Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883

by Inebriation-seeking Blue Shirt, 青衫取醉

  First of all, all users of useful apps must pay before they could browse the contents.

  This would directly dissuade more than 90% of users.

  Moreover, determining the profit model also played a role in fooling the system.

  Pei Qian knew that, even after ten years, the payment rate of similar Q&A platforms was extremely low because most people were unwilling to pay for knowledge. This was a matter of perception.

  Without users and traffic, Useful App would not become popular.

  Secondly, cracking down on the behavior of reprinting, stealing, copying, and pasting… on the one hand, Pei Qian hated such behavior; on the other hand, it was also to further reduce its popularity.

  There might be a strong sense of copyright in this world, and piracy in movies, games, and novels has been extremely rare. However, there was still no way to completely prohibit such things as manuscript washing.

  After all, the cost of law enforcement for it would be too high. Even most people would not have found out even if their manuscripts were pirated.

  What if high-quality content on the Useful app was reposted in various ways and attracted users?

  Pei Qian felt that he should simply prepare a team of lawyers for the Useful App team and stare at whether there is anyone on the Internet pirating the content in the Useful App.

  On the one hand, it would prevent the secondary spread of the contents on Useful App and its popularity. On the other hand, it would also crack down on the pirates who steal things and work as porters on the Internet—sweet revenge!

  When Pei Qian thought of the large number of repetitive web pages he found when he used Qiandu to check the information, he wanted to personally hold a knife to the throat of these plagiarizers and discuss life.

  Finally, all real-name authentications and strictly restrict users in all directions…

  Ordinary users—that was the readers—might have paid membership fees but could only read; they could not express their opinions or even leave a message for discussion.

  As for those creators, they could only answer the content of their professional field, and once they found that the text was wrong or the answer was wrong, they would be deleted.

  Of course, the hard-written answers would be sent to the original author through private messages, but they could not be displayed on the Useful App.

  On the surface, writing the answer here could result in income, and the monthly membership fee would be distributed to the creator as a reward.

  However, the point was that few people would actually be paid under this model so the creators won’t get much money.

  As a result, they would be caught in a vicious circle of ‘no traffic-no money-no creators’.

  Wouldn’t it be easy to succeed at making losses?

  The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more he felt that this model was really perfect.

  Absolutely possible to make a loss!

  Yu Pingan was clearly aware of this.

  He was originally specialized in educational projects, and he also had a deep understanding of similar wiki and Q&A products. How could he not see the fatal flaw in Boss Pei’s model?

  Yu Pingan suppressed the doubts in his heart after thinking about the series of successful operations by Boss Pei.

  He considered for a moment and asked, “Then… Boss Pei, can you talk about the specific approach?”

  Pei Qian nodded. “Of course!

  “The Useful App is a synthesis of wiki and question-and-answer mode. We will also create many entries based on keywords. The entries include two sections of ‘core content’ and ‘derivative content’.

  “Our creators are divided into three star categories, and there are corresponding problem areas.

  “If you want to become a creator, you must provide certification information to our reviewers to prove your professionalism in the field.

  “One-star creators can only edit and interact in the ‘derivative content’—that is, they can only answer questions in their own field of expertise or comment on other answers.”

  “Two-star creators can edit the ‘core content’. The ‘core content’ is equivalent to the essence of the whole concept and the index part. At the same time, they have authority. If they think that there is a factual error in the content of a one-star creator, they can report the content.

  “Three-star creators, in addition to the editing rights for all content, can also view the historical version of each entry and view the additions and deletions of content by various creators. At the same time, they can handle the reported content.

  “Our staff will have the highest authority. If the three-star creators violated the rules, they will be dealt with after a discussion with our staff.

  “All one-, two-, and three-star creators would be invited by our staff in the initial phase. The vetting can be initiated and decide whether something could be upgraded based on their output or not.

  “If a certain creator violates our creative regulations—such as incorrect text, incorrect facts, maliciously inducing answers, etc.; they must be deleted.

  “Our app is called ‘Useful’, which means that all the information above must be guaranteed to be useful.

  “We may not have an entry for everything, but we must ensure the correctness of all our entries.

  “For some highly controversial and inconclusive issues, we must indicate that the issue is controversial and write down the opinions of both parties in the dispute; if it is too controversial, we simply don’t include it.

  “For example, we will not deal with emotional problems with high traffic, trembling and spiritual problems, and warfare problems.

  “Real-name system, membership system fees…

  “Our real-name authentication system must be as strict as the payment software. Each account must be bound to an ID card and face recognition, and we only have one charging model: membership, delayed charging.

  “Every month, we will charge based on the usage time and page views of the member in the previous month.

  “There would be no charge if it was not used at all.

  “If it was used, the minimum charge is one yuan and the maximum charge is 15 yuan.

  “At the same time, we must do a good job of anti-theft and anti-crawl functions. For online manuscripts, we prepare a team of lawyers to go to court at any time, and all the compensations recovered will be returned to the creators!

  “At the same time, creators can get incentives, and the value of incentives mainly depends on three aspects: the star of the creator, the number of edits and answers of the creator, and whether there is any violation or none.

  “We will spend 90% of all monthly membership fees as incentives for creators. The remaining 10% will be used for daily maintenance and development of the website. If the maintenance and development costs are not enough, I will make up for them.

  “That’s about it. Is there any question?”

  Pei Qian said all his ideas in one breath and took a sip of tea in silence.

  Yu Pingan was at a loss. He was silent for a long time before asking: “Then, Boss Pei where will the first batch of content on the app come from? We need to cooperate with Qiandu wiki or some other similar websites to use their content?”

  Many websites that made wikis got their contents directly from the Internet. This phenomenon was very common.

  Pei Qian shook his head immediately: “Of course not!

  “What we have to do is to have absolutely original content and should, of course, be started by ourselves! We do not let others copy us, and we naturally cannot copy others.

  “All entries will be made from scratch and must be clearly different from Qiandu wiki.”

  Yu Pingan was stunned: “Boss Pei… the workload would be of a similar level with Yu Gong moving away two high mountains!

  “I am afraid that this app will not be profitable in the next 10 years according to this approach…

  “Don’t even talk about profitability�
��even traffic may be difficult to get…”

  Pei Qian could not help but be delighted.

  Really? You think so too?

  Great!

  You are more optimistic than me, thinking there would be no profit in the next 10 years!

  Pei Qian felt that he would have to thank God if this thing could guarantee that it would not be profitable for the next five years.

  There were at least a dozen cycles in five years, enough to lose money!

  He could not even begin to phantom something as good as not being profitable for 10 years.

  Pei Qian smiled slightly: “Yes, this is indeed a job with a huge workload.

  “However, it is also very meaningful. We have to create a pure land without rubbish for the Internet which is already full of it.

  “There is a saying that the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the next best time is now.

  “We have to start quickly since the workload is so heavy, right?”

  Chapter 689 - Boss Ma Started Giving Money

  October 19, Wednesday, noon…

  Qiao Liang put down the controller, paused the game on the big TV, and went to the door to pick up the takeaway.

  Qiao Liang had officially settled down after moving to Jingzhou yesterday. He planned to find his friends in Jingzhou to gather on the weekend since it was a working day today. Boss Pei and the rest should be very busy.

  He read the information from his fan group on his cell phone while he ate his Fish-Catching Take-Out.

  “Old Qiao, it seems that someone is scamming with Tengda’s name; do you want to ask the insiders what is going on?”

  “Yes, isn’t it corrupting Tengda’s reputation?”

  “The most outrageous thing is that this person even passed the authentication of Weibo, too deceptive!”

  Qiao Liang was stunned.

  Someone was using Tengda’s name for a scam? That person had also passed the Weibo verification?

  So arrogant?

  Qiao Liang immediately clicked on the link posted by the fan in the group which jumped to the Weibo page.

  “Tengda Ma Yang?

  “The verification is… an employee of Tengda Corporation?

  “Well… it seems like there is such a person.

  “Where did I hear of this person?”

  Qiao Liang felt that Ma Yang’s name was familiar, but he couldn’t remember it for a while.

  That was because the department Old Ma was in charge of was not in close contact with the other departments of Tengda. Many people-in-charge of the other departments only knew Ma Yang by name and had never met him in person, let alone Qiao Liang.

  “I remember now!

  “Wasn’t he the one who invested in IOI and profited 500 million yuan for Tengda?

  “Is someone acting as an impostor? That’s not right; the verification of Weibo shouldn’t be wrong, right.

  “Then, what is he doing?”

  Qiao Liang felt a little confused. If it was Ma Yang, he should be a prominent figure, the right-hand man of Boss Pei and a proper high-level executive of Tengda Corporation.

  How could he open a Weibo account with so few fans with such a realistic fake account?

  He clicked on Ma Yang’s Weibo again and found that there was only one Weibo post from last Saturday, which said that he was randomly helping people fulfill their dreams, but no other posts since.

  Four days have passed, and many people have reposted and commented on this Weibo. Moreover, some had even left a QR code for payment, but there seemed to be no follow-up.

  That was why they felt that Ma Yang was trying to scam people with Tengda Corporation’s name. Many people commented below that he was a liar.

  Qiao Liang is a little confused; that shouldn’t be the case?

  Why would Boss Ma not keep his word?

  The person who made 500 million yuan in profits for Boss Pei would not deceive others for tens of thousands of yuan, right?

  Qiao Liang carefully looked at these forwarding and comments and found that the content was very simple—nothing more than comments such as ‘choose me, choose me’ or ‘lower the winning rate’.

  “Could it be that these people wrote something too simple?”

  Qiao Liang suddenly became interested. He reposted this content and wrote his dream in detail.

  “Hello Ma, I am a new UP Master who is doing something I love without looking forward to gaining from it, but my fans always say that my microphone is too rubbish. To give my fans a better video viewing experience and to better explain Tengda’s games, can you please realize my dream and help reimburse a professional microphone for me? Thank you very much!”

  He pasted a QR code for payment as a by-the-way kind of motion.

  Qiao Liang didn’t care too much after reposting Weibo and continued to eat while drinking.

  However, he suddenly realized that Boss Ma replied after he was done with his food!

  Amongst a load of ‘Aren’t you embarrassed to call yourself a new UP Master? Don’t you have any shame?’ comments, Boss Ma’s comment was outstanding like a firefly in the dark.

  “Your dream is very good! Unfortunately, I can only help people with less than 1,000 fans complete their dreams! I am very sorry!”

  Qiao Liang was stunned, only helping the people with less than 1,000 fans to fulfill their dreams?

  What sort of weird rule was that?

  It stands to reason that giving to people with more fans, the more heat it would generate, right?

  You would seem more like a scammer this way!

  Sure enough, many of Teacher Qiao’s longtime fans had already started exploding comments following Ma Yang’s reply.

  “The liar even dared to show up!”

  “What strange rule? Discrimination? Can people not have dreams if they have more fans?”

  “I fulfill the conditions; why are you ignoring me?”

  However, it is clear that some people were inspired by Qiao Liang’s Weibo and began to write their dreams seriously.

  “Hello, Boss Ma, I am a social animal. I have always wanted to resign, but I can’t muster the courage because of economic pressure. I don’t want money. I just hope that you can help me refer me to work in Tengda. Thank you very much! Of course, if this is not possible, you can send me some money.”

  There were also similar replies.

  Many of Qiao Liang’s fans poured in after he reposted Ma Yang’s Weibo. Most people didn’t believe it but were still watching; some people still tried their luck.

  Unexpectedly, after a few minutes, Ma Yang reposted the comment of the ‘social animal’ before.

  <

  “I cannot refer you! To join Tengda, you must pass a unified examination which is the company’s regulations! But I can sponsor you some money to prepare for exams and purchase materials to review. I have already sent 10,000 yuan. I wish you success!”

  The user replied to the Weibo post in no time.

  “It’s actually real! Thank you, Boss Ma! I’ll quit right now to prepare for the exam for Tengda!”

  There was also a screenshot of the receipt of the payment below. Of course, some key information was concealed with a mosaic.

  Below this Weibo immediately attracted a large number of onlookers.

  “What the f*ck? He really sent money?”

  “He didn’t send money before because my dream was not written in detail?”

  “Are you sure? Is it a carefully choreographed scheme?”

  “Daddy! Help to realize my dream, too!”

  Those who had been chasing and cursing under Ma Yang’s Weibo changed their tone in an instant.

  While there were still many people who were still skeptical, more people were starting to write serious messages below!

  Soon, new content began to appear on Ma Yang’s Weibo.

  “No matter how hard it is, I can’t let my child suffer. It is a good dream to let the child drink assured milk every morning! I have already sent five thou
sand yuan. Let me know if you need more!”

  “Want a Fully-Automated Bickering Machine? That means you are very artistic. I’ve sent you 500 yuan; go place an order!”

  “If you want to work well, you must first have a good body? I have already sent 20,000 yuan; go to a regular hospital for a comprehensive physical examination and buy some nutritional supplements! Also, remind everyone to pay attention to good health!”

  The Weibo posts soon received enthusiastic responses from netizens.

  “Really received it! Thank you, Boss Ma. I blamed you for the wrong thing, I apologize!”

  “Boss Ma, you are really my great benefactor, thank you!”

  “Daddy! I have a dream, too. Please help me realize it!”

  Qiao Liang was a bit dumbfounded; these netizens really had no morals.

  They were just scolding him a second earlier, but their attitude took a 180-degree turn with the money.

  However, after careful observation, Qiao Liang found some unusual places.

  “The way Mr. Ma pays is a bit unique.”

  In fact, it was commonplace to engage in lottery draws on Weibo, and some directly made money from it. However, the number was relatively small.

  In Qiao Liang’s view, everyone played it this way on Weibo for the sake of popularity.

  The best way to spend money for popularity was to hold a lucky draw: it spreads quickly, has a high degree of attention, and the whole attention cycle is very long.

  Immediately giving money was obviously a lot worse than the attention of the lottery. After all, the lottery has hundreds of entries and would be paid to one person at a time. Moreover, the lottery could last for a month. Giving money would be over immediately, and it will not continue to create heat.

  Even if someone used money to buy popularity, most people would choose to give it to celebrities with many fans because it would generate the most heat!

  Boss Ma was the exact opposite.

  He was not buying any fans. He cherished his words on Weibo, not even defending himself when so many posts were calling him a liar on Weibo. He had been waiting for so many days before he finally made his first payment.