Chapter 88: YiTing Online Launch

On various major forums and websites, some users claiming to have “insider information” began to appear. They swore up and down that a music streaming site would officially launch at midnight, and that they had the official studio versions of two tracks by Simple Plan. What’s more, at midnight, they would be releasing Simple Plan’s “Li Bai” first.

The response from netizens was unexpectedly unanimous: they didn’t believe it.

Immediately afterward, these so-called “insiders” released a series of photos no one had ever seen before. In one of the photos, all four members of Simple Plan were holding a banner that read: “Simple Plan’s single ‘Li Bai’ official studio version will be released at midnight on eting. Stay tuned.” In addition, Zhang Kexuan and the other band members also posed for several cool photos, each holding a sign with the same handwriting.

To avoid accusations of photo manipulation, the photographer cleverly blended the signs with the ambient lighting, making it clear at a glance that these were genuine, unaltered photos.

At this time, although the eting website had not officially launched, visitors who opened it could still see a welcome page. The welcome page featured a single atmospheric image: a man with a guitar on his back, standing with his back to the sunset, in what seemed to be a classical Nordic town—a scene distinctively unique and evocative.

Beneath the man’s silhouette were three lines of text:
First line: “At midnight tonight, embark on a brand-new musical journey.”
Second line: “There are x hours and xx minutes until EasyTune officially opens.”
Third line: “Simple Plan’s hot single ‘Li Bai’ official studio version will launch simultaneously.”

With this, the curious netizens were instantly convinced.

Ever since Zhao Kang’s internet promoters started their operations, Li Mu had instructed Kong Lingyu to monitor the website’s traffic. In just half an hour, the site’s unique visitors had reached three thousand.

By 9:00 p.m., the unique visitor count had hit ten thousand.

At 9:10, Simple Plan finally performed on South Su TV, and the live video of “Sunflower” was broadcast on television for the first time.

The televised version sounded much better than the recordings made by the live audience, and “Sunflower” began to reveal its charm.

By 9:30, EasyTune’s traffic peaked, with more than twenty thousand unique visitors.

Kong Lingyu and the other technicians were left speechless—they had never seen a website attract so much attention before even launching. Typically, countless sites had to start from zero, slowly accumulating users after going live. So where had these twenty thousand users come from? Had Li Mu promoted the site online?

Kong Lingyu didn’t know that Li Mu had a team of internet promoters—perhaps one of the earliest such teams—who were flooding the web with news about EasyTune, using Simple Plan as a hook to draw in massive numbers of users.

Li Mu had always believed that Simple Plan would be EasyTune’s secret weapon. They were at the height of their popularity, and only EasyTune had their music—now and in the future, too. For EasyTune, Simple Plan’s task was to attract the initial wave of users; after that, it would be up to EasyTune’s streamlined, smooth user experience and visually stunning interface to keep them.

Moreover, the cloud playlist feature was already developed—every registered user’s playlist would be uploaded to the cloud server and automatically loaded the next time they logged in. Though common in later years, at this moment very few sites had such a function.

With all these advantages, there was no reason EasyTune couldn’t dominate its competitors.

After South Su TV finished airing all the videos from the semifinals, Zhao Kang’s online promoters switched identities and set forth again. This time, they didn’t promote the website; instead, they sparked a wave of discussion about Simple Plan, praising “Sunflower” as inspiring and moving. Many fans who were going through dark times in their lives found new hope and motivation from the song, and came online to share their heartfelt stories.

Even though the second wave of promotion didn’t directly mention EasyTune, the site still benefited greatly.

By 11:55 p.m., EasyTune’s unique visitor count had reached one hundred thousand. Li Mu knew well that most of these users were from South Su province. Once Simple Plan performed “Old Boys” in the first round of the finals, their fanbase would surely explode.

The technical team, including Kong Lingyu, was dumbfounded. They’d never seen a site attract so many users before officially launching—could the servers and bandwidth handle it?

Li Mu, however, was unconcerned. He said calmly, “We’ve been tracking visitors from 8 p.m. until now—four hours. Not all these users will wait until midnight. The number of daily visitors is much larger than the peak number online at any one moment.”

At midnight, EasyTune officially launched.

When the homepage finally appeared before users, almost everyone’s first impression was how beautiful it was. No site had ever boasted such a stunning, futuristic design. Li Mu had applied the aesthetic standards of later generations, drawing from app design’s attention to color and imagery, so the first thing users felt when they flocked in was pure visual delight.

Still, visuals weren’t the main attraction—they were there to listen to music.

The default homepage banner was a poster of Simple Plan, with a “Li Bai” play icon attached. Users rushed to listen, only to discover with surprise that EasyTune didn’t redirect or open new windows to stream music. Instead, a sleek floating player appeared at the bottom, complete with scrolling lyrics—a truly impressive feature.

At last, the official studio version of “Li Bai” debuted alongside EasyTune.

At 12:02 a.m., data showed nearly one hundred thousand people were listening to “Li Bai” online at the same time.

By 12:10, the play count had surpassed two hundred thousand, and downloads had just broken five thousand.

Since personal computers and mp3 players weren’t yet widespread, the relatively low download numbers were to be expected.

The traffic peak lasted until about 1 a.m., but the highest record was not surpassed. Li Mu was already very satisfied—such an opening for EasyTune was, in truth, extraordinary.

Before leaving, Li Mu instructed Kong Lingyu to closely monitor traffic data and set traffic thresholds. Once usage reached 80% of capacity, more servers and bandwidth were to be added immediately, to ensure user streaming and downloads would not be affected. This was not an area to cut corners.

The next day, Li Mu returned to Haizhou. On the taxi ride home from the train station, he was astonished to hear “Li Bai” already playing on the car radio.

In those days, local radio stations, like early streaming sites, had no concept of copyright and played whatever songs the DJs liked. Haizhou’s traffic music station spent over a third of daily airtime on music, and had a song request hotline as well. Despite the high volume of songs played, radio still had a broad and influential audience at the time.

He remembered that music stations in Yanjing and Shanghai even maintained authoritative song popularity charts for years on end.

A thought occurred to Li Mu, and he called Zhang Kexuan.

“Do you know anyone at Jinling Music Radio?”

“I’m not sure, but I can find out. What’s up?”

“See if you can get ‘Li Bai’ played during rush hour, and arrange for some people to call the request line and ask for it. Try to get the song played twice a day—the radio can quickly reach people who haven’t heard of the competition or the song.”

For radio, playing a song twice a day was nothing unusual. Later hits like “Mouse Loves Rice,” “Two Butterflies,” and the brainwashing songs of Phoenix Legend were often played six times a day and still left listeners wanting more.

Zhang Kexuan immediately understood the importance. Every taxi and bus played the radio, especially music stations; many students secretly listened on their radios at night. Popular songs could spread rapidly through this channel.

“I’ll get on it right away—hopefully we can get it aired today!”

Li Mu added, “If possible, get the DJ to mention EasyTune, and say that five days from now, ‘Sunflower’ will be available on EasyTune.”

“Got it, I’ll make it happen!”

“I’ll see what I can do in Haizhou. If you can find contacts in other cities, try to get them moving too. This approach is low-cost but extremely effective.”

------

The second chapter is here—don’t hold back your recommendation votes! Especially since midnight brings a new week—please vote for the new week’s recommendations!