My 1999

In the private room of the famous American Club.

IDG Xiong Xiaoge and Kleiner Perkins China representative Fu Jixun stared closely at Li Yanhong opposite.

The two of them invested US$5 million each in Baidu in September. They were criticized for making such a big bet during the Internet winter.

If they fail, they also suffer penalties from their respective companies.

"Yanhong, Bing Search has arrived. How are Baidu prepared to respond?" Xiong Xiaoge said directly.

“Our strategy is to consolidate the enterprise market first. We already have a deep foundation in this area and have established credit with our cooperative enterprises.

Although Bing search is free to conquer the market, their search technology has not been tested by the market, and not many companies may be willing to adopt it. "

Li Yanhong also knew that his words were pale, but he really couldn't think of any other more suitable reason.

Xiong Xiaoge and Fu Jixun looked at each other, and the latter said.

"Your idea is indeed good. Bing search does lack a foundation in the enterprise market. But their technology is no worse than yours, or even better.

Plus they don’t charge any fees, so it’s easy to open up the market. "

"Baidu has never been afraid of competition." Li Yanhong said in a condensed voice.

"OK, of course I believe that Baidu will not be afraid of competition, but you have to find the right direction. If you continue to blindly compete with Bing in the search market, you may not have much chance of winning." Fu Jixun said.

"The meaning of Baidu's existence is to search. If we don't search, there is no need for Baidu to exist." Li Yanhong couldn't help but said.

"Yanhong, don't get excited. You will get me wrong. Of course Baidu has to search. What I mean is to defeat Bing, there is no need to defeat it from search.

If the Hongmeng behind it can be thwarted.

Without Hongmeng’s financial support, Bing’s free policy would be difficult to implement, and Baidu would have won half the battle. "

Li Yanhong's eyes lit up instantly.

He quickly wondered again.

"Is there any loophole in Hongmeng's body?"

Xiong Xiaoge smiled and said: "In China, games are inherently filled with original sin."

After saying that, he took out a newspaper from his bag and handed it over.

"have a look."

Li Yanhong took it and took a look.

The newspaper was "Xunyang Evening News" which he had never heard of.

After a brief glance, I quickly saw a title.

"The dangers of electronic porn, who will save our teenagers?"

“Teenagers skipping school to play games, or even stealing money to play games online are not an isolated case, and many parents are deeply disgusted by this.

If you just spend some money, you can get a lot of real cases. When the time comes, publish them in major newspapers and portals, and I believe it will soon cause a nationwide storm.

At that time, many companies that are jealous of Hongmeng Games’ status and revenue will also attack together.

By then, even if Hongmeng survives, it will shed a layer of skin and will be dragged down by it. The free strategy may not be able to be implemented. Even if it is reluctantly implemented in the end, you can take advantage of this period to seize the market. "

After listening to Xiong Xiaoge's words, Li Yanhong's eyes lit up instantly.

The problem that has troubled him for a long time finally has hope of being solved.

"Thank you both, I'll go back right away and arrange for someone to do this."

After Xiong Xiaoge and Fu Jixun watched Li Yanhong leave quickly, they returned to the box.

"Xiaoge, do you think this matter can really hit Hongmeng?"

"Even if they can't, they will be confused for a while. This period of time is enough for Baidu to seize the market." Xiong Xiaoge said with a smile.

Fu Jixun nodded.

The two chatted for a while before they dispersed.

After getting into his car, Xiong Xiaoge pondered for a while, then took out his mobile phone and called his secretary.

"Pay close attention to Hongmeng Company's news. If there is any news, please notify me immediately."

"yes."

After hanging up the phone and looking at the night sky illuminated by neon lights outside, Xiong Xiaoge breathed out slowly.

The solution he thought of for Li Yanhong was just a scabies disease to Hongmeng.

It is impossible for the country to really ban the game industry.

The theory of electronic ya movies has been around for six or seven years. Although it has been reported in the newspapers many times, it has not been banned by the state.

Moreover, many colleges and universities now offer game design majors, so it is even less likely that they will be closed down.

Therefore, his real expectation for Baidu is that it can be a good troublemaker and bring enough trouble to Hongmeng, and then IDG will appear as a white knight.

In other words, he is actually not optimistic about the competition between Baidu and Hongmeng Bing.

"Xu Liang, Xu Liang, why didn't you launch Bing earlier!" Xiong Xiaoge sighed in his heart.

If Bing could have been launched earlier, he would not have invested in Baidu.

——

Xu Liang got up and left the office to the next floor.

With the rapid growth of the company's business, the company's office area has been expanded.

Three Hongmeng Games studios and a Hongmeng Game Hall development department occupy one floor.

Bing's search technology R\u0026D department, encyclopedia department, Q\u0026A department, and Phoenix advertising system R\u0026D department directly occupy two floors.

Hongmeng Interactive Entertainment Department, Website Development Department, Browser Development Department, Hongmeng Music Development Department, and Internet Cafe Management Software also occupy two floors.

Plus the company's functional departments occupy one floor.

The entire Wangjing Building, nearly one-third of the floors, has become the office area of ​​Hongmeng Company.

Counting branches in various places, the number of formal employees of Hongmeng Company has exceeded 900.

And this number is still growing rapidly with the rapid expansion of the company's scale.

Walking in the company's office area, the surrounding employees quickly said hello after seeing her.

Xu Liang smiled and nodded, his eyes scanning the surrounding employees from time to time.

Whenever he saw students, it seemed as if the teacher had caught them doing little tricks in class, and they instantly looked like they were sitting upright.

After he passed by, the discussion behind him erupted like a tide.

"Is that the boss of our company?"

"You look so young."

"Does he have a girlfriend?"

"There must be some. He's handsome and rich. It's strange that no woman around him likes him."...

Following the discussion, we came to the office area of ​​Bing Search downstairs.

He quickly found Yu Jun wandering in the employee area.

This is already the habit of the latter. He is not used to working in his own office, but likes to stay with ordinary employees.

"Mr. Xu?"

Waved for him to sit down.

Xu Liang looked at his computer screen.

"Are you editing an encyclopedia entry?"

Yu Jun nodded, "When I have free time, I like to compile encyclopedias. It can not only enrich my knowledge, but also draw parallels and find some new ideas for developing enterprises."

"How many encyclopedia entries are there now?"

"The Chinese Encyclopedia already has 190,000 entries."

"so much?"

It has been less than two months since the encyclopedia project was born.

“We scanned every encyclopedia and dictionary we could find in the country.”

Xu Liang suddenly realized.

"Mr. Xu, we have been discussing the profit model of Encyclopedia for a while, and many employees want to add advertisements to the sidebar..."

Xu Liang interrupted him with a wave of his hand.

“Ads cannot appear on Encyclopedia. What I want is the traffic brought by the perfect user experience, and then monetize it through bidding rankings.

And even if you can make money by displaying ads, you can't balance the revenue and expenditure of Encyclopedia. Instead of doing this, it is better to give up ads directly and get a perfect user experience.

Also, the same goes for ‘knowing’ the content, no advertising.

In the entire Bing search, there are only two forms of advertising. The first is bidding ranking, the second is advertising alliance, and nothing else is needed. "

Xu Liang, who came from a later generation, knew very well that when advertising takes over all businesses, poor user experience will drive users to their competitors.

By then, not only will the purpose of increasing revenue be lost, but even the main business will be affected.

Only good user experience and huge traffic can ensure the value of the company.

Yu Jun nodded.

"We will speed up the development of the Fuxi advertising system and strive to establish an advertising alliance as soon as possible."

The so-called advertising alliance is to build an advertising platform so that companies that need advertising can connect with companies that have advertising platforms.

Similar to B2B in the advertising world.

Bing may earn intermediary fees from both parties.

"Ad networks are important, but developing search engines in other languages ​​is also important."

Yu Jun nodded.

"Currently we have successfully developed Indonesian and Thai languages, and are developing Vietnamese and Malay languages."

Xu Liang's current strategy is to learn from Google and develop a search engine in the local language before setting up a local company.

Although the search results are a bit bad, it can cultivate users’ search habits and occupy the market in advance.

As long as there is no local search engine in the local area, it will be difficult to defeat powerful competitors such as Baidu, South Korea Naver, and Yahoo Japan.

"Are you still recruiting people?" Xu Liang asked.

"We have been recruiting. Now we have nearly 20 people joining the company every week. However, there are still fewer qualified technical personnel in the country, and most of them do not understand search engines. They need to be trained again after they come in. It is difficult to speed up. .”

Xu Liang nodded.

He also knows the dilemma of domestic talent shortage.

After all, this is not the past ten or twenty years. Computers are developing rapidly and talents will explode in the future. There is currently a shortage of programming talents in the country, and the general level is not very high.

Even if it were not for the Nasdaq crisis, Hongmeng would not be able to recruit so many people.

“If we can’t recruit high-level talents, we will train them internally.”

Xu Liang pondered briefly.

"In this way, you organize an internal training class. Let the company's programming masters be the teachers and use evenings and weekends for training.

All employees sign up voluntarily and there is no training fee.

But employees receiving training must sign a one-year non-compete agreement. "

"yes."

"By the way, overtime subsidies will be given to employees who are willing to be teachers, and they will be given priority in promotion and appointment."

Although internal training is troublesome and the results are slow.

But he would rather train internally than go to Silicon Valley to set up an R\u0026D institution.

Across the Pacific Ocean, it is too difficult to coordinate and manage.

Moreover, Hongmeng’s current revenue is not enough to support its aggressive expansion abroad.

After discussing the future development of Bing with Yu Jun, Xu Liangcai left here and found Xie Wen.