Although Weibo and blog seemed to be only one word different, and many people said that the former was a lighter version of the latter, in fact, in Li Mu's opinion, there was a big difference between the two products from the root of the concept.
Blogs were like the Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft in the United States. They were destined to be eliminated or marginalized by the Internet industry. Just like the rampant chat rooms in the past, they were a transitional product of a certain period of time. Their life cycle was only a few years, and after a few years, they would never be able to restore their former glory.
This kind of transitional product was also reflected in the physical industry. The most obvious example was Little Smart. It became popular quickly, but it also died quickly. The reason why it could have a short period of glory was because mobile communication equipment and usage costs were too expensive at that time. Although the equipment and usage costs of a normal landline were relatively cheaper, they did not have mobile communication capabilities. Therefore, Little Smart, which was stuck in the middle, immediately found its niche.
However, Little Smart itself had a major technical flaw, and there was an extreme lack of room for improvement. When the industry upgraded, or when the top industries began to put pressure on it, it was like a bean living in the middle of an oil press. It had no ability to resist at all.
In Li Mu's opinion, in the future of the internet, other than strong vertical areas, all other industry models must integrate social media to be the final form of development. They must have strong human interaction within their own products. Otherwise, any product would be eliminated one day.
The so-called strong vertical areas were products with extremely vertical functions such as navigation software, translation software, weather software, and production tools. For example, Photoshop would never need to consider adding social media to its products, and Gaud and Google Navigation did not need to force users to develop social media in their software.
However, in addition to strong vertical areas, other products needed the support of social media to ensure their survival. The success of NetEase Cloud Music was due to the integration of social media. The reason why Zhihu surpassed Baidu Know and became the legendary high-end community was because of the integration of social media.
It was the social media attribute that gave people a stage to show off, gave people the motivation to show off, and gave people a channel to monetize through personal influence. The same was true for Weibo.
The weak social media of blogs was not much different from Little Smart. However, the social media of Weibo or Twitter was second only to social media such as WeChat. Li Mu did not know how strong the vitality of products like Weibo and Twitter were, but he was sure that they were much stronger than any other type of blog.
A few years later, Sina Weibo would gradually decline due to rampant advertising, but Twitter would continue to shine on the international stage. This was enough to prove the global vitality of Twitter. If YY's product system could incubate a Twitter, then YY's overall combat power would be even stronger. Therefore, to Li Mu, Weibo was a must, and it had to be done on a global scale, and it had to be done to the best.
It was just that Li Mu did not expect Weibo's model to be thought of by others so quickly. Fortunately, the person who thought of it was Chen Tong. Otherwise, if he became a competitor, he might have added a threatening enemy to the future of YY.
Although Teng Xun was now history, Li Mu still admired the overall operating model of Teng Xun in the future. With QQ and WeChat as the core, Teng Xun fully developed its own closed loop and ecosystem. No matter what sectors there were in the internet industry, as a large corporation, as long as it could be done, it would be done. If it could not be done, then it would invest and acquire those that did well. In short, it would dabble in all the fields that it could.
Li Mu's goal was the same. He would never think that his territory had expanded enough, and he would always be in awe and desire for new fields.
Therefore, at the core of the company, Li Mu announced the immediate establishment of the Twitter Division. Chen Tong, who was currently in charge of the blog, would be the general manager of the division.
The reason why it was named the Twitter Division instead of the Weibo Division was to maximize confidentiality. If the word 'Weibo' was revealed in advance, it would be easy for the internet users at the current stage to associate the word with a microblog. In other words, it was a streamlined and lightweight blog. In this way, at least half of the strategic intention would be exposed in advance.
However, calling it Twitter was very abstract. Hua Xia Internet Company would not be able to figure out what kind of product it was based on the English word. Overseas Internet companies, especially Western Internet companies, would not be able to associate it with the product.
After all, if one were to tell an internet user in Hua Xia that Makino Technology was preparing to develop a software called Bullshit, many people would be equally confused and would not be able to figure out the meaning behind it.
The Twitter Division had a very high level in Makino Technology. The division was not under the control of any vice president. Chen Tong reported directly to Li Mu, and the technical department needed to unconditionally give all support to achieve the launch of Twitter as soon as possible.
At the current stage, Makino Technology had become the focus of Internet companies around the world. Therefore, such a big move as setting up an internal division could not be hidden from other colleagues in the industry. Almost on the same day that the division was established, domestic Internet companies received the news that Makino Technology had set up a high-level division that reported directly to Li Mu. The name of the division was very strange. It was called Twitter.
For a time, the entire industry was guessing what Twitter was.
Soon, the news spread to Silicon Valley and Wall Street. When people learned that Makino Technology had set up a division with an English name, Silicon Valley was very nervous.
As a Hua Xia enterprise, Makino Technology suddenly set up a division with an English name. For Silicon Valley, people would instinctively think that this division was set up specifically for the English market.
This also meant that the next key product of Makino Technology would be in the English market.
No one knew what kind of product Twitter was, but everyone knew in their hearts which field Twitter was positioned in. The companies in that field would suffer a huge blow. Every Silicon Valley entrepreneur was praying that Twitter's actual direction would not overlap with their entrepreneurial direction.
Some entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley were asking Lin Ching-ah, who was in North America, for confirmation through various channels, hoping to communicate with Lin Ching-ah to get some information about Twitter. However, Lin Ching-ah told everyone very frankly that she knew no more than outsiders about the establishment of the Twitter Division by Makino Technology. This was because she only learned about the new division when she received the group's public email.
Lin Qingya was not lying. Due to the fact that the Twitter project needed to be kept a secret and she was not in the country, Li Mu did not inform her of the relevant plans before setting up the Twitter project. As for the content of the Twitter project, only the few executives who were present in Beijing knew about it.
Li Mu also clearly requested that the core content of Twitter should not be communicated online through email, YY transmission, video conference, and other means. Therefore, Lin Ching-ah, who was in North America, only knew that the division was set up, but she did not know the specific content of the division.
Even Lin Ching-ah did not know what the Twitter division was doing, which made the entire Silicon Valley even more nervous. Li Mu's success during this time made all the Silicon Valley companies feel like they were hostages locked up by Li Mu. Now, the news about the Twitter division was like hearing the sound of Li Mu sharpening the knife through the door. These people who were locked up did not know whether Li Mu was sharpening the knife to kill them.
In this kind of worry, the only company that did not care about it at all was Google.
Google knew very well that after paying the protection fee, Makino Technology would no longer compete with them. Therefore, Twitter could be any kind of product, but it could not be a search engine.
This made Larry Page feel particularly relaxed. It seemed that this was the benefit of paying the protection fee.
…
When Twitter became a global hot word on the Internet, the signing ceremony between Muye & Baidu and Google was about to be held in Beijing.
This signing ceremony was going to be the largest one since the establishment of Muye Technology, and it was also the one that attracted the most attention.
In his previous blog post, Li Mu frankly told the world about his instinctive pursuit of business interests as a businessman. Almost all the major media around the world reported on Li Mu's "forced acquisition" and the content of the blog post. This not only attracted the attention of the world's netizens, but it was also recognized by the vast majority of netizens. This seemingly unfair but consensual scheme had also become a hot topic of discussion.
Because of this, the global Internet, capital market, financial market, and the vast number of netizens paid special attention to this special "merger". Because there were too many media present, the location of the on-site cameras had to be reserved in advance and limited. Except for the major television media, other reporters of the print media and online media were all refused to bring large cameras. They could only bring SLR cameras into the venue.
There were a total of thousands of reporters and entrepreneurs who had confirmed to participate in this signing ceremony. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were invited to Hua Xia to participate. Even Tim Cook put down his work at hand and came from afar to support his new boss, Li Mu.
In addition to the people in charge of the companies that had developed around Li Mu, the big bosses of various companies in Silicon Valley also came to support. After all, Li Mu was the future super giant in the Internet industry. No one dared to underestimate Li Mu's future influence on the global Internet. They were willing to come from far away. On the one hand, they hoped to take this opportunity to express their goodwill to Li Mu, and on the other hand, they hoped to gain some popularity.
Not only Silicon Valley, but many big bosses of Wall Street also came. As the only Western capital that had invested in Makino Technology, the CEO of Sequoia Capital personally came to support Li Mu. After the completion of the acquisition, the valuation of Makino Technology would usher in a big wave. As an investor that made money by following cars, the potential profit of Sequoia's investment in Makino Technology had exceeded 300%. Whether it was the profit margin or the scale of the profit, it was the largest investment by Sequoia in recent years.
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