2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 746 Zhou Ao's Advance (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
The difficult situation went viral online the next day.

In fact, after Tencent released its open letter, the offline struggle between the two sides became a back-and-forth battle, which was very intense.

Shortly after the open letter was issued, Zhou Hongyi publicly stated that she would fight to the end, and then her official website immediately released a product called 'web QQ', claiming that she developed it herself.

This is actually the web version of QQ, using the same core as QQ. In addition, the official website recommends many other social networking apps.
This thing became unusable less than 20 minutes after it went online, and the reason given was vague.

It's obvious that it was blocked by Tencent, which shows that Tencent was well-prepared and responded very quickly.

Around 9 p.m., 360 issued a response, stating that it could guarantee that 360 and QQ could run simultaneously. Subsequently, QQ Guard was quietly removed from its official website.

On the 4th, Tan Jincheng arrived at the company and when he reached the Dingding project team, Zhou Ao was already there.

"Boss, 360 has released an open letter, meaning they are willing to set aside the controversy and let the internet return to calm. Also, QQ Guard has been officially taken offline. Does this mean they're admitting defeat?"

"Can he just not back down? He fired a shot at someone himself, and then realized he couldn't win."

This is really a mess. QQ Guard is basically a plugin for QQ that blocks ads and can also intercept other people's data. No one can tolerate that.

The two sides initially engaged in online mudslinging, accusing each other of violating user privacy. The lawsuits they filed were all within the bounds of not infringing on the interests of either party and were therefore within the reasonable scope.

This whole thing is like developing a cheat code for a game; it's incredibly unethical.

"Now that he's backed down, this matter can't possibly be over so quickly, can it?"

Zhou Ao was transferred here to help out; he has his own things to do and can't stay here indefinitely.

"We definitely can't let it go like this, but if you have something to do, go ahead and do it. I guess the publicity for that 'difficult' style didn't go very well today."

"That's right. Nokia, Adidas, Coca-Cola, and even condoms have all come up with their own 'difficult' versions, and they've spread even wider than we have. These multinational corporations are really amazing; their reaction time is incredibly fast."

"That's right. Multinational corporations' marketing is subtle and effective. We can really learn from that. If you're interested, you can take a look at Apple's marketing methods. By the way, how many downloads were there last night?"

Apple has only been in the Chinese market for a few years, and before the release of the iPhone 3GS, it wasn't considered a particularly powerful company. In terms of brand influence, it couldn't compare to companies like Motorola. So why has it been able to achieve such a huge global influence in just a few years?

Tesla is another example. In just a few years, it has become a favorite in the market, transforming from an emerging brand into a high-end brand. In addition to its excellent products, marketing is the most crucial factor.

"The download numbers are pretty good. In just one night, we've already surpassed 70 individual users. Speaking of which, the influence of Weibo is truly enormous. After doing some statistics, we found that many of them came from there. The forum seems to be declining."

Starting at 6 PM last night, almost all topics on Weibo were overshadowed by the 3Q controversy, with a massive online community working tirelessly to keep up with the discussion.

"Haha, it's mainly because mobile phones are convenient. The way Weibo allows you to post only one paragraph is also more suitable for leisure. Can you feel the charm of mobile internet?"

Weibo is like a text-based short video. In an era when data traffic was still expensive, it was a killer app. Especially since Weibo spent a lot of money to invite so many celebrities to join, allowing users to get up close and personal with their favorite stars, providing a fantastic experience.

"It is indeed very attractive, and its development speed over the past few years has been simply too fast."

Before their promotion, Dingding had only a little over 10 registered users. In less than 20 hours of promotion, the number of registered users exceeded 70, driven by the popularity of just one meme.

Mobile clients accounted for a quarter of the market, something that would have been impossible a few years ago.

"How about it? Interested in getting involved in the internet industry?"

Seeing Zhou Ao's shocked expression, Tan Jincheng smiled.

Zhou Ao was taken aback, then realized: "The boss wants me to manage the Dingding project team?"

Tan Jincheng nodded: "Last night's promotion only increased Dingding's popularity. Individual registered users are actually not very useful. At most, people download this software to try it out. But if we integrate these individual users, it will be a different story."

As an enterprise-level intelligent mobile office platform, Dingding has been iterating for many years and now has enterprise group functions that make messages more secure, supports sending images nearby, and recently launched mobile app functions for creating and managing teams.

Other features include the addition of team invitation links and QR codes, as well as personal and group QR codes.

In fact, many features have been developed, but like Intel releasing toothpaste in incremental steps, it's impossible to release them all at once, and the current network conditions don't allow it either.

For example, the video conferencing function is used within the group and by Orange Technology, which uses dedicated networks. The speed is incomparable to ordinary network speeds, making it very smooth to use. However, it is somewhat laggy on ordinary networks, so it is not yet ready for widespread adoption.

From the perspective of enterprise-level office software, Dingding is definitely a very good choice, at least it solves the security issues in the QQ file transfer process.

"Integration means promoting to businesses, right? If their businesses join, then those 70+ registered users will truly become 70+ users, right?"

"That makes sense. Dingding is geared towards businesses, so it's not very effective for individual users. Ultimately, we still need to focus on promoting it to businesses, which is similar to the strategy we used to use to promote electric vehicles."

No matter how things change, the fundamental principles of doing business remain the same. Flash can't sell electric cars or clothes directly to end users. The most important thing is to promote them to shop owners. Dingding wants to do the same.

"How about it? Are you interested in taking charge of Dingding's promotion? Your current position will remain the same, but I'll spin off Dingding as an independent entity, and you'll hold the position of general manager."

2011 is almost here, and the network environment and speed are becoming more and more favorable for mobile applications. Dingding can also be spun off into an independent company. Large enterprises have their own office systems, but small enterprises do not.

"But this thing doesn't make money, right? What's the point of you promoting it, boss?"

As the marketing director of Flashpoint Technology, Zhou Ao was not bothered to accept the challenge.

In the two-wheeled electric vehicle business, FlashTech has been the de facto number one in market share since 2007. After going public in 08, the entire company became a bit complacent in 09, but after being scolded by the boss, they caught up again this year.

The stock price and market capitalization are the best proof. This year's stock market performance has been mediocre, but Flash Technology has been able to maintain a market capitalization of 120 billion to 140 billion for a long time, which is quite stable.

In terms of marketing, Flash has its own complete set of solutions, including advertising coverage, technology guidance, and celebrity endorsement culture. As long as this model is maintained, there shouldn't be any major problems in the next few years.

The problem is that this thing probably doesn't make money; it seems very difficult to turn a profit.

Promoting it doesn't seem to have much significance.

"Haha, that's a good question. It's true that it's difficult to make a profit, but some products can't be measured by profitability."

Dingding's profit model can be roughly divided into three types: providing paid services to enterprises, revenue sharing from the application market, and future open platform, cloud storage data analysis services, etc.

However, Tan Jincheng is not sure whether it can be profitable. It is indeed quite difficult to make a profit.

But this is not important.

Like public service businesses in every city, can these be profitable? But they are also essential. The same applies to companies in the Flash Group; they need to have their own public service businesses.

Tintin may not make money, but his strategic significance is very important.

Connecting countless small and medium-sized enterprises, managing data, and more.

Precisely because of its strategic importance, the initial promotion should be carried out by trustworthy people. Zhou Ao has marketing and promotion experience and is trustworthy, so he seems to be the best candidate at present.

"In that case, I can give it a try, but I don't have much experience with the internet, so I don't know if I can do it well."

Zhou Ao didn't mince words. The boss positioned Dingding as a strategic tool, so what else was there to say?

"Haha, don't underestimate yourself. You were one of the earliest internet troll leaders. You can do it."

Speaking of this, Zhou Ao couldn't help but laugh. Back then, he contacted so-called computer experts with his boss on various forums, but in reality, these people were mostly just slackers at the time, which was quite funny.

"Then I'll give it a try?"

"Okay, give it a try. I'll give you a year to adapt. During this time, you can train a successor. Once he's developed, you'll be in charge of Dingding. Your shares will also be released from lock-up by then."

"Hehe, no problem."

With only one year left in the three-year lock-up period, many executives were secretly considering reducing their holdings, a fact that Tan Jincheng was well aware of.

Holding hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of yuan in market value, after reducing the holdings, one can at least be financially free for life, if not achieve financial freedom. How could one possibly resist such a temptation?

Once the lock-up period ends, it is expected that Flashpoint Technology will see a wave of executive departures. The executives who received the money will either start their own businesses or enjoy life.

It's both a bad thing and a good thing. The bad thing is that the company will experience some turmoil, while the good thing is that it can bring in some fresh blood and raise the company's average education level.

Senior executives like Zhou Ao, who hold a significant number of shares and are relatively young, are highly likely to leave their positions if they do not face new challenges.

Many people in marketing like to start their own businesses.

As the 3Q incident escalated and the number of participants expanded, the actions of these two companies genuinely impacted the user experience. Around noon, Tan Jincheng heard that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had begun to intervene.

In the afternoon, the public security departments intervened and questioned both companies separately.

To be honest, the two companies' actions of controlling users' computers without any limits are indeed suspected of being criminal.

On the morning of the 5th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Internet Society of China and other departments held a special meeting to discuss countermeasures and used administrative orders to prevent the two companies from publishing any more news or messages that incited the matter.

For the past two days, the two companies have been talking non-stop. From the company's top executives, Pony Ma and Zhou Hongyi, to the vice presidents of various departments, all sorts of news and information have been constantly leaked, fueling the fire. Rumors are flying everywhere.

In terms of public opinion, 360 completely defeated Tencent, but it was all for naught. In the incompatibility dispute, Tencent was the one who defeated Tencent. While netizens were cursing Tencent, they also uninstalled 360 software without hesitation.

According to Tencent's statistics, the user overlap between QQ and 360 Security Guard is about 60%, which means that if the choice between the two continues, 360 will lose more than 100 million users.

In other words, they were completely wiped out. Zhou Hongyi once said that they should have lost nearly 6000 million users in this wave.

"With the intervention of relevant departments, Lao Zhou can pull through. It's not a big problem. The lost users will come back in the future."

The worst thing about these kinds of deadly disputes is being crushed by the opponent in one blow. After that, things will slowly come back to normal. It's normal that low-frequency security guards can't compete with high-frequency QQ, which has social attributes.

Compatibility between the two was restored on November 10th. On that day, 360 issued a public apology letter, thanking users for their support and also publishing the contact information of relevant departments to remind users that if they find any conflicts between the two software programs, they can report them to the relevant departments.

That's really cunning, but it also proves that the old guy is really scared, because Tencent hasn't made a formal statement yet.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ordered both companies to apologize to the public. Zhou Hongyi has apologized, but Pony Ma has not.

This farce continued until November 21, 11 days after Zhou Hongyi apologized, when Tencent issued a public apology letter, finally bringing it to an end.

QQ Guard was launched on October 29th and lasted for nearly a month. However, this was only the end on a public level. The lawsuit between the two parties has never stopped and has been going on for several years.

"Haha, isn't it ironic? Both companies claim to be protecting user safety, but they're doing utterly inhuman things."

It's like I'm playing a game, and you smash my computer and then say it's for my own good—that's utter bullshit.

Throughout the entire process, if we were to name a loser, Tencent certainly wasn't, nor were 360, which rose to fame overnight, and Zhou Hongyi. The real losers were the countless ordinary users, who were as if they had been kidnapped and had no power to resist.

Pony Ma (Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent) forced users to choose between two options, and Zhou Hongyi (founder of QQ) even called on QQ users to stop using it for three days. That's pure bullshit.

In the past month or so, many internet companies, large and small, have been involved in the 3Q war. However, thanks to the gag order issued in advance by Tan Jincheng, Orange Technology was fortunate enough not to be involved.

During this incident, Tan Jincheng even made a special trip to Orange Technology to hold a meeting.

"As you all have seen, the competition is far more brutal than the public perceives. Neither of these two companies are good, but their strengths are worth learning from."

360 Antivirus dominates half of the antivirus software market, but its competitors include QQ Manager, Baidu Antivirus, Kingsoft Antivirus, Rising Antivirus, and the newcomer Keniu Antivirus.

These companies all covet 360's market share, and those on Tencent's side are almost all 360's competitors. They hope to join forces to crush this powerful rival.

However, 360's technology was so strong that it managed to withstand the pressure. Although it eventually succumbed to capital, without its strong technology, it wouldn't even have been qualified to be acquired by capital.

QQ Guard was developed in less than a month. It seems easy, but it is actually not simple at all.

Their exceptional skills are the foundation of their survival.

Tencent's iteration and update speed is equally terrifying. Three days after QQ Guard was launched, they were able to disable it by controlling users' computers, while web QQ was only online for 20 minutes.

Users only see what they can see; the technological clashes between the two sides, which are invisible to users, are the foundation of the internet's survival.

"We should be prepared for unforeseen circumstances. If we were to be scaled up to 360, do you think we could survive?"

Cheng Hao and Sun Tongyu remained silent, and the hegemony of large corporations was fully demonstrated in this incident.

Orange Technology faces competition from companies like NetEase and Tencent in the gaming sector, and Orange Products also faces serious competition from the two major e-commerce websites.

What would happen if we were to compete with them in the future and used this hegemony against ourselves?
Cheng Hao is a tech whiz, and Sun Tongyu is not completely ignorant about technology either; neither of them could utter such arrogant words that could withstand this level of attack.

"Alright, I'm not saying this to criticize you. Judging from the involvement of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Public Security, this kind of behavior of controlling users' computers will not happen a second time. However, business competition is everywhere, and we still need to improve our own strength."

“They’re fighting to the death and have nothing to do with us, but we can take advantage of their misfortune. It’s definitely not a problem to poach more of their employees.”

360 is in a precarious situation, and there must be some employees who lack resolve. If we don't poach them now, when will we?
As for Tencent, is it really poaching their people? They have a large number of employees leaving every year; this is just bringing forward the time when they leave.

Boss Tan never misses an opportunity to make a profit.

In this round of disputes, Dingding started by promoting itself secretly, and then launched a large-scale promotion after its popularity declined, with both internet marketing and ground promotion teams being mobilized.

After one month, Dingding had 120 million registered users and more than 5000 corporate organizations.

Flash's ground sales team is quite impressive, and Zhou Ao's joining the company had an immediate impact.

Dingding's business model has not yet been explored, and its only source of income is revenue sharing from the application platform.

However, that's not important. Any internet product loses money at the beginning. With over 100 million users, Flash can afford to lose money.

After becoming independent, the Dingding project team also completed its corporatization this month. General Manager Zhou Ao is its legal representative. Regarding his new position, Zhou Ao felt both apprehensive and a little excited.

"Does this count as me switching careers?"

Sitting in his office on the 19th floor of the Flashpoint Building, looking at the busy programmers outside the transparent cubicles, Zhou Ao couldn't help but smile.

This is the new office space for the Dingding project team. In accordance with the boss's preference for odd numbers and the habit of placing key startup industries on the upper floors of the Flashpoint headquarters building, Dingding, which is defined as a strategic tool, will definitely play a very important role in the group company in the future.

This is one of the reasons why he accepted the transfer.

Zhou Ao wasn't the first to follow the boss, but he was one of the people who understood the boss the most, and even the one who was most like Tan Jincheng.

Most of the executives at FlashTech are quite serious, but Zhou Ao is different. This guy, who was in charge of FlashTech's first franchise store, is somewhat slick, but he is quite capable.

He would stop at nothing to achieve promotional results, smearing the boss, Lin Yumin, and even himself; he would use anything as long as it was effective.

Of course, the most cunning thing was that when faced with the poaching by Aima, this guy immediately confessed to Tan Jincheng, which gave Tan Jincheng a lot more time to deal with it.

At the same time, it also brought him a lot of benefits. If he joined Aima, although the salary would be more generous than at Flash, it would not be as good as Flash's stock issuance after its IPO. Those who left Flash must regret it a lot.

When Emma poached his employee, it was a turning point in his life. Will joining Dingding be another one?

"What are you thinking about? Why are you smiling so lewdly?"

Lost in his vision of the future, Zhou Ao didn't notice anyone entering his office—it was Zhao Xinyi.

"Ah? Why are you here?"

"Hehe, now that our Director Zhou has started to take charge of a region, I should at least come and congratulate him."

Zhao Xinyi and Zhou Ao had a good relationship. Zhao Xinyi often troubled Zhou Ao, the director of Flash, who always claimed to be the boss's personal disciple, with Leichi's marketing plans.

Of course, there was also a significant element of gathering information.

"Haha, an iPad? You're being so polite, you're not trying to bribe me, are you?"

Zhou Ao happily accepted the gift from Zhao Xinyi. It was Apple's new tablet computer. A few days ago, his boss said that playing Fruit Ninja on this thing was really fun, and he was planning to buy one.

"Tch, why would I need to bribe you?"

"That's true. She's a beautiful CEO with hundreds of millions in revenue, after all. So, what do you want from me? It can't be as simple as just sending a gift, can it?"

He occasionally helped Zhao Xinyi with some marketing plans. He knew about Leichi's sales figures, which were roughly between 1.2 million and 1.8 million yuan this year.

After mass production, the cost of the Leichi L5 has decreased significantly, resulting in a very good gross profit. It may not be eye-catching, but it is definitely a company that makes a fortune quietly.

"Hehe, can I get some information from you? Can I tell you?"

Throughout the past year, the boss has barely paid attention to the specific operations of Flash Group. However, just before the Guangzhou Auto Show, he took the time to focus on a newly established company and even assigned a high-ranking manager to it.

It's worth noting that Weilai Auto is set to launch several new models at the Guangzhou Auto Show, which inevitably sparks speculation.

It's just an office software, why is the boss so concerned?

"Haha, there's nothing to say, but have you ever seen any projects that the boss has personally overseen in the past few years that have been bad? But that's none of your business, hehe."

Zhou Ao raised an eyebrow with a hint of smugness.

Zhao Xinyi pursed her lips: "Look at how smug you are. Whether you can do a good job or not is another matter. You've really changed careers."

This guy said nothing, yet he said everything.

(End of this chapter)