In 2008, an era when mobile internet was not yet popular, trying to ruin a milk tea shop through online public opinion, and merely because of service issues, was still unrealistic.
However, Chen Pingjiang himself didn't intend to completely destroy COCO, just to let it suffer some losses.
After Chen Pingjiang's series of actions, COCO's price war naturally couldn't continue.
After gaining control of discourse and publicity channels, Chen Pingjiang's other businesses truly soared.
And with the launch of Zhihu and Weibo, forming a triumvirate with Renren.com, Chen Pingjiang's social empire gradually matured.
"Chairman Chen, Weibo's launch is relatively simple; we just need to recommend our big Vs and celebrities from Renren.com, and users will naturally follow. But what about Zhihu? Should we also spend money on promotion like we did for Renren.com?"
Li Xi asked Chen Pingjiang.
He truly had no experience with this kind of Q&A knowledge-sharing community.
Chen Pingjiang shook his head:
"Certainly not. Zhihu's goal is to create a platform that allows people to better share knowledge, experience, and insights, find their answers, and form a knowledge-sharing community and an original content platform where creators gather.
Therefore, a professional, high-quality Q&A atmosphere is the most crucial on such a platform. Its user base should be a group of knowledgeable, influential, and topic-generating individuals.
Widespread promotion in the early stages, attracting too many people, would instead lower the platform's quality and ultimately turn it into a second Renren.com, which is inconsistent with our original intention and would lose its distinctive features."
"In the early stage, we will adopt an invitation system, inviting professionals who fit our platform's positioning. They could be veteran musicians, computer programming enthusiasts, seasoned financial professionals, and so on. Let these people enrich our content, and we will be responsible for guiding topics and asking questions."
Li Xi was somewhat confused:
"Then, if that's the case, Zhihu won't be able to develop. Ordinary people can't participate, and users won't be retained."
Chen Pingjiang smiled and said:
"Due to Zhihu's positioning, it cannot develop to the scale of Renren.com. At most, it's a supplement to our social section. Besides, this is only the first step."
"In the first stage, the content positioning is on high-level content sharing, and the product positioning is a Q&A exchange platform for elite groups or professionals to output valuable content. The operational direction is to lay a good community atmosphere, control the quality of seed users, and establish a good brand communication plan."
"After about a year of high-quality content accumulation and maintaining good relationships with high-quality content creators, it is then necessary to use traffic to activate and amplify these values.
At this stage, users and content become more popularized, allowing people from all walks of life to participate and enrich the entire Zhihu ecosystem. The content positioning shifts to popularized high-quality content sharing, and the product positioning evolves into a diversified knowledge-sharing community."
Li Xi took notes very carefully, and only after Chen Pingjiang finished speaking did he roughly understand Chen Pingjiang's ideas.
"Building Zhihu, one cannot rush. Rushing will make it lose its original flavor."
Zhihu's content cannot be 'watered down' or 'scraped from Baidu'; it can only be gradually enriched by high-quality content creators.
Of course, it is foreseeable that once more ordinary people flock in later, the Q&A will gradually become less nutritious, but through more content, it can still be compensated to some extent.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
If it continuously adopted an invitation system, Zhihu wouldn't survive, but an open registration system would inevitably lead to a loss of quality in some areas.
It's highly likely that Zhihu will eventually become a high-class men's restroom.
But Chen Pingjiang didn't care.
Because Weibo would also become a public restroom.
Perhaps in the future, Chen Pingjiang might, on a whim, create Xiaohongshu and Douban, taking care of the women's restroom business too.
The whole family, all neat and tidy.
Compared to Zhihu's complex operations and slow results, Weibo was much simpler.
Chen Pingjiang just needed to peel off a portion of Renren.com's user base.
But this peeling must be smooth.
It is foreseeable that once celebrities, big Vs, and internet celebrities are invited to Weibo, Renren.com's traffic will drop significantly.
By then, Renren.com will only have acquaintance social networking and Renren Farm left.
And once the popularity of 'stealing vegetables' fades, and acquaintance social networking is replaced by the mobile app WeChat, Renren.com's decline will be inevitable.
This is the old path of the domestic internet.
Every software has its mission!
This launch of Weibo and Zhihu was particularly low-key, even a bit uncharacteristic of Chen Pingjiang.
However, this could not escape Tencent and other internet companies, big and small, who had been closely monitoring Renren.com's every move.
"Interesting, launching two products at once, Weibo and Zhihu?"
Xiaomage wondered at the meeting.
"I think Weibo is like Twitter, which has gradually become popular in North America, but I don't understand what Zhihu is. A Q&A SNS, is there a need for that?"
Liu Chiping was also a bit baffled.
In fact, it wasn't just the two of them; internet practitioners didn't understand Renren.com's move.
With Renren.com already existing, and Facebook, its foreign counterpart, thriving, why was Chen Pingjiang so eager to launch a social platform that partially duplicated Renren.com's features?
Isn't this digging one's own grave and destroying one's own Great Wall?
People from the same company snatching each other's business?
Facebook was too strong; people didn't think Twitter could develop.
And the domestic market, mirroring North America, would probably be the same, right?
As for this so-called Zhihu, it was even more perplexing.
A Q&A website?
Isn't that just Baidu?
The Tencent team watched for a long time but couldn't analyze Chen Pingjiang's intentions.
Finally, Xiaomage made the decision:
"Copy it!"
"Chen Pingjiang is very devious. Everyone outside says he's never been wrong. I believe he wouldn't make this move without reason. Regardless, we should follow up, otherwise, it will be too late once he gains momentum."
If Chen Pingjiang knew that the reason Xiaomage started a similar project was because he "trusted" him, he would probably be dumbfounded.
...
Early September.
Chen Pingjiang took some time to return to his hometown, Tongcheng.
To attend the unveiling ceremony of the customer service center.
The Tongcheng government cooperated very well, putting in great effort, wanting to completely secure Chen Pingjiang, this golden egg.
Accompanying Chen Pingjiang were Zhuo Ling and other key personnel, who would be responsible for establishing the team after their arrival.
Originally, he only intended to place the customer service center here, but now Chen Pingjiang changed his mind and decided to put the content review center in Tongcheng as well.
In the internet business, content review is too important.
If he didn't pay attention to self-inspection, and the iron fist of the law came down, Chen Pingjiang would have nowhere to cry.
In those years, the internet environment was still relatively lenient.
Various violent, pornographic, and malicious slanderous content emerged endlessly.
Without restrictions, Chen Pingjiang might eventually be invited for "tea" one day.
Compared to domestic internet platforms, Facebook and Twitter did a terrible job; even porn sellers on them would go three years without a single sale.
This is also why these foreign platforms cannot enter China.
They themselves do not restrict people from uploading information involving pornography, violence, or rumors, which is a disaster for the internet.
Tongcheng attached great importance to the unveiling ceremony, and the heads of the city and districts all came.
Their attitude towards Chen Pingjiang was as enthusiastic as could be.
For general small businesses, Tongcheng, this small city, might find it difficult to recruit people, but for Renren.com, an internet giant at that moment, it was no big deal.
The posted salary and benefits immediately attracted a lot of attention.
The recruitment requirements were accordingly relaxed to college graduates.
Matching the salary levels of local civil servants, the staffing of the customer service and content review centers was built quite quickly.
"Is this your bedroom?"
Chen Pingjiang brought Yan Yan with him when he returned to Tongcheng.
Seeing Chen Pingjiang's bedroom for the first time, Yan Yan seemed very curious, constantly looking around.
"Yan Yan, come here and eat some fruit. What's so interesting about Chen Pingjiang's bedroom?"
Xu Fangjuan was exceptionally happy about the "prospective daughter-in-law's" visit.
That afternoon, she immediately took Yan Yan shopping.
To this, Chen Pingjiang scoffed.
They had clearly bought a large batch in Dongjiang and BJ not long ago; where would they be short of clothes now?
I, Chen, can see through Empress Dowager Xu's little scheme at a glance.
Just as Chen Pingjiang expected, Xu Fangjuan eagerly pulled Yan Yan around, showing her off to neighbors.
"Xiao Zhang, have you eaten?"
Xu Fangjuan greeted the downstairs neighbor walking towards them with a smile.
The woman named Xiao Zhang wondered, what time is it already? What decent person hasn't eaten?
Then, catching sight of Yan Yan standing next to Xu Fangjuan, her eyes lit up, and she stared:
"Oh my, what a beautiful girl. Is this... could this be your Chen Pingjiang's girlfriend?"
Yan Yan nodded obediently, a beautiful smile appearing on her face:
"Yes, Auntie, hello."
"Oh my, Sister Xu, you're so lucky. Your son is so accomplished, and now even your daughter-in-law is so wonderful."
Xiao Zhang started with sincere praise, but as she continued praising, only bitterness remained in her heart.
Comparing people makes one furious; comparing goods makes one want to discard them.
Her own son was only two years younger than Chen Pingjiang, and in the recent college entrance exam, he only scored around four hundred points, only able to attend a mediocre vocational college.
And then look at them.
The chatting attracted people from around, and soon, small groups of people stood around Xu Fangjuan.
Yan Yan's emotions were quite stable; she obediently held Xu Fangjuan's arm and greeted everyone one by one as she was introduced.
Listening to the various praises, Xu Fangjuan's smile became much wider, feeling even happier than her son Chen Pingjiang's career success.
Chen Pingjiang and his father Chen Guangming stood by the window, watching the distant chatting crowd, lightly exhaling smoke rings.
"Dad, how long has it been since you smoked? Why are you so impatient?"
Chen Pingjiang asked curiously, watching his father take three puffs in one on the cigarette butt.
Chen Guangming sighed, making a bitter face:
"I haven't smoked for three days, and the craving makes me drowsy. As for why I don't smoke, your mother won't let me. I had a physical examination a while ago, and the doctor said my blood pressure was a bit high, and smoking causes blood vessels to constrict and blood pressure to rise."
Chen Pingjiang paused, suddenly remembering that in his previous life, his father had suffered a large-scale cerebral infarction due to high blood pressure that he didn't pay attention to.
"Stop that business of yours. When the house in Dongjiang is furnished, come and live with me."
Chen Pingjiang said, frowning.
After thinking for a moment, Chen Pingjiang suddenly pulled open the window and shouted to Xu Fangjuan in the distance:
"Mom!"
Chen Guangming froze, looked at his son speechlessly, and quickly extinguished the cigarette butt.
The eyes of the distant crowd looked over.
Then Chen Pingjiang continued to shout:
"My dad is secretly smoking, you should manage him!"
Chen Guangming: "..."
Sure enough, when Xu Fangjuan, who was chatting, heard this, her face suddenly changed, and she rushed back with Yan Yan.
"Old Chen, what's wrong with you? You don't listen to the doctor's words, and you don't listen to mine either?"
On the other side, Chen Guangming was like a frost-bitten eggplant, listlessly accepting criticism.
Chen Pingjiang chuckled.
Unexpectedly, Xu Fangjuan's tone shifted, and she looked at Chen Pingjiang:
"What are you laughing at? Both your grandfather and your father have high blood pressure. If you don't pay attention, you'll suffer later."
(End of Chapter)