Chapter 446: Violation of Human Nature (4622)
Qianjiang, Qianjiang New Town.
The newly opened Qianjiang Marriott Hotel is like an open book facing the vast Zhijiang River.
With a "ding" sound, the elevator door opened in the lobby, and more than a dozen fashionable young girls squeezed out of the elevator, as well as two or three energetic young men.
"What a crappy hotel! One executive room can only take two guests to the executive lounge. It will go bankrupt sooner or later."
A spirited young man wearing trendy brand clothes and with two earrings in his ears was cursing in anger.
"Brother Kai, is this okay? My makeup today is so expensive." A young girl wearing a Hermès plain leather Lindy bag and a high-end imitation Chanel skirt stomped her feet in dissatisfaction.
"Yeah, Brother Kai, if it really doesn't work, can't the company just book a few more rooms?"
Another little girl wearing a Celine suit also joined in.
Can I book a few more rooms? Will you pay?
The energetic young man Zheng Kai rolled his eyes and said, "You guys are really talking without any pain in your waist. Do you know how much it costs per day?"
Zheng Kai is the boss of an internet celebrity MCN. He was engaged in nightclub marketing in the past two years. With the rise of the internet celebrity economy in the past two years, he knew quite a few beautiful women. He took advantage of the situation and set up an MCN called Mitao Media in Qianjiang. He signed some young girls who often hang out in nightclubs, and operated Weibo internet celebrities, Langya live broadcasts, and WeChat business in WeChat Moments.
Today, he brought these female internet celebrities to Qianjiang Marriott to take photos of afternoon tea.
Recently, afternoon tea at high-end hotels has become popular on Weibo and WeChat Moments. Many fake socialites are group-paying. A few people pool their money, go to the hotel to have a small snack, and spend the whole afternoon snapping it up.
Since they just started out, the female internet celebrities under Zheng Kai don't have much exposure. The little girl who just carried the Hermès Lindy is the most popular one under him. Not counting the fans who bought her products, she has 200,000 followers on Weibo, and her online name is "Xue'er Has No Partner".
Of course Hermès is rented.
Ever since a celebrity in their circle was exposed for taking photos with a fake bag and was ridiculed by the public a year or two ago, they are now very careful about this aspect. After all, there are too many people in Da Zhou who know about bags now, and many people can tell the real from the fake at a glance. So they changed from renting fake ones, such as an Hermès Lindy, for 300 yuan a day.
There is also competition in the package rental industry now. In the early days, the price was one thousand yuan a day. Now the competition is fierce and the price has dropped.
Moreover, the money for renting a bag also needs to be shared.
"Fuck it! If you're not allowed in, then don't go in. And you're still acting like a five-star hotel? You don't know how to advertise at all. I'm telling you, within three years, these hotels will be begging us to visit them, and even paying us for dining in!"
Zheng Kai spat as if to save face, waved to the seven or eight girls he brought with him, completely unaware that he had just become a great prophet.
"Brother Kai, I pushed Brother Axe away today, so why don't you just stop filming?"
"Xue'er is single" was not happy when she heard that. The Axe brother she was talking about was a fan of her Big Brother and had given her a lot of gifts. There was no need to elaborate on their relationship (it was useless to ask me, she definitely wouldn't elaborate).
Zheng Kai was already fuming, and he glanced at Xue'er, who had no partner, and said, "Are you really mad? I'll book a king-size bed room for you to cool down."
Upon hearing "Xue'er has no boyfriend", she muttered twice and didn't dare to say anything else.
It’s not a big deal to relieve the heat, the main thing is that you are not good at it, and you always make people feel uncomfortable.
"Let's just wait and take a picture of the light show." Zheng Kai stood there thinking for a moment.
"Another light show? We've already done it twice this month," a young influencer pouted. "Besides, it's already 9 o'clock when we're done, and we have a live broadcast tonight."
Zheng Kai put his hands on his hips and was about to persuade them when he heard a small internet celebrity who had been looking down at her phone nearby startled: "Eh? Look, this video is Wen Qing, right? A lot of groups are sharing it."
"Wow, what a big deal! This video is so professional!"
Seven or eight female internet celebrities all leaned over. The video was not long, only 30 seconds. On the screen, four girls were dancing to "I'm in Love" by the Korean group Secret with their chests out and their hips left.
"Wen Qing's dancing is not that good, she's just passionate about it. The filming is quite professional, so what's so strange about it? Besides, this kind of group dance video is the most useless and won't attract fans at all." A female internet celebrity pulled her hair back and said sourly.
"Xiao Ai, this is not a group dance, these four women are all warm!" The owner of the phone jumped and shouted.
All warmth?
How is that possible? Aren’t these two women still interacting?
Huh? No, it's all warmth.
It does look warm, but why is it so good-looking? Is it beautification? Not really, it looks more like the original shot of the fruit.
But when did Wen Qing become so beautiful? What project is she working on?
I just saw her last week, and she hasn't changed much.
Wen Qing is a small internet celebrity in Qianjiang, working independently and not signed to any MCN agency. However, the circle of Qianjiang's beautiful internet celebrities is not very large, and everyone knows each other.
The four girls in the video are dancing on their own, and sometimes they interact with each other. The common point is that each of them dances very passionately.
After finishing the last move, one of the girls walked towards the other girl, and then merged with this girl. Then this girl walked towards the other two. In the end, only one girl was left on the screen.
Finally, the girl playfully clicked on the camera, and then her Taboo account popped up on the camera.
It’s so warm!
At the end of the video, a letter T pops up from the right side of the screen, and then a lowercase a pops up next to the T.
"He broadcasts it, so he can watch it."
The video ends after an electronic synthesized sound appears.
Several young internet celebrities looked at each other in bewilderment.
Where did she get the money to film such a professional video? Did she sign with an agency?
This can only be invested by large institutions like Xuanying and Liexing, right?
It turns out that big organizations are different. You can tell at first glance that the director is a professional, and maybe even a professional MV crew. Add in the post-production, and the quality of the film is completely different from that shot by a makeshift team like MiTao.
I have to ask Wen Qing where she signed.
"Oh my god! Wen Qing's fan count is increasing so fast! Her Weibo followers have reached one million! It seems like she's been stuck at 100,000 followers for a long time, right?"
A female internet celebrity opened her Weibo and looked at Wen Qing's ever-increasing number of fans, her envy was beyond words.
"Oh, look, Aphrodite Mei's number of followers is increasing so fast. Ah, she also released a new video. Oh my god, so many cameras! What a huge investment! Brother Kai, just look at her."
Another female internet celebrity discovered that the number of fans of a competitor among her Weibo friends was almost an order of magnitude higher than hers.
Soon after, they discovered that several internet celebrities with good looks also released well-made short videos. Not only were their looks improved to a higher level, but the production of the videos was also professional.
Zheng Kai was also stunned.
What's going on?
But it wasn't long before everyone discovered the secret.
Almost every video uploaded by an internet celebrity on Weibo has a slogan behind it.
Taobao?
Zheng Kai's mind moved slightly.
Are all these internet celebrities broadcasting on Ta?
Zheng Kai didn't immediately think that these videos were shot with Taboo. After all, these videos were shot too professionally and were obviously the work of a professional team.
But this did not affect him from opening the app market and downloading a Ta player.
…
Xinhao, Qianjiang, Pengcheng, Jinguan... Similar plots are being played out in all the cities in the Great Zhou where internet celebrities gather.
Although Tabo has not seen explosive growth in terms of the number of users, the number of video creators is growing at an astonishing rate!
There has never been such a mass-oriented APP that has welcomed so many content creators when there are not many mass users.
Now that we have the content, how far will the number of users be?
"So far, there haven't been any videos that have become a big hit." Liang Rubo pushed his glasses and said in a deep voice.
"It's normal. We've researched this before. It was like this more than a decade ago. The earliest Aya dolls, Green Tea Sister, and Fairy Sister all became popular through seemingly casual street photos and carefully hyped products. The artistic photos look beautiful, but they can't make them famous."
Richemont stroked his mustache and said, "The problem with his videos is that they are too refined. The videos lack a sense of life and cannot resonate with ordinary users. It's not easy to become a big hit."
After Richemont finished speaking, a short-haired woman in her thirties beside him nodded. "Director Xiao T's release these past two days, along with the promotion by tech self-media, has brought them a lot of traffic, but this also means that their current audience is even narrower than ours."
"Yes, we don't need to worry so much. The outcome hasn't been decided yet!" Another young man, also in his late twenties, pounded the table. "Besides, we have our advantages. I compared our information flow funnel algorithm with Taboo's recommendation algorithm. Their algorithm isn't as efficient or accurate as ours, and their customer retention is definitely not as good as ours!"
"Compared to the information flow funnel, their algorithm delivery accuracy is only 30% of ours, and only slightly higher than Xinglang and Sohu."
"That's right! The information flow funnel is our trump card. We were able to defeat Xinglang and Sohu thanks to this algorithm. No one can be more efficient than us!"
Everyone was cheering each other on, looking very enthusiastic, but everyone would glance at Zhang Yiming who was sitting in the corner from time to time.
There is no way. The gap in product strength is too big now. Although Huoshan and A.me still have the advantage in terms of user numbers, their broadcasts have obviously not yet gained momentum. As long as the other party finds a few celebrities to endorse their products or produces two hit videos, they will take off immediately.
What will happen to Volcano and A.me then?
Toutiao has invested more than one billion dollars in these two apps!
You know, unlike other big Internet companies, ByteDance has not yet gone public and uses its own funds!
If there is a real loss and the short video track is not squeezed into, investors may have to withdraw their capital, and it is not certain whether the original basic market can be maintained.
Zhang Yiming sat next to him without saying a word, constantly checking his phone.
"Yiming, what are you thinking about? Say a few words to encourage everyone." Liang Rubo nudged Zhang Yiming. When Zhang Yiming looked up, he saw Liang Rubo winking at him.
"I'm wondering if the algorithm mechanism used by Taboo is really incapable of delivering accurate push notifications," Zhang Yiming said slowly.
????? ?????
Everyone looked at each other, what did it mean?
Liang Rubo covered his face, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
I asked you to say a few words of encouragement, why are you starting over again?
Fortunately, other people had long been accustomed to Zhang Yiming's style of not talking nonsense, so they didn't feel surprised at all.
Zhang Yiming pushed his glasses. "Our personalized recommendation algorithm currently pushes videos to users who may be interested in them in the form of tags. It can basically accurately determine the videos that customers are most interested in and recommend them accordingly."
“Ensuring users always find videos they are interested in is the most effective way to improve retention.”
"This algorithm is indeed very complex, especially the labels and dimensions. It is our invaluable accumulation, and ordinary companies cannot imitate it."
"But is it true that Tabo, or rather, the Youzi Technology behind Tabo, can't do it?"
Li Feng pulled his beard: "Yiming, what do you mean?"
Zhang Yiming continued his slow tone, "Ever since Juzi 1.99 was open-sourced, we've been studying its algorithmic principles. Don't forget, their DBAS algorithm once defeated AlphaGo's Monte Carlo Tree Search."
"Compared to calculating Go positions, accurate recommendations are much less difficult and involve much less variation. Even if they were only using the DBAS algorithm for recommendations, their accuracy shouldn't be this low."
"So, it's not that they can't do it, but that they don't want to do it."
At this point, everyone's expression changed slightly.
Zhang Yiming paused before continuing, "I've been watching Tabo for two days straight, and I've noticed something interesting: in opinion-based videos, Tabo consciously avoids pushing videos with the same opinion. And they must be applying the same content quality rating algorithm from Ysou to Tabo as well."
"That is to say, everything they do is the opposite of what we do!"
Li Feng's action of pulling his beard suddenly stopped.
Zhang Yiming suddenly smiled. "Realme, multiple cameras, and Director Xiao T—this combination of tactics hasn't spawned a hit video, but it's undoubtedly improved the average quality of short videos. Coupled with their recommendation algorithm, it's clear they're trying to break the information cocoon created by algorithmic recommendations. And by improving video quality, they're trying to improve user retention caused by inaccurate delivery."
"But," a cold glint flashed in Zhang Yiming's seemingly honest eyes, "you can't be morally obsessed with doing business."
"If they didn't incorporate so much ulterior motives into their recommendation algorithms, with their product strength, all other short video apps, including us, would have no chance of survival. Now... hehe."
A faint sneer crossed Zhang Yiming's dull face. "The masses are ignorant. Everyone likes people who share their 'opinions'. Even if they are wrong, they don't want to hear opposing views."
"This is human nature, and he is going against human nature!"
"So, we won't lose! The worst-case scenario is just like the current O2O market, with the market divided into two!"
Zhang Yiming stood up. Although he was not tall, handsome, or as eloquent as Ma Yun, he did not say anything grandiose, and what he said was morally and shamelessly nonsense. However, the eight or nine people in the meeting room became excited.
"Alright, let's follow our established strategy and accelerate the process. They already have Director T, so we need to launch Producer A within a month. We'll also increase our channel investment and offer higher creative rewards to attract creators. The rest will be left to the market."
After Zhang Yiming finished speaking, he slowly packed up his things. As soon as he reached the door, he turned around and called out to Liang Rubo, "Lao Liang, come here. I have something to ask."
Liang Rubo nodded. As he and Zhang Yiming walked out of the conference room, he heard Zhang Yiming whisper, "Go to Haixi tomorrow and ask Zhang Xinnian to come forward and talk to Fang Yu."
Liang Rubo was stunned. "Talk to Fang Yu? What?"
Zhang Yiming blinked, as if chatting about family matters: "Talk about mergers and acquisitions."
Liang Rubo frowned. "He can't possibly agree to our acquisition of Tabo, right?"
Zhang Yiming shook his head. "No, we're discussing the merger of Tabo, A.me, and Huoshan. If he agrees, we can discuss the shares."
Liang Rubo was horrified: "What did you say!?"
Isn't this just going to be acquired?
Just now you were calmly analyzing the division of the world into two, why are you talking about acquisition now?
Zhang Yiming's eyes flickered. "Let's talk business. If he wants to fight, we'll continue to fight. After all, this market can't be taken over by one company alone. Tell him we will subsidize 10 billion yuan to creators every year. If he doesn't want to fight, then let's talk about mergers and acquisitions."
Liang Rubo calmed down after hearing this and immediately understood what Zhang Yiming meant.
"Okay, I understand."
Liang Rubo nodded, Zhang Yiming patted Liang Rubo on the shoulder, turned and left.
Liang Rubo looked back at the conference room where the discussion was in full swing and couldn't help shaking his head.
(End of this chapter)
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