Silicon Valley.
Makino Technology's stand-alone office building.
Li Mu had set up a frontline command center in the conference room.
The key people in charge of the operation of the entire competition were all working in the conference room. The domestic technical team maintained a real-time video connection, and the server team constantly monitored the pressure on the server. This situation was comparable to the Taobao Brand Day and the 929 Festival.
The speed of the data increase was beyond imagination.
The number of applicants increased rapidly. One million, 1.5 million, two million, 2.5 million, three million …
Li Mu was dumbfounded by the speed at which he was climbing.
Million-Dollar-Beauty had indeed become an irresistible temptation for American female college students. It had the momentum of capturing all of them in one fell swoop.
This was very similar to Super Girl, but there was a big difference.
The cost of participating in the Super Girl competition was very high. Although most girls would want to participate, considering the certain requirements for singing, the need to go to the designated area to register and participate in the auditions, and the lack of rewards in the process of promotion, all their previous efforts would be in vain if they could not make it to the second half of the competition. Moreover, the long process of the competition required a lot of time, energy, and money. The overall cost was staggering.
However, the cost of participating in the "Paradise Town Cup – America's Top Campus Beauties List" was just typing on the keyboard in front of the computer and filling in the registration information. The process was ridiculously simple, and the cost was so low that it was negligible. More importantly, the rewards in the stages were generous. They did not need to make it to the second half of the competition. As long as they made it to the next stage, they would receive a generous cash prize and a bonus of potential income.
In the face of this huge temptation and great convenience, American female college students almost went crazy, filling in the registration information immediately.
There were about 15 million college students in the United States. The ratio of male to female students had increased from 2.16: 1 after the end of World War II to 1: 1 now. In other words, there were more female students than male students in American universities. Among the more than 15 million students, women accounted for 55%, amounting to about 8.5 million.
Based on this trend, Li Mu felt that at least five million American college students would apply for the competition.
And among the five million college students, if there were four non-college students on average, Paradise Town would have an additional 20 million potential users among the non-college students.
Before the competition was announced, although Paradise Town was very popular on college campuses, it had not found a suitable opportunity to break through the barriers of campus. In the entire United States, except for college students, there were very few users of Paradise Town.
But now, everything was changing rapidly.
On that day, when three million people signed up, Paradise Town also gained eight million new registered users. If the credit of these eight million new registered users was counted to the three million people who signed up, then the average new users for Paradise Town would be 2.66. It seemed that it was still far from Li Mu's target of four new users per person, but that was in just one day!
The competition had yet to officially begin. If the competition were to begin, and the competition had reached a stage where it was in full swing, this number would definitely increase significantly. Based on this trend, millions of people participating in the competition would be able to entice at least tens of millions of people to participate indirectly, which would be able to entice the attention of hundreds of millions of people.
Based on the data alone, the influence of the "Paradise Town Cup – Top List of American School Beauties" would definitely reach a heaven-defying level.
Everyone in the "Frontline Command" was thrilled to have achieved a great start on the first day. Li Mu decided to continue to invest 15 million US dollars in the second and third stages of the competition for large-scale TV and offline media advertising.
The first stage of the competition was a seven-day selection by each college. After the first place of each college was chosen, everyone's votes would be reset, and the "resident voucher" rule of each player would also be reset. After the official award ceremony of Paradise Town, there would be a three-day break before the competition entered the second stage.
After the start of the second stage, the votes of each college champion would be recalculated, and the first place of each state and special district would be decided. After a three-day break, the third stage would enter.
The third stage was the most eye-catching Million-Dollar-Beauty segment. At that time, the 51 candidates should have become popular in the United States, so the social attention would be very high. At that time, Paradise Town would continuously increase the appeal of these 51 candidates to the fans through short videos. This process would last as long as ten days, until the million-dollar-beauty, a beauty with a million US dollars, was chosen.
At the beginning of the second stage, the competition would go beyond the scope of the major colleges and universities. The more than 3,000 people selected should also be beautiful girls with different styles. Therefore, at this stage, large-scale promotion would be carried out to allow the audience's attention to focus on a small number of people. For example, in a certain city, they would promote the candidates in that city, so that the American audience would form a home-field awareness, and each of them would have their own home campus beauties that they supported.
In the third stage, when the attention of the entire United States was focused on the 51 people, the promotion would continue to increase. Li Mu's plan was to continuously expose the relevant information of the competition at all costs, not only on TV media, traditional print media, and even in iconic places such as the big screen in Times Square.
…
At the same time, the slow Silicon Valley also received the news of the "Paradise Town Cup – The Highest List of Campus Beauties in the United States" and the "Million-Dollar-Beauty – A Million US Dollar Beauty" event. The powerful data analysis company quickly published the accurate data of "Paradise Town." This time, the entire Silicon Valley was in an uproar!
No one thought that Li Mu had been silent for a few days to prepare such a big move!
Ever since the development of Silicon Valley, there had been a lot of experts in technology, products, and business model innovation. But there was not a single operation expert like Li Mu, who could play the operation so well.
If they had not seen the "Paradise Town Cup – The Highest List of Campus Beauties in the United States" and the "Million-Dollar-Beauty – A Million US Dollar Beauty" with their own eyes, if they had only heard that Li Mu was going to spend tens of millions of dollars to hold a campus beauty contest in American universities, the entire Silicon Valley would disdainfully call him an idiot.
However, Li Mu really thoroughly understood the operation, and his analysis of the market and users was also detailed to a height that his peers could not match. This made the people of Silicon Valley, who had been waiting to see Li Mu make a fool of himself, feel as if they had been slapped in the face.
At this moment, the most miserable one was the magazine that carried out a special report on Li Mu and satirized him. This magazine, called "Network Technology," had a circulation of more than 700,000 copies in North America. However, this was not a great magazine in the United States in 2002. The United States' print media was highly developed in this era. There were more than 10,000 magazines in the United States, among which more than 60 had a circulation of more than one million. "Times", with a circulation of more than four million, was only barely ranked ninth in the year.
The actual circulation of more than 700,000 copies of "Network Technology" meant that they now had more than 700,000 printed and bound copies of the magazine waiting to be sent to all parts of the country. However, because of Li Mu's sudden move, more than 700,000 copies of the magazine had to be overturned and reprinted.
Magazines were a mode of carrying paid content. The core of their income was based on the content, which was also targeted at deep user groups. Therefore, the magazine must ensure that their content could be recognized by their own user groups. Otherwise, subscriptions would continue to be lost, and the magazine would not be long before it closed.
This time, the headline article of "Network Technology" attacked and ridiculed Li Mu's so-called "arrogance." Originally, the editor-in-chief of "Network Technology" wanted to be clever and use Li Mu's "failure" to attack the development of Hua Xia's Internet industry. At the same time, it would let the readers clearly understand the gap between Hua Xia's Internet industry and the United States' Internet industry. It could also be regarded as enhancing the readers' national pride to a certain extent, which was satisfying.
However, before the magazine was released, Li Mu made a perfect reversal. A talent show that took root in a high school turned out to be like an earthquake, quickly affecting the entire American society. This speed was amazing, and at the same time, they were even more amazed by Li Mu's ability to devise strategies. If they waited for the "Paradise Town Cup – Top List of American Campus Beauties" and the "Million-Dollar-Beauty – Million-Dollar Beauty" campaign to be prepared for two days, they would probably be on the headlines of major media in the United States and attract the attention of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people in the United States. At that time, when the magazine was released, when the readers saw this article attacking and ridiculing Li Mu, wouldn't they scold the people in the editorial department?
Therefore, the only solution at present was to remove the content related to Li Mu from this issue of the magazine, and then immediately find an article with a similar capacity to replace it, leaving the other pages untouched, and then quickly print it out.
In this way, the printing cost of more than 700,000 copies of the magazine was wasted, and the cost of additional printing of the revised magazine was higher than that of printing at the normal speed, so they had to pay an additional part of the express fee. This loss was extremely heavy, and the entire magazine wanted to cry but had no tears.
In addition to "Network Technology", there were two other media in Silicon Valley preparing to criticize Li Mu. One of them had already started printing the new issue of the magazine in the printing factory. As a result, after being tossed around by Li Mu, this magazine also immediately called for an emergency stop. As a result, the printing factory had already printed 300,000 copies. There was no other way. These 300,000 copies could only be scrapped immediately, and then quickly adjusted the plate making and re-printed.
The other had slightly better luck. Their plate making had been completed and was ready to be sent to the printing factory to start work. As soon as the "Paradise Town Cup – Top List of American Campus Beauties" campaign was launched, they immediately abandoned the content of this edition and rushed to the new edition.
In addition to the magazine suffering the most direct economic loss, every venture capital in Silicon Valley was also beating their chest and stamping their feet. Although they did not actually lose a penny, in their hearts, the regret was comparable to losing hundreds of millions of dollars …
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