raknovel Chapter 63 War
Chapter 63 War
2010, April 1.
The first rays of sunlight in the new year did not seem to make the world any clearer.
In the morning news, Shanghai held a grand launch ceremony for the "2010 China World Expo Tourism Year," with Brother Chenglong attending as the image ambassador.
NetEase quietly released the beta version of its Weibo product, joining this silent social media battle.
But in the nooks and crannies of the internet, another kind of revelry is brewing.
Teacher Chen gave an interview to a magazine, bringing up the "photo scandal" again for the first time in two years, instantly sparking a discussion across the internet.
Immediately afterwards, indecent videos of China's top car model, "Beast," began to circulate secretly in QQ groups and online forums.
In this new era where traffic is king and moral boundaries are blurred, the warm and gentle veil of the early 2000s is being brutally torn away.
But all of this seems to have nothing to do with his empty life story.
Ren Pingsheng sat alone in front of the computer, holding a cup of hot sweet soy milk in his hand.
Bai Ke, Xiao Ai, and Zhang Yibo all took a New Year's Day holiday.
As for Dapeng, the kid went to Shenyang early in the morning with his new master, saying that Master Benshan wanted to show him the world and take him along to entertain Sunglasses King, Zhang Ziyi and Yuan Heping who came to Northeast China for a field trip.
At 10:00 AM, the fifth episode of "Report to the Boss" was released on Youku.
Aside from the few hilarious product placements in the main film, the end credits, as usual, feature a referral code for Gewara and promotional materials for their events.
On Weibo, Ren Pingsheng also posted a recommendation using his personal account.
"Avatar will be released in three days. If you don't want to go to the cinema, wait in line, freeze, and get ripped off by scalpers, try Che Guevara instead."
All of this groundwork has been laid, and today the fangs have been revealed.
The movie ticketing market in 2010 was extremely rudimentary.
Without Maoyan or Taopiaopiao, people still go to the cinema lobby one or two hours in advance, crane their necks to look at the red-letter show schedule on the screen above the ticket counter, and queue to buy tickets.
It's common for popular films to be unable to secure good screenings, let alone a super monster like "Avatar" that has already blown the global market away.
At the entrance of offline cinemas, scalpers are already sharpening their knives, ready to make a fortune from this feast.
But they didn't know that the attack had already begun online.
At noon, Ren Pingsheng's phone rang.
As soon as the call connected, Liu Yong's excited voice came through.
"President Ren... has gone mad! They've all gone mad!"
His voice was hoarse with excitement, "We implemented the commission mechanism you suggested on the system, and this morning we had 50,000 more registered users, almost crashing the server!"
Ren Pingsheng opened Gewara's distribution backend. The data on the screen did not surge like in pyramid schemes, but instead showed an extremely steady upward trend.
This is enough.
The immense popularity of "Avatar" has heightened the viewing enthusiasm of audiences across the country.
But in the dead of winter, waiting in line for an hour or two in the lobby of a movie theater is a terrible experience.
Ren Pingsheng's referral commission mechanism fully showcases Gewara's two major strengths: the convenience of online seat selection and offline ticket collection, and the low price.
With millions of views per episode, "Report to the Boss" became one of the first sparks of interest.
Initially, only viewers of the web series clicked on the link out of a "let's give it a try" mentality.
But when they discovered they could lock in a good seat by simply clicking a mouse at home, and even save money with a referral code, the enthusiasm exploded.
In order to get the best ticket discounts, they started frantically sharing the links on QQ groups and Renren (a Chinese social networking site), urging classmates and colleagues to register and grab tickets together.
Many people who had never even seen "Report to the Boss" started using this mysterious discount code in order to save money and avoid queuing.
The number of orders increased from a few hundred to several thousand, and then to over ten thousand.
Ren Pingsheng's profits also rose accordingly, exceeding 100,000 on the first day of pre-sales, and are still snowballing upwards.
Looking at that string of fluctuating numbers, Ren Pingsheng felt only a sense of peace.
Money is secondary; what truly puts his mind at ease is that the business loop of content + channels + CPS monetization has been successfully implemented in this primitive era!
……
Three days later, on January 4th.
The Yenching Film Museum houses one of the few IMAX 70mm film giant screens in China.
Bai Ke, Xiao Ai, and Zhang Yibo were wrapped in thick coats, shivering and stamping their feet in the cold.
Outside the ticket hall not far away, the long queue had already turned three corners and seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.
At the front of the line, two people started shoving each other because one of them cut in line. A security guard ran over to break them up, cursing and swearing.
Several scalpers dressed in military overcoats were weaving through the crowd, shouting in hushed tones: "Great IMAX halftime seats, two thousand each! Two thousand each! Hurry, prices are going up soon!"
"My goodness..." Bai Ke exclaimed in astonishment upon hearing the offer, "Twenty times! Are these guys crazy?"
"This is a year-end bonus from President Gu," Ren Pingsheng said, waving the tickets in his hand as he led them through the ticket check and into the venue.
The lights went out.
When the Na'vi ride their swarming beasts and plunge from the floating mountains onto the screen, when the glowing seeds of the sacred tree brush against the audience's cheeks like real dandelions.
The entire screening room was filled with gasps of surprise.
Xiao Ai opened her mouth wide and subconsciously reached out to grab the ethereal leaves in front of her. Zhang Yibo, as the photographer, was even more excited and grabbed the armrest of the chair.
They were stunned.
Filmmakers across China were stunned on this day.
Ren Pingsheng wore the somewhat bulky 3D glasses and looked at the familiar scene before him.
Compared to the visual shock experienced by others, he felt a greater sense of urgency.
China's economy is booming, and people's pockets are getting fuller.
In this period of material abundance and prosperity, Chinese audiences, who have never seen the world, are destined to pursue more extreme, more expensive, and more sensory-stimulating entertainment consumption.
The Chinese film market is also about to usher in a decade-long box office boom, with hot money, capital, and cross-industry players flooding into the industry like bloodthirsty sharks.
This also means that products of the "micro-era" like "Report to the Boss," which rely on fragmented deconstruction, witty remarks, and emotional resonance, are destined to have a limited lifespan and a ceiling.
As Hollywood's industrial monsters, built with hundreds of millions of dollars, whet the appetites of audiences, poorly made web series will inevitably be temporarily rejected by the market sooner or later.
If you can't take advantage of this opportunity to quickly accumulate initial capital, and upgrade your team, your life story will sooner or later be crushed into pieces by the ensuing wave of competition.
Time is running out for him.
The money-grabbing war in the Chinese film market has begun today.
In the virtual world of the internet, another war is being waged by Chinese netizens.
And today, the war on internet addiction has quietly begun.