Chapter 125 123 Launch on the Market

Chapter 125 Putting it on the market

Sitting across the conference table, Eric signaled to close the door and clear the place.

After the irrelevant personnel left, the projector was turned on and the curtain was slowly lowered.

Looking at the three generals he had recruited in front of him, Eric asked: "Which of you will come first? Let me see if my money is worth it."

Fitzheisenberg glanced at the two people next to him and connected the plug to the device he brought first.

"Boss, let me go first. Facebook's development difficulty is relatively low, and its current level of completion is higher."

As he spoke, he clicked on an icon on the projection, and an interface immediately popped up on the screen.

This interface gave Eric the feeling of being a simple version of the personal home page of those big websites in later generations.

An avatar plus a few lines of introduction, followed by some pictures, is somewhat similar to the prototype of a circle of friends.

"Boss, this is the result of our recent work. Now please let me introduce it to you."

"Through the idea you proposed, my team and I realized that this is actually a social network built on an acquaintance system, and its root is still the lamp structure."

"According to your description, our team has completed the construction of the required internal algorithms and operating systems during this period, and has first built an internal area network. Let me demonstrate it to you."

Knowing that Eric was not a professional, Heisenberg did not chatter too much about technology and just clicked the mouse to reach the login page.

The words "Welcome to Facebook!" immediately popped up in the center of the screen. In the upper left corner was a person's avatar, and below the avatar were two blank lines for entering account numbers and passwords.

"Fitz, what does this avatar mean? The logo you designed for Facebook?"

Heisenberg opened his eyes and shook his head: "No, it's Hejal, the illustration artist in our team. She felt that the interface was too monotonous, so she wanted to add some embellishments."

"I see, what type of registration is supported now with this password?"

"Currently, it only supports email addresses. All email addresses in the United States are acceptable, regardless of whether you use Google, Yahoo, or others."

"Well, can I have a cell phone number?"

"What?"

"Can I register a mobile phone number?"

Heisenberg was stunned for a moment. To be precise, everyone looked at Eric blankly.

"Sorry, boss, do you mean to use your mobile phone number to register a Facebook account?" Heisenberg asked confirmingly.

Eric nodded: "Yes, technically speaking, is it possible to use a mobile phone number instead of an email address?"

The reason why this question is raised is naturally based on the soul of a Chinese person. Living in the later generations, whoever downloads a new software can not just download a mobile phone number and get it done with a text message.

Email is too troublesome. Eric remembers that in the early days, email was used to register for domestic websites, such as Taobao, Alipay, etc.

But I don’t know since when, it seems that email has been gradually eliminated, and mobile phone numbers have become a new and more convenient way.

Heisenberg hesitated for a moment: "Boss, I don't know this question, and I can't answer you, but it doesn't sound reasonable to register an account with a mobile phone number."

"Why? Isn't it more convenient to register by sending a text message on your mobile phone?" Eric asked.

"Well, first of all, many people don't have mobile phones. Not only the elderly and children, but even many middle-aged people don't have them. There are also many people who use old-fashioned mobile phones that can only make calls and send text messages."

"As far as I know, in big cities like New York or San Francisco, although the penetration rate of new mobile phones is relatively high, if they are placed in the third and fourth tiers, or in states with less developed economies, such as Missouri, a considerable number of people will not use or use them. Can’t afford a cell phone.”

"The mobile phone number registration model sounds novel and seems very convenient, but the premise is that you still have to open the webpage and click on the registration option before the background will send you a text message."

"Since you have to log in to the web, why not use a more direct mailbox? The transmission rate of SMS is slow, but it is not as fast as the mailbox."

Heisenberg briefly explained his views, and Eric probably understood where the pain point was.

After all, this is 2003, and there are still several years before the rise of smartphones. Without the support of smartphones, even if many software releases mobile versions, there will be few functions left.

If you want to have a complete user experience, PC is the only choice.

And even if smart phones are developed in advance, the mobile Internet still cannot be built.

Because the current signal is still 2G, it often takes half a day to browse a webpage picture. Traffic charges are also a big problem, and ordinary people cannot afford it.

This problem can only be solved when there is a big breakthrough in global information technology, which will be the era of mobile Internet.

This industry undoubtedly belongs to the blue ocean, but unfortunately most of the road has been occupied by Qualcomm, making it almost impossible for outsiders to squeeze in.

Looking at the past few decades, only Huawei will break the technology monopoly in the future, but that will be accomplished based on decades of technology accumulation.

For MGM, getting involved in this area was simply out of the question.

Unless the behemoth Qualcomm suddenly collapses, everything will be destroyed!

"Fitz, keep going!"

Heisenberg entered his account password, and after clicking to enter, the screen immediately jumped to his personal homepage.

He operated the mouse to move across the top toolbar: "Boss, this is a common toolbar, which can be understood as a tool section in Word."

"First of all, this question mark is for answering questions, mainly to help solve security and common problems in the account, as well as settings, such as changing passwords.

"This exclamation mark represents a message reminder, such as someone has sent you a private message, or system information, and also includes someone's dynamic comments posted to you."

"Then there is the most important blank space, where you can add new friends."

Heisenberg clicked on the blank space, entered an email address, and pressed Enter. A new interface immediately popped up, belonging to another person's interface, which is a bit like QQ's adding friends.

"Good job, but I want to know what information can be retrieved in addition to the email address for the adding friend function?" Eric continued to ask.

"There are also Facebook accounts and nicknames. If you want to accurately locate, these three points are the only ones that can do it. ."

"Can you search for keywords and ranges? For example, if I enter the three words "big eyes" and then enter the age range of 18 to 30 years old, can I retrieve strangers who meet this condition? "

Eric obviously talked about the search function of Penguin in the future. In addition, the drift bottle and other functions are also very good.

Although these two functions have been criticized for various problems, the drift bottle was permanently removed from the shelves because of pornography.

But don't forget that this is the United States. It is a problem in China, but there is no need to worry about it here.

Even if it will cause some social problems and lawsuits, it is nothing compared to the traffic and users that can be attracted. At most, you can sue. Isn't the lawyer team just for this?

And Fitz Heisenberg was stunned again, thinking about this problem quickly in his mind, and then looked at his boss with some surprise.

The function proposed by the other party, if you think about it a little, you will understand what the mystery is hidden. Such a search function will undoubtedly attract a large number of lonely men and women.

"Sorry, now you can only search for emails, accounts and nicknames. Boss, the function you mentioned needs to rewrite a new algorithm, but it feels very interesting just thinking about it. We will improve it as soon as possible. "

"Okay, you continue. "

For more than an hour, Heisenberg introduced the functions of Facebook in detail.

At present, it can only be regarded as a prototype, and the main functions are still focused on sharing and commenting on dynamics, which is roughly equivalent to WeChat's Moments.

In addition, it also provides a simple chat function, or to be more precise, sending private messages.

Although it is simple, it is already unique among scorpions.

In 2003, let alone Moments, WeChat had not even appeared.

Not to mention WeChat, even QQ Space had not even been proposed.

But it is limited to the basic functions of Moments, such as sharing, liking, blocking, viewing visitors and other more advanced functions, which have not yet been realized.

These functions that seem ordinary 20 years later, if put today, any one of them can cause a huge sensation.

Eric will slowly add them in, and eventually make the software into a super social network that combines the advantages of major programs such as Facebook, WeChat, and Penguin.

"Fitz, I am very satisfied that the finished product can be produced in a short time. You have done a good job. Can Facebook be put on the market now? "

Heisenberg nodded: "We have tested our internal regional network for a month. I can ensure that the functionality is up to standard, there will be no bugs, and the user experience can be guaranteed to be smooth."

"The issue to consider when launching it on the market is how to promote it. In addition, the data storage of the server is also a very important aspect. The former is related to whether our efforts can bear fruit, and the latter is to escort the maturity of the fruit."

"This is not only a problem that Facebook has to face, but also a problem that Lionheart and YouTube will face after they enter the market."

Howard Hughes and Robert Mirren nodded in agreement at the same time.

Eric smiled. Of course, he had thought about this problem many times before. After thinking about it, it was safest to follow Zuckerberg's old path.

That is to promote it on university campuses first, and then use college students to influence their families, and then radiate the whole society.

Zuckerberg occupied all colleges and universities in the United States in just a few months, and he would only be faster than him.

"I have already thought of a solution for the promotion problem. I decided to adopt a combination of offline and online methods. Online is the same old trick, buying advertisements, buying a lot of advertisements, and increasing exposure. "

"However, online is auxiliary, offline is our focus, and the primary target is major universities, because college students can flexibly access the Internet, many of them have their own laptops, and their willingness to socialize is also the most active.

"4,000 universities in the United States, two months, within two months, I will let Facebook conquer them."

"Then based on these college students, drive their parents and siblings to join in, high school and young people under 30 are our second-stage goals."

"The last step is those over 30 years old. Although they are less willing to accept new things, when their families get involved, no one can escape this game."

Seeing that the boss had obviously planned a mature promotion strategy, Heisenberg immediately put his ideas back in his stomach.

He asked: "Boss, what model do you use for campus promotion? Cooperate directly with the school?"

Eric nodded: "This is one of them, but I guess most schools will not accept it. Schools have their own academic dignity."

"The method I am considering is to directly hire people to promote Facebook in a hard-core mode, spend money to hire a group of college students to become the first batch of users, and then let these college students promote Facebook in their respective schools."

"But there must be a prerequisite for hiring, that is, men must be handsome and women must be beautiful and sexy."

"Think about it, you only need to create an account, you can become friends with handsome boys and beautiful girls in the school, you can keep up with his dynamics at any time, and even in the future, it is not ruled out that you will develop into a boyfriend-girlfriend or underground lover relationship. This will be a great temptation."

"Yes!"

Before Eric finished speaking, a little fat man in a plaid shirt and glasses behind Heisenberg shouted excitedly.

Everyone's eyes instantly fell on him, and the little fat man immediately became listless again, returning to the timid look just now.

"What's your name?" Eric pointed at the other party.

"Danny McHale, boss."

"Okay Danny, let me ask you a question. If you have such an opportunity, will you join Facebook?"

"Of course, why not? First of all, you can see your goddess anytime and anywhere, and then you can get an interesting software. I can't wait to create an account."

"Well, very good, this is the answer I want. In addition, be confident Danny. When we succeed, those former goddesses will chase you in return."

The meeting room suddenly laughed.

To put it bluntly, this strategy is still a dirty way, but the dirty way is often the most effective, and everyone has to admit this.

After talking about the promotion issue, the next thing is data storage.

Heisenberg continued: "Boss, for Facebook, the most important data at present is pictures, and a picture may only be tens of KB."

"But when tens of millions of people upload, visit, and comment at the same time, the processing volume will reach a terrifying level. We must prepare for this in advance and build our own server group."

Although Eric is an outsider, he also understands how terrible it is when the server crashes.

For example, he used to be a player of the poisonous milk powder. When the anniversary came, it was difficult to log in online. He couldn't log in at all.

Players were extremely disgusted, so the poisonous milk powder was also called the offline city.

Moreover, according to Eric's superficial understanding, Internet companies that have developed to a certain scale have built their own data storage centers.

Many have built not just one, but several backups, fearing that the data will be cleared accidentally.

Once it happens, it will definitely be a devastating blow, and this software can be directly withdrawn from the market.

Eric nodded: "What you said makes sense, but it is still conservative. What are tens of millions of people? Our goal is to have hundreds of millions of people accessing at the same time."

"Tell me, what is the best server on the market now?"

"It is currently the Blade Server, which was launched in 2001, but the price is relatively expensive."

"Money is not a problem. After the 10 million US dollars are used up, I will continue to invest and make the best for me."

Heisenberg smiled. As a developer, he knew very well that Facebook would not be able to make a profit in a short time.

Failure to make a profit means burning money, and a boss who is not short of money and is willing to invest is undoubtedly everyone's favorite.