Inside a model internet cafe near the Ygritte Headquarters.
Simon, Steve Case and others sit scattered at 15‑inch monitors. To be honest, the CRT screen in front of them doesn't satisfy Simon, but a 15‑inch colour flat‑panel is already quite good for this era.
The homepage of the Ygritte Portal looks very simple to Simon, and thankfully it lacks the flashy, Mahjong‑style buttons that Yahoo once had.
The site is laid out in a 'T' shape. Directly under the Ygritte logo are the five main navigation menus: Network News, Online Games, Personal Homepages, Email, and Forums. Below the menus, the left side holds finer sub‑navigation, the centre shows news content and a directory of sites already in the world wide web system, and the right side contains the login and registration pages.
Although many more features are planned, the portal's focus for the next few years will be these five services.
Among the five, Simon thinks Network News has the least future.
Nevertheless, before specialized news sites appear, the news provided by the Ygritte Portal will be a very attractive service, so the Ygritte team is already preparing its own news media department.
Due to current browser limitations, the online games offered by Ygritte are simple, only a few card and puzzle mini‑games for now, and Simon even revived the famous 1992 Minesweeper game from his original timeline.
Because content is scarce, Ygritte puts most of its effort into the 'interactivity' of the games: adding point rankings to spark competition, embedding text chat so players can talk to friends or make new ones while gaming.
Of course, this is only a temporary stopgap.
Ygritte is already developing web‑graphics and animation technology similar to later Flash, and plans to cooperate with the game studio EA, which is partially owned by Daenerys Entertainment, to create online web games that can run inside the IE browser.
The official name of the personal homepage is "Ygritte blog," which also integrates a micro‑blog.
To quickly enrich portal content, the personal homepage service will initially focus on blog operations, though the micro‑blog side will not be neglected.
In addition, the personal homepage now supports corporate and celebrity verification.
During this period, under Simon's coordination, most tech‑company executives with connections to Westeros Company have opened personal homepages: Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Carol Bartz, Steve Case, Tim Berners-Lee, and others.
The influx of high‑profile tech executives is enough to draw the entire United States' new‑tech industry's attention to the newly launched Ygritte Portal.
In Hollywood, Daenerys Entertainment's personal homepage has also gone live, and will later be linked to the official Daenerys Entertainment website. Simon plans to attract public interest by pre‑posting revenue updates for each of the company's projects on that official page.
Within just a few weeks of opening the official homepage, Daenerys Entertainment released exclusive news: the opening of Malibu Daenerys Studios, casting for a supporting role in 'Wonder Woman', and the upcoming shoot of 'Terminator 2', all of which generated strong buzz.
The development of the U.S. film industry also means a massive core fanbase.
Before the internet, fans could only track movies and talent through traditional media.
Now they can get information in near real‑time and interact with official channels online, which is undeniably attractive to fans.
As for celebrities, because the number of internet users is still low, Simon has not yet leveraged his Hollywood influence.
After all, a top‑tier Hollywood star with only a few thousand followers on a personal homepage looks odd. Simon plans to focus on Hollywood only after Ygritte reaches a million users.
Nonetheless, many stars have taken the initiative to open verified personal homepages.
Sandra Bullock is one of them. After hearing the news, Simon had someone buy her the latest Matsushita digital camera as a thank you for her support, which also makes it easy to take and upload photos.
Personal homepages can publish images.
Although digital cameras existed in the 1970s, their image quality lagged far behind film cameras and they were expensive, so they never became widespread.
Most people are innately expressive, so once the Ygritte Portal takes off, the demand for uploading pictures will make digital cameras popular soon.
Email is undoubtedly the most practical of the five portal services.
Thanks to Simon's insistence, the public email service remains free, though technical and server‑capacity limits impose some functional restrictions.
Simon originally intended to spin off a corporate email service for partnerships, but after Carol Bartz joined Ygritte, she persuaded him to drop the idea and hand the corporate email operations over to the software department.
Finally, the Ygritte forum adopts a model similar to Reddit and other mature forums. Compared with the topic‑driven BBS style, a forum yields higher‑quality content, and this section will, like personal homepages, supply abundant material for the portal.
After discussing suggestions for the internet cafe, the conversation inevitably turned back to the Ygritte portal.
Simon spent a week in San Francisco and compiled a thick memorandum of his internet ideas, which he shared openly; everyone present has already read it.
Regarding the portal's revenue model, Simon proposed an Internet Advertising Alliance based on his memory.
Many small or personal sites can't sustain a revenue system on their own, yet together they make up most of the internet's content.
According to the Long‑Tail Theory, aggregating enough overlooked micro‑sites into an alliance and selling ads collectively can generate revenue comparable to major content giants. Google and Amazon in the original timeline are classic long‑tail companies.
"Simon, I've found a problem", Carol Bartz, who is tough‑mouthed and occasionally drops American slang, interjected: "To achieve the long‑tail effect you described, even ten or twenty million internet users aren't enough, and even if the user base can grow larger, how long do you think it will take?"
Carol Bartz will be responsible for sales and operations of Ygritte‑related application software; in Simon's vision, software revenue will subsidize portal operations for a long period.
As America Online upgraded its web technology for both new and existing users, within less than a month 100,000 users on the IE browser, at the original $10 per‑carrier rate, had already generated $1 million in revenue for Ygritte Company.
If internet user numbers reach the ten‑million level in the coming years, the IE browser could bring Ygritte hundreds of millions in revenue.
Looking at the Ygritte Portal, there's hardly any profit, its short‑term revenue is almost non-existent.
Clearly, abandoning the portal‑business would let Ygritte achieve profitability through software sales with ease. Hence it's understandable that Carol Bartz would not agree with Simon's heavy spending on the portal.
Simon, hearing Carol Bartz's question, turned to the outspoken female executive and said, "In 1980 North America's VCR penetration was 2%, but by 1990 it had risen to 70%, essentially universal. I believe the internet has the same potential".
Carol Bartz quickly retorted, "Those are two completely incomparable industries; they have no reference point".
In the internet café, everyone paused their discussion, watching with interest as the executive who had joined the company less than a month ago challenged the boss.
Simon, very patient, said, "Alright, Carol, you should know Gordon Moore's 'Moore's Law', proposed by Intel's founder?"
Carol Bartz replied fluently, "As integrated circuits accommodate more components, computer performance doubles every 18 to 24 months".
Simon leaned back casually, aware that others likely shared Carol's doubts, scanned the café, and said, "Increasing computer performance also means we can deliver more functions online. The Ygritte Portal's services seem very rudimentary to me now. In the future, I believe internet news can fully replace traditional print media, online games will far exceed simple board and puzzle games, thousands, even tens of thousands, could simultaneously interact on a single game server. Email, personal homepages, and forums will become far more powerful.
Moreover, beyond news, games, and social networking, people will be able to get novels, music, video, and online shopping, all in one platform. Imagine if a person could obtain all the information and services provided by newspapers, TV, and brick‑and‑mortar stores via the internet at a very low cost, or even for free. Such a platform would attract massive numbers of users".
The café's patrons were all elite; Simon's simple sketch let everyone easily picture a grand industrial blueprint. Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Case, and others looked excited; John Chambers gazed dreamily, Jeff Bezos rubbed his knees with a clearly eager expression, as if he could barely wait to return to Ygritte's headquarters and get to work.
Carol Bartz, who had first challenged Simon, fell silent for a moment before saying, "But Simon, this could take a long time, maybe ten years, maybe twenty. Moreover, I think building an entirely new industry isn't something a single company can accomplish".
"Of course not a single one," Simon replied, "In fact, there are already many, right now we have Cisco, America Online, and Ygritte. Besides, Westeros Company has invested in Microsoft, Intel, Sun, Oracle, and other new‑tech firms, all of which can become allies in pioneering the internet industry".
John Chambers, from Sun, heard this and said, "Simon, does that mean you've been thinking this way for three years already?"
After the 1987 stock market crash, Simon made tens of billions by speculating on S&P 500 index futures and immediately poured most of the capital into new‑tech fields.
Simon shook his head and offered a half‑truth, "More accurately, it started when I first joined Stanford and encountered the ARPANET".
In 1985, a poor young man from a low‑income background earned a full scholarship to Stanford after years of hard work.
Then… just a few months later, he went crazy.
Simon isn't just Carol Bartz's boss; more precisely, he's the boss of everyone present.
Everyone fell into a unified silence again.
If one bout of madness can produce such a brilliant talent, perhaps a little madness of our own wouldn't be bad.
John Chambers was the first to break the silence, saying, "Simon, other network‑router companies have emerged. To preserve Cisco's leading position, we must quickly go public and grow stronger through acquisitions. Moreover, Cisco's absolute dominance will ensure the spread of web technology".
"You can discuss Cisco's IPO with James and John tomorrow. However, before Cisco lists, we'll redesign a dual‑class share structure to guarantee Ygritte's absolute control over Cisco. During the IPO, Ygritte will also subscribe for shares to maintain its stake", Simon said, turning to Steve Case and asking, "Steve, what do you think?"
Within a month, America Online's user base surged past 100,000, and Steve Case was brimming with confidence.
Without Simon's deep pockets, taking America Online public to raise funds would have been the obvious move. Now, Steve Case no longer worries; the company's absolute control already belongs to Westeros, and the IPO will further dilute the original partners' holdings. From Simon's words, the dual‑class structure shows Westeros isn't planning to relinquish absolute control over America Online.
America Online's expansion will inevitably require an IPO, but it can wait another year or two.
Thinking this way, Steve Case said, "I believe once America Online's users exceed one million, an IPO will be the optimal timing".
Simon smiled and nodded, then shook his head, "That's still conservative; perhaps aim for ten million".
In the original timeline, the world wide web was opened for free in 1993, graphical browsers appeared, and America Online experienced explosive growth, reaching ten million users by 1996.
Now, Simon released the web standards three years early, completed graphical browsers, and launched a content‑rich portal to ensure sufficient internet material.
With years of accumulated PC and online network experience, plus Simon's personal push, he believes America Online can grow from 100,000 to ten million users in just three years.