Chapter Ninety-Three: Fortune Comes in Waves

As soon as the notice arrived, good news came one after another.

Zhao Kang’s notice soon arrived as well; there had never been much doubt about his admission to that junior college in the first place.

Then, at last, the first round of the final of Simple Plan aired.

This time, they truly made a sensation. In the past, footage of Simple Plan’s performances had only aired on Southern Jiangsu Television, but now it was not only Southern Jiangsu Television, but also Yanjing Television and more than a dozen other partner stations across the country.

With its superb composition and lyrics full of inspiration and warmth, the song "Old Boy" won over audiences nationwide the very day it was broadcast.

E-Tune Network’s traffic was now extraordinary as well. Its excellent user experience, together with the reward system for previously registered users, drew vast numbers of people toward it at a pace so fast that even Li Mu himself found it hard to believe.

Looking at the tens of thousands of comments on E-Tune Network about the four members of Simple Plan, a flash of inspiration suddenly lit up in Li Mu’s mind.

Why not build a celebrity forum on the basis of E-Tune Network for fans to play with?

Since they had already snatched Baidu MP3 out from under Baidu’s nose, they might as well snatch this too.

After careful analysis of how things would develop in the future, Li Mu realized that later platforms relied on search engines, which was why their forum creation rules were basically completely open: not just singers, not just celebrities, but any object, any term, could have its own forum.

But he had no search engine to lean on, so he could not play with such a massive product. Moreover, he did not have the kind of powerful hardware and software support for it either.

So Li Mu decided to open forum functionality on E-Tune Network, but in the first stage it would be limited to singers only. In other words, when users came to E-Tune Network to listen to songs, each singer already had a secondary page of his own. Now Li Mu would give them an additional personal forum. In this way, he could ignite fans’ enthusiasm for discussion and further increase user stickiness.

What was most interesting of all was that the domain name for the forum was also in Li Mu’s hands.

Li Mu immediately called Kong Lingyu. "Old Kong, I’ve got a new idea. Listen carefully. If you have any questions, hold them until I’ve finished."

Kong Lingyu knew that his young boss often came up with ideas that were bizarre yet brilliant, so he immediately grabbed pen and paper and夹ed the phone between shoulder and cheek. "Go ahead."

"Right now, our users can only leave comments under each celebrity’s secondary page. Those comments may be numerous, but every day they remain one-way and sealed off. They can’t form any real social connection among fans. So my idea is to develop a new feature for fans, something like a minimalist BBS, so they can discuss their idols in it, but it must never become as cumbersome as a BBS forum."

Kong Lingyu was stunned for a moment and asked, "Boss, do you mean opening this kind of minimalist BBS for every singer?"

"Exactly."

Li Mu smiled. "This minimalist BBS only needs to support text and image posts. In other words, we develop one template and then open one for every singer. Unlike those broad, generic BBS forums, each of our minimalist BBS spaces has the most vertical positioning possible: that is, the singer himself."

Kong Lingyu’s eyes lit up. "And then let each singer’s fans chat and discuss inside that singer’s minimalist BBS, like giving every singer’s fans an online home?"

"Pretty much."

Li Mu smiled. "We won’t call it BBS, or some corny name like online home. Let’s keep it simple and call it a Tieba."

"Tieba? What does that mean?"

"You know what a bar is, don’t you?"

Kong Lingyu’s voice immediately turned excited. "I get it! My God, Boss, you really are a genius. How does your brain even work? If this kind of Tieba goes live, E-Tune Network will really become the online gathering place for music fans across the country!"

Li Mu said with a smile, "Tieba is the first step into community. You must take it seriously. Get me a product concept as soon as possible. In the next couple of days I’ll make time to go to Jinling and meet with you in person."

...

The day after the official release of "Old Boy," Simple Plan set out once again for Yanjing. And from today on, the song began to be played madly on radio stations everywhere!

It was a song that could move and resonate with people from their teens all the way into their fifties, and with lead singer Zhang Kexuan, a handsome man with striking looks, it was only natural that it would become a hit after being aired on so many television stations.

Very quickly, the entire mainland pop music scene was shaken by this band called Simple Plan. Before the first round of the Yanjing finals aired, hardly anyone in the pop music industry knew the four words "Simple Plan." When "Li Bai" and "Sunflower" had previously climbed the charts on several radio stations, they had not attracted much attention from insiders. But "Old Boy" pushed Simple Plan directly into the sight of audiences nationwide. At that point, people in the industry were astonished to discover that on the major radio stations’ pop music popularity charts, Simple Plan had appeared everywhere, and the band alone occupied three positions.

"Old Boy" surged to the top of major charts across the country. "Li Bai," with a touch of roguish flair, ranked second on most charts and third on a few. "Sunflower," another inspirational song, also remained within the top five.

The pop music scene had not seen this kind of chart-dominating bastard in a long time.

There would certainly be someone like that later on: Jay Chou. Unfortunately, right now, Jay Chou’s first album, "Jay," had probably only just begun to enjoy initial success in Taiwan. The people in the Taiwanese music scene had not yet come to their senses, and his truly explosive album, "Fantasy," would not be released until September. So if Jay Chou wanted to truly explode on the mainland, he would have to wait until at least early 2002.

Right now, it was truly a rare opportunity to make a name for oneself in the music world. Unlike the future, when Li Mu never dreamed that "Muzi," whose popularity on E-Tune Network had never been particularly high, would suddenly become famous across the country for reasons that began, of all things, with blatant infringement.

It turned out that China Central Television had a flagship program called "Artistic Life," which mainly interviewed well-known domestic artists and followed a path of emotion, warmth, and tears. In a recent episode, they interviewed a singer of tremendous nationwide fame. When that singer recalled his late wife, the background music was Muzi’s "When You Grow Old."

As soon as the music came on, paired with the sentimental theme at the time, it produced the perfect tear-jerking effect and moved countless viewers. After the program aired, innumerable people went online searching for that background music, and that led them to Muzi on E-Tune Network.

The play count of "When You Grow Old" on E-Tune Network rose at a geometric rate, and it also drove up the numbers for "Zebra, Zebra." Seeing countless netizens speaking so positively about "When You Grow Old," Li Mu felt a little proud inside as well.

As for China Central Television using the song as background music without permission, Li Mu felt no negativity at all. The environment at the time was just like that: television and radio stations almost never obtained authorization before broadcasting songs. Yet this casual, unrestrained use also created countless stars familiar to every viewer’s ears. In a way, it was a signature of the era.

In a very short time, "When You Grow Old" also surged onto major music charts at an unimaginable speed. Now, among the top ten of major charts, four songs belonged exclusively to E-Tune Network. Even if they were already pirated by countless websites, it did not matter. Li Mu’s hunger-marketing strategy made it clear to users that E-Tune Network was the first release site for Simple Plan and Muzi Music.

What Li Mu had not expected was that E-Tune Network’s unexpected success caused Baidu’s internal evaluation of MP3’s prospects to begin a full half year earlier than in his previous life.

Baidu officially launched its MP3 search service in September 2002, but the project had begun internal evaluation six months earlier.

At that time, Baidu had already detected a sharp rise in internet users’ demand for music search. They found that many users searching for music through Baidu’s search engine were being diverted to major pirated music sites. Baidu felt that if it could retain these users, it would greatly increase both traffic and user stickiness. Thus Baidu MP3 was born, and upon its debut, it intercepted almost all users searching for music on Baidu.

At that time, no other website had truly established its reputation either, and eighty percent or even more of user traffic depended on Baidu Search. So once Baidu blocked users at the source, it was tantamount to gripping them by the throat.

But this phenomenon was not a big problem for E-Tune Network. Its users now came directly through various promotional conversions, and most visitors simply typed the E-Tune domain directly into their browsers rather than going through Baidu first. So Baidu could not seize E-Tune Network’s lifeline.

This round of internal evaluation at Baidu quickly solidified the determination to build MP3 search. At the evaluation meeting, once the management faction that insisted on developing MP3 search disclosed the data since E-Tune Network’s launch, the discordant voices present vanished at once.

Someone at the meeting also said, "E-Tune Network’s momentum is extremely fierce. I’ve looked at their promotional methods before and after launch, as well as product development, their exclusive music, website operations, and user retention. Taken together with their data, it’s easy to imagine that this brand and this team will have tremendous prospects in the future. Why don’t we just acquire it?"

A senior executive at the venue shook his head. "This team is too young, and the services they provide are too narrow. User retention will definitely be a major problem in the future. Besides, they’re just lucky right now and have no natural enemy. If we launch MP3 search, their traffic will certainly drop sharply. In fact, I believe that once we Baidu roll out MP3 search and download services, virtually every website in this field can be declared dead!"

No one knew what mood he would be in a few days later when he saw E-Tune Network’s forums go live...

After remaining silent for quite some time, the vice president suddenly spoke. "Immediately organize the technical team and close development of MP3 search. Strive to launch within three months. At the same time, keep a close eye on E-Tune Network’s development. If their traffic breaks one million, tell me at once!"