The title of the number one unlucky guy in the world was immediately met with disapproving looks from everyone.
However, it had to be admitted that what Fan Jie said was correct, and the facts were indeed as he described. Once you invited a celebrity to join your platform, it was unlikely for A-list celebrities to join voluntarily. This was a matter of their reputation and market position, something they would never compromise on.
Take Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo for example. When these two platforms were locked in a fierce battle, neither of them used money to poach celebrities.
This was because both companies were well aware that if they started using money to lure celebrities, the operational costs of the entire platform would skyrocket, and the celebrities would profit immensely. No one was foolish enough to do that.
But why would “Little Ma,” who would later avoid such a foolish move, be doing it now? Did he not understand such a simple problem?
No, of course he understood. “Little Ma” was well aware of the issues involved. However, if he didn't do this, QQ Zone would have no way to survive. In terms of product performance, network effects, and user base, Facebook had already completely suppressed any advantages QQ Zone had.
Therefore, QQ Zone had to poach celebrities and bring them all over. This would allow QQ Zone to dominate the entire internet within a week of its launch, in turn overshadowing Facebook.
As for what would happen to these celebrities in the future, “Little Ma” had a very simple plan. Since Facebook and QQ Zone were in a life-or-death struggle, if QQ Zone lost, the celebrities wouldn't matter.
If QQ Zone won and occupied the market, they could simply refuse to renew contracts with any celebrities after a year. This would bring all celebrities back to a level playing field, eliminating any resistance based on their worth.
Unfortunately, “Little Ma” overlooked the server issues and the fact that Facebook was more adapted to user experience habits than QQ Zone. As a result, QQ Zone lost, and lost without any power to fight back.
Facing Fan Jie's questioning, “Little Ma” fell silent, unable to utter a single word.
“Everyone, the past is the past. Can we stop dwelling on what's already happened? Can your accusations here bring back the money?” Zeng Qing sighed and spoke up, “In my opinion, we should focus on how to salvage the current crisis. Even if we can't defeat Facebook, we must at least get QQ Zone back on an upward trajectory so we still have a chance in the future.”
While what was said was not wrong, if a top team like “Little Ma's” remained silent, what other solutions could the investors possibly come up with?
“Fine, we’ll leave it to fate!” Fan Jie sighed deeply and began packing his things to leave. The other investors also wore grim expressions.
However, coincidence struck again. At this very moment, all the investors' phones rang almost simultaneously, and “Little Ma’s” secretary rushed in haphazardly.
“What's happening now?” “Little Ma” felt a sense of foreboding.
“Boss, Zhang Rong just posted a new update on Facebook!” the secretary said softly.
“Just an update, what's the big deal?” “Little Ma” looked at his secretary, confused. Why was she rushing into an important investor meeting for such a trivial matter?
“No, it's not an ordinary update. Zhang Rong posted a short video on Facebook, an interview with him. In this interview, he publicly announced to all his fans that he has come out!” the secretary said.
“…” “Little Ma”’s mouth dropped open. Zhang Rong had come out… Wait, the key point was that Facebook could now play videos. Was Huang He’s server computing power and storage truly that ample?
Unfortunately, not everyone was as concerned as “Little Ma” about Facebook’s ability to upload videos. They were focused on the news of Zhang Rong coming out itself.
Thus, countless people flocked to Facebook once more, eager to see Zhang Rong’s announcement. Of course, this inevitably caused some lag, but it usually only took a minute or two to download. After all, people later studied this video and found that it was less of a video and more of an animated GIF, consisting of more than a dozen images paired with audio, successfully compressing it to about 1MB in size and requiring minimal bandwidth.
Additionally, Facebook also released a video compression tool along with it, offering all users the ability to upload videos up to 2MB. This made Facebook the first website in the entire network to provide video uploading functionality to its users, a feature that even foreign websites couldn't offer, marking a historic breakthrough.
In short, with Zhang Rong announcing his coming out in this manner, almost all the traffic on the internet converged onto Facebook. Five days later, this video became the first network video in the entire internet—no, the entire world's internet… no, the entire history of the world—to surpass ten million clicks.
Facebook once again gained massive exposure, and its market share subsequently soared, while QQ Zone was naturally overlooked and ignored.
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“Brother-in-law, did you know about this beforehand?” At this moment, Leng Zhimeng, clinging to Huang He’s arm, asked him with playful curiosity.
Leng Zhimeng was a loyal fan of Zhang Rong. When she heard the news, she was overjoyed… No, that was wrong, she was heartbroken.
“No, I didn't know!” Huang He said earnestly.
“Nonsense. If you hadn't allowed it, how could Facebook have opened up its still-experimental video function to Zhang Rong? And if our professional team hadn't helped him compress the video, how could a video of over ten minutes be only about 1MB? Are you taking me for a fool?” Leng Zhimeng said, looking fierce.
“Alright, I did know a little bit in advance, at most three days!” Huang He shrugged. “To be honest, when Zhang Rong told me he planned to reveal this secret on Facebook, I was shocked. But I must praise him. Zhang Rong is more of a man than many men! His courage is beyond my imagination!”
“But even with such great courage, there was no need to do something like this, right? It completely seals his acting career! He has no future this way!” Leng Zhimeng said dejectedly.
“But if he didn’t do this, he wouldn't just have no future as an actor; he wouldn't have any future in life at all!” Huang He sighed.
Historically, Zhang Rong would have jumped to his death two months later. At that time, he was hiding his orientation, maintaining a difficult relationship with his loved one, and enduring various attacks and insults, which ultimately led him to decide to leave the world by jumping.
However, this time, things were different.
Earlier, when Zhang Rong chatted with Huang He, he mentioned that he really enjoyed interacting with his fans on Facebook. He even spent two to three hours a day chatting with fans because he found many fans on Facebook who accepted his views, especially female fans… Of course, these views were posted through his private account, which he couldn't make public.
As a result, Zhang Rong realized that there were indeed many people in the world who could understand him. Therefore, if he revealed his true self, while he might face much humiliation, he would also receive a lot of support.
Moreover, Huang He had also enlightened Zhang Rong, making him understand the simple truth that others' opinions don't matter as much as whether he himself is happy.
After more than two months of careful consideration, Zhang Rong finally decided to reveal everything through Facebook, bravely taking this step, which led to this huge surge in traffic.
According to calls between Zhang Rong and Huang He afterwards, after announcing the news, Zhang Rong seemed completely transformed as he shed the heavy burden he carried. The long-lost cheerfulness had returned to him.
“I feel like I've been reborn!” was how Zhang Rong described his current state to Huang He.
From this perspective, Zhang Rong should be able to escape his previous fate of jumping to his death and embark on a new life path. This could be considered one of Boss Huang's good deeds.
Of course, the enormous traffic and wild media coverage that followed for Facebook were the rewards for Boss Huang's good deeds. These were not part of Boss Huang's calculations.
For about a week after that, Zhang Rong posted over 20 updates on Facebook daily, averaging one per hour, all describing his current state, psychological changes, and emotions.
He also interacted extensively with his fans, or rather, chatted with them, as Zhang Rong at this point needed to talk to more people.
Notably, to prevent any accidental incidents with Zhang Rong, Huang He arranged for over 30 specialized personnel to manually review messages from fans in the background. While they couldn't filter out all negative messages, they directly blocked extremely malicious, curse-filled, or personally attacking messages, and blacklisted the sender, preventing them from ever messaging Zhang Rong again.
After all, if Zhang Rong were to be overwhelmed by so many negative messages and break down, leading him to jump to his death, Huang He would feel extremely guilty, and it would also be a blow to Facebook.
Of course, Huang He also informed Zhang Rong about the background filtering. Zhang Rong took it very lightly, saying that he was mentally prepared for any malicious curses and wouldn't find anything unacceptable.
To this, Huang He could only say that Zhang Rong was still too young and didn't understand the destructive power of keyboard warriors. If Zhang Rong were someone with strong psychological resilience, he wouldn't have reached this point.
In any case, for the next week or two, both Facebook and the media were occupied with Zhang Rong’s major news.
So, when Huang He learned about two weeks later that Tengda had completed its management change and “Little Ma” had resigned, he was somewhat shocked. He hadn't lifted a finger, so how had “Little Ma” fallen?