Top of the big era

Tang Binchen called and announced three good news.

First, YikYak has more than 1 million users in Japan!

Such achievements are not worth mentioning from a domestic perspective.

Weibo has been online for three weeks, without Ziweixing's strong promotion, just opened a "Weibo" channel in the sidebar of Friends.com, and quickly gained more than 5 million new users.

YikYak is backed by Yahoo, the largest website in Japan, and it has been online for 7 weeks. It seems that such a result is not justified.

However, it is different in comparison.

Currently Japan's largest social networking site is Mixi, with a market capitalization of $2.5 billion and only 8 million users. The number of users of Ameba is just over 4 million.

The number of users of Yahoo Japan is only 20 million.

However, these are registered user numbers.

Yahoo Japan has more than 60 million daily active users, and the vast majority of users have not registered.

It can be seen that social networking sites still have huge room for growth in the Japanese market. Even the best local websites do not have a high enough market share.

There are 260 million Internet users in China, of which 120 million are registered users of Youyou.com.

Even if there are a large number of repeated registrations, there are still 80-90 million real users.

Using such a data ratio to measure the Japanese market, YikYak can have at least 30 million users in the Japanese market in the current era.

Mixi, which has 8 million users, poor technology, rough design, and a single profit model, has a market value of 2.5 billion US dollars.

If YikYak really achieves a scale of 30 million, the market value will steadily exceed 10 billion US dollars.

To a certain extent, YikYak has a great advantage, because there is no similar website in Japan, the products are very different, and it is anonymous social interaction, which will not cause a kind of "being noticed" and "being disturbed". "feeling closer to the local customs.

Second, the computer version of UC Browser has been completed and will be officially launched on April 1. And reached a "cooperative" installation agreement with 12 local software in Japan.

In addition, Softbank's operator will officially release mobile phones with UC mobile browser starting from the 1st of next month.

The development of overseas business, everything is in the plan.

The third point is the financing of Ameba.

Zhou Buqi's request is to get 40% of the shares.

But after talking for half a month, the other party felt that this financing model was very dangerous and might lose the controlling stake, so they were unwilling to transfer so many shares.

Fortunately, the other party did not close the door.

Expressed willingness to dilute 30% of the shares at a price of 240 million US dollars.

That was a pleasant surprise.

As long as it exceeds 25%, the investor can have a high enough voice in the enterprise. Unless the founder has signed some voting rights transfer agreement, or the AB share system, to guarantee the founder's control.

This model is very popular in China and the United States.

Japan is not.

Japan's commercial market is very traditional, and the traditional ones make people feel out of date. Voting rights are directly linked to stocks, and there are not so many messy subsidiary agreements.

Things like investors driving out founders often happen in China and the United States, but almost never in Japan. Because Japanese business society pays special attention to profit, which is the most traditional corporate thinking. If the founder cannot bring profits to the company, there is no need for investors to drive them away, and he will resign himself.

Zhou Buqi is very satisfied with the development of overseas business, "It's better to have more shares. You can deal with this matter. It's better to have more. If the other party insists, the current plan is also acceptable."

Tang Binchen said: "It's hard to improve."

Zhou Buqi agreed: "Let's do it that way, hurry up and go to Nie Caijun directly. In April, this case must be completed, the sooner the better."

"Well, I'm going to tell you something else."

"explain."

"The structure of Japan's search market has changed. In addition to Yahoo's unshakable No. 1 position, Google has jumped to No. 2, and its market share continues to rise."

"ah?"

Zhou Buqi was a little surprised.

Tang Binchen said: "In the past, the second market was a local search engine with insufficient technology and mediocre product design. It mainly relied on cooperation with local operators, binding with mobile phones, and becoming the default search engine, which occupied a very high market. share. But in the past two years, starting from 2004, Google began to optimize Japanese search products and technologies, and climbed up little by little.”

Definitely.

Google has the best technology.

As long as they pay attention to their products, carry out more localized designs, and have no pressure from the external environment, as time goes by, allowing users to choose by themselves, the market share will be able to climb up little by little.

It was not until 2018 that Google's market share finally tied Yahoo Japan for the first time.

However, what does this have to do with Ziweixing's Japanese business?

Tang Binchen said: "Google's search team in China, Japan and South Korea is actually one. It was developed by Chinese engineer Zhu Huican. He is now in Google China..."

Zhou Buqi interrupted him, "This kind of thing, you can handle it yourself, whether it's poaching people or cooperating, I just look at the results. However, I recently studied Japanese culture and discovered a very interesting phenomenon. "

"Um?"

"Japan really likes cute, kawaii, and even a bit mean images, such as Pikachu, Sailor Moon, or various comics."

Tang Binchen said: "Yes, the main reason is that the local culture is too depressing. Alas, the social atmosphere here is rigid. When I went to the United States, the way of life in China was not much different. When I worked at Facebook, I was very Comfortable. It’s not good in Japan, it feels like there is an invisible pressure that makes you breathless.”

Zhou Buqi said: "They are an elderly society, and young people are under too much pressure... I am not going to discuss culture with you, I want to provide you with a new way of thinking about developing YikYak."

"What is it?"

Tang Binchen was very happy. Boss Zhou is the best product manager of Ziwei Star. The ideas he puts forward are often beneficial.

Zhou Buqi said: "When we send text messages, we can send some small emoticons, such as smiling faces and crying faces. You can also have such designs when making messages and comments on YikYak. However, you need to hire a special design The team created a series of cheap, cute, cute and interesting emoticon stickers in line with the local culture."

"is this okay?"

Tang Binchen was slightly taken aback.

Zhou Buqi said: "Of course! Do as I said, make a few more series, the more the better. Well... a free version can be available in the short term. As the business expands, there can be a paid version Now, let users buy exclusive emoticons. Don’t forget to apply for a patent.”

Tang Binchen twitched his lips, "Value-added service, isn't this how penguins play?"

Zhou Buqi snorted and said, "Who cares who plays it? Just make money. There are only a few people in Japan, and they only rely on running traffic to earn advertising fees...The profit is really limited, and value-added services are an indispensable part."

This is no nonsense.

In later generations, Line, a product developed by the Koreans, defeated all the best players and became the most popular mobile phone communication software in Japan.

Rely on novelty and cute emoji stickers.

Users need to pay for it.

This income alone is tens of millions of dollars per year, accounting for a quarter of Line's overall income. It can be seen that Japanese users' love for various emoticons has reached a deformed level.

Just like what Tang Binchen said, the emotions of the Japanese are too repressed, and cute and cute emoticons are very popular.

...

A post on the intranet went viral.

It is said that Wu Hanqing, the chief security expert of Ziwei Star, took a 5-person hacker team to the United States to participate in a hacker competition, won the first place, and won a reward of 1 million US dollars.

In fact, they cannot be called hackers. They are good citizens and white hats. It's hacking for good, i.e. IT security experts.

This is a happy event.

In vain stole Laomei's $1 million worth of wool.

Xu Liangjie specifically approved that the company would not want any of this money. Take out 60% and distribute it to the participating team members. The remaining 40% is distributed to all technical personnel in the security system, and the top of the pyramid also needs the support of the tower base. Only by making progress together can we build a more stable and secure Ziweixing firewall.

None of this matters.

What really caught Zhou Bu's attention was that three of the top five teams in this hacker competition were from China, and the other two were from Russia and Romania.

Where are the Americans?

The game played by the US imperialists turned out to be American bullshit, and was robbed by several foreign teams?

It sounds exaggerated.

We stomped on the American Emperor severely and raised the light of technology in Greater China. Many media including "Science and Technology Daily" also reported happily, as if my country's science and technology industry is booming, and it is really possible to set foot on the United States.

You can use your brain to analyze it, and you will know that this is unrealistic.

That is to fool some laymen, some scientists with poor sensitivity, and media people who listen to wind and rain.

The United States is the birthplace of the Internet and a place where heroes gather. The prize money of this competition is so heavy, how could there be no local hackers to participate? The Americans participated, how could they not be named on the list?

Zhou Buqi called Wu Hanqing specifically to ask what was going on.

He couldn't tell why.

It’s just that the past few sessions have been similar. The top few are all Russian and domestic teams, and there are very few American teams.

Zhou Buqi asked: "Tell me in detail, what are you competing in this competition?"

"Hacking technology."

"Be more specific."

Wu Hanqing was a little puzzled, "I've explained it in detail, can you understand me?"

Zhou Buqi almost died of anger, "I'm telling you something serious, you should be serious!"

Wu Han Qingxin said that I also want to talk about business, isn't that playing the piano to the cow? I can only say vaguely and simply: "Simply put, it is... probably the organizer designates a few IT systems and sets a period of time for us. Whichever team can find the most loopholes within this period of time will be the winner. win."

"Looking for loopholes?"

"right."

"Who is the sponsor?"

"A civil technology association in Silicon Valley."

"Humph!"

Zhou Buqi sneered twice.

Wu Hanqing was a little surprised, "What's wrong?"

Zhou Buqi snorted and said, "You are an expert in the security field and a scientist. But in other fields, you don't know anything, and your sensitivity is too poor. There must be tricks in it. You give me the detailed materials of the competition, and I will find it." Somebody investigate."