Rebirth 08: Can a mobile game company also build a tech empire?

Lu Chen looked at the message on the screen that it could not connect to the server.

He paused for a second, then shook his head helplessly.

"It's still the same as before..."

As a reborn individual, and also a future Bilibili user.

He knew the story behind it all too well.

AcFun was founded by programmer xilin two years ago, in 2007.

It started as a small website set up by a few anime enthusiasts.

This forum primarily focuses on sharing neon animation.

In March 2008, A-site imitated the Japanese website Nico Nico Douga and introduced a bullet screen player.

It became the first video website in China to support bullet screen interaction.

It quickly attracted a large number of ACG (anime, comics, and games) enthusiasts.

At this time, A site was maintained by xilin personally.

The technology is rudimentary, but the community atmosphere is excellent.

User-generated content is being copied, edited, and created.

To form a highly autonomous circle of like-minded people.

However, the turning point came in early 2009.

A-site's user base has surged.

However, there is a lack of professional operation and maintenance teams.

The server crashes frequently.

The management team consists of xilin and several volunteers.

The permissions are not clearly assigned.

This has led to an escalation of conflicts between new and old users.

A serious internal conflict among users broke out in the first half of 2009.

Long-time users believe that the new administrators do not understand ACG culture and arbitrarily delete posts and ban accounts.

New users complained about vague review standards and a closed, exclusionary community.

The conflict even escalated on external platforms such as Baidu Tieba and QQ groups.

It evolved into a struggle between small groups of users.

Until mid-2009,

Station A suffered from server room malfunctions and a lack of technical maintenance.

Unable to access normally for a month.

The website is constantly opening and closing, videos frequently fail to load, the bullet comment system crashes, and the user experience is extremely poor.

This has led many users to start looking for alternative platforms.

At this moment, a young man named Xu Yi stepped forward.

He was an early active user of ACFun.

He is also a technology enthusiast.

He has assisted in the maintenance of AcFun (A-site) on multiple occasions.

AcFun is facing long-term downtime and chaotic management.

He built a backup site himself in the second half of 2009.

It is called mikufans.

It was later officially renamed Bilibili in 2010.

The name comes from the nickname of the character Misaka Mikoto in "A Certain Scientific Railgun".

Later, Chen Rui joined as an angel investor and took over Bilibili.

Since then, Bilibili has developed rapidly and has undergone multiple rounds of financing.

It was successfully listed in 2018.

Isn't that a coincidence?

At this point in time

That future Bilibili site administrator is probably just an ordinary user of AcFun (A-site) at the moment.

They are active in various anime-related forums and QQ groups.

"This is an opportunity."

Lu Chen muttered to himself.

Now that Journey Technology has a gaming entertainment industry.

Why not create another video website?

If only it could have been made before Bilibili was even created.

Furthermore, it relies on the traffic and resources of Journey Technology.

It might develop even better.

and,

A high-quality video platform.

This will generate tremendous value for Future Journey Technology's hardware sales, game promotion, and brand building!

With this in mind, Lu Chen immediately took action.

He picked up the mouse and, despite the crashing AcFun servers, refreshed the page several times.

at last,

After a long wait, A-site's webpage reopened.

Lu Chen directly searched for "bishi".

This is an ID name that Xu Yi often uses.

Sure enough, the search returned an ID named "⑨bishi".

"That's him!"

Open the personal homepage.

In the comments, I saw a group number for anime and manga enthusiasts called "AcFun Anime Exchange Group".

Copy the group number, switch to the QQ interface, search for the group, and click "Apply to Join".

The verification question is: Who is your favorite anime character?

Lu Chen thought for a moment and then typed in Hirasawa Yui.

He remembered that the first season of K-On! aired in 2009.

His application was approved quickly, and he was added to the group.

In a flash,

The QQ icon in the lower right corner of the computer screen was flashing wildly, and group messages were refreshing like a waterfall.

[Group Owner] Guardian of the Anime World: "Newcomer, post your photo! Show your measurements! Tell us how long you've been an otaku!"

[Administrator] Puella Magi Madoka Magica: "Welcome newbie~ Remember to check the group announcement and change your name~ヾ(^∀^)ﾉ"

[Group Member] Rintaro Okabe: "Newcomer, do you believe in the choices made by Steins;Gate?"

[Group Member] Palm-Sized Tiger: "What kind of anime does the newbie like?"

[Group Member] Yuzu Fan: "Ciallo～（∠・ω<）⌒☆ Yuzu fans, gather here!"

The message refresh rate is astonishingly fast.

Almost every second, three or four new messages pop up.

Looking at the dense dialogues and various anime avatars and emoticons on the screen.

A strong sense of 2009 anime and manga culture is palpable.

"hiss……"

Lu Chen gasped.

This level of anime/manga style is way too intense!

I changed the group nickname to match the format of the group announcement.

Then reply in the input box:

Hello everyone, I'm new to the group, please take care of me.

I've been watching K-On! lately.

Almost instantly, several replies popped up at the same time.

[Group Member] K-On! is the Best: "Good eye for newbies! Yui-chan or Mio-chan?"

[Group Member] Daiyu is my wife: "Yui shipper here! Newbie, are you a Yui shipper or a Mio shipper?"

While replying to the group members' comments, Lu Chen scrolled through the group member list carefully.

he knows,

The future founder of Bilibili, named Bishi.

They should be in this QQ group right now.

The list is long, with nearly five hundred people.

He looked through them one by one, searching for the ID that might be called bishi, or a similar variant.

not a single one.

Lu Chen frowned and returned to the chat window.

I started scrolling up through the chat history.

Most of the posts are discussions and resource sharing about new anime series.

Lu Chen spent nearly half an hour scrolling through hundreds of messages.

Until my eyes started to sting.

I finally saw a conversation.

That was a record from three days ago.

[Group Member] Number Nine: "A site has crashed again. This time it's been two hours since I last logged in."

[Group Member] Tech Geek Saves the World: "That's normal, this is the third time this week, and it's still just xilin doing the maintenance?"

[Group Member] Number Nine: "Pretty much. The volunteer team only has a few people. I heard that the number of users has exceeded 300,000, and the server simply can't handle it."

[Group Member] Puella Magi Madoka Magica: "Waaaaah, I want to see a new episode of Bakemonogatari QAQ"

[Group Member] Number Nine: "It's not just a server issue; the review mechanism is also chaotic. Yesterday, a MAD video I uploaded, which clearly complied with the guidelines, was inexplicably deleted."

[Group Member] Tech Geek Saves the World: "It's probably a management issue. I heard there's been a lot of fighting between old and new users lately."

[Group Member] Number Nine: "Indeed, if I were to architect the website, I would at least adopt a distributed deployment. This single point of failure is too fatal."

Lu Chen's eyes lit up.

This is the person.

He didn't speak the most.

But every time the topics of website technology and server architecture are mentioned...

and,

He seems quite dissatisfied with the current server status of A-site.

If Lu Chen remembers correctly.

Bilibili will be launched soon.

"This is it."

Lu Chen was almost certain.

He clicked on Number Nine's profile.

The document contains only basic information:

Male, 22 years old, residing in Hangzhou.

My personal motto is: "Building an ideal world of two-dimensional universe with code."

Lu Chen was overjoyed.

This time, not only did they find the person, but they were right in Hangzhou!