"There's no need to dwell on this," Frank said, clasping his hands in front of his abdomen as he set the tone. "The European Championship section was launched in a rush. We didn't have enough time to lay the groundwork and build anticipation the way we did for the Olympic Games. Creating this section was more of a test to see how much our target audience overlapped."
The manager stopped writing and looked up at him.
"Major events happen around the world every so often," Frank analyzed methodically. "Some of these events have an audience that highly overlaps with current Internet users—like tech expos, new IPOs on Nasdaq, or comprehensive sporting events like the Olympic Games that require a vast amount of information retrieval. These types of events can bring us a massive wave of new registered users."
He paused, pointing to the European Championship data report on the table.
"But other events, like the European Championship, have a core audience that still largely exists outside the Internet. The overlap is small, so the traffic we attract is naturally limited. This is normal. We can't expect a product that's been online for less than two months to change the lifestyle Europeans have cultivated for decades."
The direct line on the desk rang.
The manager tactfully rose and left the office, closing the door behind him.
Frank picked up the receiver. It was Donald Valentine from Sequoia Capital.
"A few analysts from Wall Street hedge funds have gotten their hands on some rough data from your European Championship section," Donald's voice carried the shrewdness of a businessman. "They think go.com's traffic growth has hit a ceiling. SVOL's stock price showed signs of a slight pullback in early trading today."
"Let them sell," Frank said, his tone steady and completely unfazed. "Short-sighted people never make the last penny. The European Championship is just an appetizer to fill the gap before the Olympic Games. The real prize isn't even in Europe."
"You need to give the market some confidence," Donald reminded him.
"Confidence is written right into the law." Frank stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the ceaseless flow of traffic on the highway outside Redwood City. "Donald, do you remember the document President Clinton signed back in February?"
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line.
"The Telecommunications Act of 1996," Donald recited.
"Exactly." Frank watched the cranes working on a telecommunications project in the distance. "Long-distance calls, local phone service, cable television—these three industries, once separated by impenetrable barriers, have been completely integrated by this Act. The monopolies are broken. What follows will be a brutal price war and a frenzy of infrastructure expansion."
As a pioneer in the Internet industry, Frank's sense for policy trends was exceptionally keen.
"Bell Atlantic and Time Warner are frantically laying fiber optic cables across the country to seize the broadband market," Frank continued, laying out his analysis. "Internet access fees will soon plummet. In the past, only professors in university laboratories, programmers in Silicon Valley, and traders on Wall Street could afford to use the Internet."
He turned back to his desk, tapping his finger heavily on the surface.
"But soon, Texas ranchers, Detroit auto workers, and even the European blue-collar workers who currently only watch sports in pubs will discover that buying a modest computer and dialing into the Internet is much cheaper than renewing a cable sports package every year."
Donald chuckled on the other end of the line. He understood Frank's point.
"The total number of Internet users is ballooning at a rate beyond comprehension," Frank concluded. "People who have never touched the Internet before will be pushed—or will choose—to join the network, driven by the telecom giants. As long as the base continues to grow, go.com, serving as their first gateway into this virtual world, will see a continuous flood of traffic. The European Championship zone's data is flat? That's because their Internet era hasn't truly arrived yet."
"I'll pass this on to the institutional partners who are still on the sidelines," Donald said, before hanging up.
As the aftershocks of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 continued to ripple through the capital markets and physical industries, Silicon Valley Online's strategy was steadily unfolding.
The sustained popularity of the Olympics Zone allowed go.com to successfully complete its first phase of user acquisition.
For millions of North American internet users, typing those two simple letters into the browser's address bar had become a fixed ritual after turning on their computers each day.
During this process, beyond its customized news feeds and massive free email service, the minimalist search bar at the very top of the go.com homepage—and its corresponding independent subdomain—quietly began to shape user habits.
As go.com became a primary gateway for more and more internet users, the platform's search engine business saw a dramatic surge in usage.
The reason was simple: the feature genuinely solved a real pain point for users.
San Francisco Bay Area.
Richard sat at his desk, holding a freshly received fax.
The fax mentioned a medical device manufacturer based in Boston that had recently been granted a new patent, which could potentially influence the stock's performance.
Richard needed detailed background information on this company.
Six months ago, he would have had to pore through thick corporate directories or call colleagues on the East Coast to ask.
Later, with the advent of webdriver, he could search through layers of manually categorized directories—navigating from the "Business" category to "Medical," then to "Device Manufacturing"—spending a vast amount of time searching for a single potential link.
Now, he moved his mouse, placing the cursor inside the long input box at the top of the go.com homepage.
He typed the company's English abbreviation and the word "medical," then pressed Enter.
The page loaded in an instant.
A neatly organized list of search results appeared on the screen.
There was no cluttered interference—only blue hyperlinked titles and two lines of black summary text.
The very first result at the top was the official homepage of that Boston company.
What reassured Richard was the official badge highlighted in red text to the right of the blue link, with the company's full registered name displayed in small print below it.
Richard clicked the link, went directly to their website, and successfully found the patent disclosure document he needed.
In the Internet environment of 1996, domain squatting and counterfeit websites were rampant.
Some malicious actors would register domains extremely similar to those of big companies to publish false information or commit financial fraud.
A few of Richard's colleagues had once cited incorrect financial data after accidentally visiting a fake website with a typo-squatted domain, resulting in significant financial losses.
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