sorry, I'm late."

"No, no, I just brought Zhu Jun here to introduce him to you beforehand."

Zhang Yiming began to explain, while introducing a middle-aged man sitting next to him who looked like a hippie.

"This is Zhu Jun, one of the founders of Musical.ly. He has now officially joined TikTok and is responsible for global promotion. Zhu Jun, I don't need to introduce this handsome guy to you, right?"

"Hello, Mr. Chen."

Zhu Jun stood up and smiled as he reached out to Chen Xiu.

"Hello, welcome to TikTok. I've heard Jack Ma mention you before."

"Really? I didn't expect Mr. Ma to still remember me."

Zhu Jun smiled with a complicated expression. Clearly, his memories of working and starting a business with Ma Yun at China Yellow Pages were not entirely pleasant.

Chen Xiu quickly ended the conversation: "Mr. Ma said he took you to worship Buddha before, so you remember it well. Let's start the meeting."

"Oh, alright."

Zhu Jun composed himself and returned to his seat.

Chen Xiu went to the other side and sat down next to Su Xiao. When she sat down, she was ridiculed.

"Good morning, Mr. Chen."

"Hehe, good morning."

Chen Xiu gave an awkward smile, thinking to herself: Everyone had a good time last night, so why are they blaming me now that I'm not working while you have to...?
Su Xiao also saw through his thoughts. When the two people opposite her weren't paying attention, she turned her head and quickly glanced at Chen Xiu to express her dissatisfaction.

To this, Chen Xiu simply nodded without looking at him, indicating that they would talk about it later that evening.

"OK, now that everyone's here, let's start the meeting."

Zhang Yiming stood up and spoke, then glanced to his side: "Zhu Jun, why don't you tell us about the situation with TikTok first?"

"Ok."

Zhu Jun stood up, went to one end of the conference table against the wall, turned on the presentation computer, connected the projector, and began to introduce the situation.

"Before acquiring Musical.ly, TikTok already had nearly 1 million users in the Southeast Asian market, while Musical.ly itself had 2.1 million users in the European and American markets."

"Combining the two, the new version of TikTok has reached a total of 3 million users, with 6000 million daily active users..."

"Excuse me for interrupting, is the daily active user ratio really that high?"

Chen Xiu called for a halt, expressing her doubts about the data.

At the beginning of the month, Douyin's user base had just surpassed 4 million, achieving its annual user growth target ahead of schedule, with daily active users reaching 6500 million. However, the new version of TikTok's daily active users are now comparable to Douyin's.

In other words, Zhu Jun couldn't access the e-commerce shopping cart direct channel, and overseas live streaming rewards weren't as crazy as in China; otherwise, Musical's value would be far more than $10 billion.

This achievement far surpasses the user base and daily active user ratio of other domestic software, and is even higher than that of "Honor of Kings," which is truly astonishing.

Zhu Jun was not surprised by the question and explained, "Now, 80% of our daily active users are from Europe and America, and most of them are teenagers from the United States. Their Wi-Fi is more widespread, and they spend more time online every day."

"Understood, please continue."

"The new version of TikTok completed a new round of financing last month, raising $3.5 million from investors including CCB International, Goldman Sachs, and Apple..."

Upon hearing the name of the first investment institution, Chen Xiu glanced at Zhang Yiming silently.

When deciding to spin off TikTok and raise funds again, the two had already agreed that the app needed to go public overseas while also attracting domestic investment.

"TikTok's development goal this year is still to promote itself through advertising and buying traffic on apps with a large number of teenage users, such as Facebook and Instagram. We are actively communicating with Amazon about features similar to Douyin's shopping cart, hoping to establish a cooperative relationship between the two parties as soon as possible."

"Clap clap clap!"

Chen Xiu and the other two applauded in response, and Zhu Jun, having finished his presentation, turned and returned to his seat.

"Okay, next is the current situation of Douyin, and the development goals for the next quarter."

Zhang Yiming prompted her, and Su Xiao got up and went to the spot where Zhu Jun had been standing, opening her document on the display computer.

"Douyin currently has 4.2 million local users and 7000 million daily active users. It is in a stage of rapid growth, and traffic costs are also rising sharply. Although advertising revenue has also increased, profit margins are declining."

"Many e-commerce users who have enabled the shopping cart function have also reported that public domain traffic exposure is insufficient. I suggest that the Dou+ function be officially launched in the fourth quarter of this year."

"As Mr. Zhang said before, Dou+ can better boost video popularity, efficiently increase exposure and play count, meet the diverse needs of users, and also add a profit point for the company."

At this point, Su Xiao stopped abruptly, looked at Chen Xiu and Zhang Yiming, and waited for their opinions.

Chen Xiudao said, "I think the current user base is sufficient, and the timing for launching Dou+ is also appropriate, but we still need to continue the user acquisition efforts."

"Agreed! Dou+ should definitely be launched."

Zhang Yiming echoed, saying that the Dou+ feature was a suggestion he made at the beginning of the year, when Douyin had less than 2 million users and was also facing competition from other apps like Kuaishou and Tencent Video.

Therefore, this suggestion that could create a profit point was temporarily shelved. Now, Douyin's user base has nearly tripled, and its daily active users have exceeded the original expectations.

Such a massive amount of traffic would be a huge waste if it weren't used properly; the Dou+ feature is definitely time to be introduced.

Having gained the approval of both bosses, Su Xiao suggested, "Based on the company's marketing department's calculations, the initial pricing for Dou+ can be set at three levels: 100, 500, and 1000 yuan..."

Traffic purchase tiers basically refer to how much money you spend to buy a certain number of impressions.

The solutions proposed by Su Xiao are all acceptable. Even if there are any problems, they can be adjusted later. In any case, this is a new profit point, and it will always be accompanied by various problems.

In any case, the launch of Dou+ is confirmed.

After the discussion was finished, Zhang Yiming glanced at Chen Xiu and suddenly said, "Last time, I watched CCTV's interview with you. It was pretty good; it didn't tarnish my image. But that part about treating me to midnight snacks for a month—there was really no need to go into so much detail..."

"Isn't it inappropriate to talk about this during a meeting?"

"This is just a prelude. What I want to say is that Douyin's traffic generation still needs to start with content. If we could get the exclusive online broadcasting rights for CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, that would be an incredible amount of traffic."

Zhang Yiming said with shining eyes.

It must be said that he is also a genius when it comes to attracting traffic and marketing.

Seeing how earnest he was, Chen Xiu had already guessed what was going on: "Have you already started communicating in this direction?"

"Hehe, we are indeed making similar arrangements, but whether it will work or not depends on what the central bank says."

Zhang Yi smiled shyly, then his expression changed, and he looked at Chen Xiu with great interest.

"Why are you looking at me like this?"

"The CCTV Spring Festival Gala's online broadcast is ultimately just a one-off event. You've helped Douyin drive traffic so many times before, but haven't you come up with any new tricks lately?"

"Not really."

"Forehead……"

"but."

Chen Xiu chuckled and said to the three people in the conference room, "More and more celebrities are opening personal accounts on Douyin now. Celebrities are the biggest traffic generators. As long as they can keep updating their status on Douyin, they can keep driving traffic to the app."

"That's true."

"It would be best to attract more corporate and media accounts to join, gradually completing Douyin's content ecosystem, so that the users attracted will not be homogenous."

"These are all progressing."

Su Xiao took over the topic and explained the internal operations of Douyin.

As the number of Douyin users increases daily, many official accounts eager for exposure have begun to get verified and join the platform.

While Douyin at this stage may not yet possess the full power it will eventually achieve, it has officially passed its growth phase and entered maturity, with its development speed far exceeding that of TikTok.

After discussing the launch of the Dou+ feature and the importance of continuous user acquisition, the meeting moved on to other detailed work items.

Chen Xiu specifically mentioned the overcrowding in the office area, and Su Xiao had already taken that into consideration and started looking for a new office building.

After the meeting ended, Zhu Jun left early, and Su Xiao went to work.

Chen Xiu and Zhang Yiming then closed the door and held a short meeting.

With Zhu Jun absent, Zhang Yiming was less reserved. When asking Chen Xiu a question, he deliberately placed his hand on the table and leaned forward.

"Xiu, what's your impression of Zhu Jun?"

"How about what?"

"What do you think? Do you think he can manage TikTok well?"

"We didn't see much at our first meeting, but when we approached Musical.ly about the acquisition, he seemed to accept it quickly and didn't resist at all."

Chen Xiu's words were very pleasing to the ear.

What does it mean to accept something quickly? To put it simply, it means to soften quickly!
It took Zhang Yiming a while to react, but he also agreed with this view: "Zhu Jun's ability to withstand pressure is indeed not that strong. He himself said that Musical.ly's success was due to catching the right trend, and it has little to do with his personal ability."

"Hmm, I'll revise my previous assessment. He's a very intelligent person."

“He’s smart enough to know how to go with the flow, and he’ll be quick to accept unforeseen circumstances. I understand what you mean. But Musical is his creation, and he’s familiar with the European and American markets. For the company’s development, Zhu Jun is a good person to maintain the status quo, and he’s good enough for the time being.”

"agree."

Chen Xiu nodded in agreement; he and Zhang Yiming had already discussed the ideal future manager for TikTok.

Neither of them would ask too much of Zhu Jun; they just wanted him to be able to successfully integrate Musical's users and ensure the platform's continued growth.

After discussing his views on Zhu Jun, Zhang Yiming added, "Yesterday, Wang Xin called me and said that the Internet Conference in December had ended and invited me to stay for dinner. Did he invite you?"

"Um, he called me too."

"Are you referring to eating?"

"You've invited me fishing tomorrow. Should I wear a helmet?"

(End of this chapter)