NBC had paid a fortune for the Olympic broadcasting rights, banking on exclusive previews to drive viewership.
Now, they were at a loss. The online audience was all flocking to Silicon Valley Online to check the schedules.
"Can we sue them for infringement?" an executive asked.
"The Legal Department has reviewed it," the assistant replied. "Schedules are public information, so it doesn't constitute infringement. Besides, they've listed our channel numbers next to the schedules. Nominally, they're actually driving traffic to us."
The executive was speechless.
Silicon Valley Online had become a massive intermediary standing between the television network and its audience.
The viewers now held the upper hand. They only turned on their TVs when the games were actually airing; the rest of the time, they were glued to the internet, reading gossip and joining discussions.
On the Nasdaq Trading Floor.
2:00 PM.
Traders stared intently at their terminals.
The order book for SVOL was showing abnormal activity.
Buy orders from several major institutions suddenly flooded in, pushing the stock price straight up from its $45 sideways trading range.
"Silicon Valley Online has secured the Olympic online sponsorship rights!"
The news rippled through the trading floor.
The analysts' bearish reports from that morning were now worthless scraps of paper.
After the launch of the Olympics Zone, go.com's unique IP page views experienced a second wave of explosive growth. Netizens who had previously used their email accounts merely as tools began spending long periods on the site to customize their own Olympics Channels.
This surge in traffic directly drove a spike in the price of GG ad slots.
Ad agencies for traditional major brands like Coca-Cola and Nike began frantically contacting Silicon Valley Online's Marketing Department. On this digital plaza where all of America's netizens gathered, even a single GG Slot in a remote corner offered better value than a Super Bowl TV-GG.
By the closing bell, SV0L's stock price had climbed to $52.
Tokyo, Sega Headquarters, Ōta Ward.
Takuya Nakayama flipped through the briefing report delivered by Oguchi Hisao.
"The Olympics Zone is now live in North America," Oguchi Hisao reported. "Frank said over the phone that server load has increased by forty percent. The users' customization needs are generating a massive amount of data interaction."
Takuya Nakayama set the presentation on the table.
"Traditional media's information distribution is one-way," Takuya said, lifting his teacup. "The newspaper prints it, and the readers read it. We've reversed this process. The users provide the demand, and the platform integrates the resources. This is the true value of the Internet."
Oguchi Hisao noted down the key points.
"Also," Takuya added, setting his teacup back down, "tell Frank to save the data from those user questionnaires. Sports preferences are just one piece of the puzzle. Once the Olympic Games are over, this customization logic can be expanded to finance, entertainment, and automotive sections. We're going to build the largest user profile database in all of America."
Oguchi Hisao stopped writing.
He now understood the core of this strategy.
On the surface, Silicon Valley Online was providing free news and email services.
In reality, they were using these services to exchange for users' personal preference data.
With this data, GG could achieve precision targeting.
They wouldn't push an ad for basketball shoes to someone who only read golf news.
This was a dimensionality reduction strike.
"Any word on Yahoo?" Takuya Nakayama asked.
"They're still using a categorized directory," Oguchi Hisao replied. "Manually screening URLs. It's slow. They can't keep up with our content aggregation strategy."
"Keep the pressure on." Takuya straightened the documents on his desk. "Once the Olympic Games hype dies down, we need a seamless transition to the next major version update for our search engine and ICQ. Don't give the competition any room to breathe."
Oguchi Hisao nodded and left the office.
Redwood City, California.
Night fell.
The Operations Center was still buzzing.
Frank stood before the massive monitoring screen.
The average session time per IP had stretched from a dozen minutes to half an hour.
In the Olympics forum of the BBS, new threads were appearing every second.
Netizens were debating the starting lineup for Dream Team III and predicting the winner of the 100-meter dash.
Through its Olympics Zone, Silicon Valley Online had successfully corralled all the sports fans in America into its own territory.
The phone on the desk rang.
It was Donald Valentine.
"Nice work, Frank," the Sequoia Capital partner chuckled on the other end. "The Wall Street crowd was fighting over shares this afternoon like a pack of wild dogs that hadn't eaten in three days."
Frank watched the data flickering on his screen.
"This is just the beginning," Frank replied. "When the Olympics kick off, the traffic will double again. Tell your partners to hold onto their stock."
At the Atlanta Olympic Organizing Committee headquarters, in a conference room.
Michael Jones slammed a thick briefing report onto the conference table.
The executives seated around the table ceased their conversation.
"The ticketing center's hotlines have crashed three times," Michael said, pulling out a chair and sitting down, his tie loosened. "And it's not people complaining about not getting tickets—they're all calling to ask about the specific event schedule. Some are even inquiring about the Athletes' Village menu. Pre-orders for merchandise have also exceeded our warehouse and logistics capacity."
"We're less than thirty days from the opening ceremony, and public enthusiasm is soaring," the Vice Chairman said, lifting his coffee cup.
"It's abnormal," Michael said, flipping open the report. "Past Olympics have followed a predictable pattern for the buildup of hype. Typically, attention only peaks when the torch relay enters the host city's state and the media begins its full-scale coverage. This time, it's happened a full month early. NBC's feedback shows no significant spike in viewership for their Olympic promos."
"And there's been no unusual spike in the sales of the sports section in newspapers."
Michael slid several printed line charts to the center of the conference table.
"The hype isn't coming from traditional channels. We commissioned a third-party research firm to conduct random surveys on the streets and university campuses. The results were unexpected."
The Vice Chairman picked up a chart.
"Over half of the respondents get their Olympic information from a website called go.com," Michael announced.
"Those computer geeks in Silicon Valley?" another executive frowned. "They don't have broadcasting rights. Where are they getting their news sources?"
"They don't need to send reporters to the front lines," Michael flipped to the next page of the presentation. "They've compiled the broadcast schedules of all the major TV networks, added public news briefs and some purchased reports from news agencies, and created an aggregation section. Netizens are checking information and posting comments there, forming a massive discussion community. The public's attention has been whipped up by this platform."
The conference room fell silent.
The promotional system for traditional sporting events had always been controlled by TV networks and print media. The Olympic Organizing Committee was used to dealing with these media giants and releasing promotional materials according to a set schedule.
A website that had only recently gone online had completely disrupted that rhythm.
"How should we respond?" the Vice Chairman put down the chart. "Send them a cease-and-desist letter for copyright infringement?"
Please Support me by becoming my Patreon member and get 30+ chapters.
[email protected]/Ajal69
change @ with a
Thank You to Those who joined my Patreon