Back To 1995

   Chapter 149 Follow the trend

Evan Spiegel, sitting in the technical department of ICQ, looked at the $5,000 check in his hand. Even if he came from a rich family, Evan Spiegel was still amazed at the huge profits of the Internet industry. Great salary!

  Evan Spiegel is just 17 years old this year. He is already a talented freshman at Stanford University. He comes from a family of lawyers. His parents are lawyers from famous American universities.

Like countless young people or geniuses, Evan is also rebellious. Because of his family background, he even has a bit of extravagance. He is very eager for cars. A few years ago, his father gave him a Cadillac worth $60,000. But what Evan wants is a BMW worth $100,000, but none of these can hide Evan's genius, and he successfully entered Stanford University this year.

  Evan Spiegel joined ICQ less than ten days ago. Before, ICQ was wearing the vest of Double-click and Hotmail, and recruited a group of talented Internet technicians in San Jose and surrounding universities, and Evan was one of them.

  Evan Spiegel didn't know what ICQ wanted them to do until he got into the project.

Now Evan Spiegel has not yet entered the core project of ICQ, and can only be regarded as a errand, but even so, in just a few days after joining ICQ, Evan Spiegel also got five thousand dollars, far Super America's average salary today!

   glanced, the manager who was booking the best restaurant in San Jose for his girlfriend and his family. Evan just saw that the manager of his department had at least received a bonus of more than $30,000!

   But these are not the most important, Evan Spiegel even heard that some people still have the opportunity to get ICQ equity rewards, that is the real profit.

Looking at the noisy and boiling office in front of him, and people cheering, Evan Spiegel has a real understanding of the Internet industry for the first time. In other places, it may take ten or twenty years to get everything. It may only take one night here, and Evan Spiegel's eyes are burning as he looks at the conference room where Willis and other executives entered.

   Looking at everything in front of him, Evan Spiegel suddenly felt that if he could reach the point of Wesley, or start his own business, maybe he would be able to achieve financial freedom without waiting for his parents' age!

In America, there is nothing more exciting than sending a beauty knife directly. If ICQ is in a storm in the Internet industry, if there is not much feeling for ICQ insiders, then these beauty knives, equity awards, etc. Yes, enough to stimulate Evan Spiegel, these young people become ambitious, desperately climb up, and shine for ICQ...

  In the ICQ conference room, a group of executives gathered at this time, all with smiles on their faces. The performance of ICQ since its launch is enough to make them have such expressions. These executives know that they are creating a brand new Internet industry!

When Song Yang was not present, the most famous person was of course Willis. Although the media did not pursue him too much these days, the title of "Father of Instant Messaging" was also worn by Willis. On the head, even if he shares this title with Song Yang, Willis is already very satisfied.

With the popularity of ICQ, Willis' reputation in Silicon Valley and the Internet industry is naturally getting louder and louder. Even if he can't compare to Linus, the father of Linux, and Gosling, the father of JAVA, he can get the Internet in America. In Jianghu, Willis, with the title of the father of instant messaging, can be regarded as setting up a flag!

   Even since yesterday, there have been senior headhunters who quietly approached Willis, wanting to dig the corner of ICQ and poach Willis away, and the conditions offered are quite generous.

Even if those headhunters didn't mention which Internet companies they were, but the Internet circle in America is so big these days, those small Internet companies don't dare to take Wesley's idea at all, and they can really offer conditions and have the strength to dig power. It doesn't matter if it's Microsoft, Netscape, AOL, Yahoo, and Lycos.

However, Willis has no interest in going to these companies. Even if the other party gave him the conditions to directly let Willis serve as the president of the instant messaging business of the other party, and let Willis take full responsibility for it, Willis still does not to be moved.

How many pounds and how many taels he has himself, Willis knows well that he is a bull and a horse, and he is indeed a technical genius when he is outside, but it also depends on who he is compared with. Anyway, facing Song Yang, Wei Liss is a mind that can't afford to disagree.

   Besides, Willis, a bull, has already reached the ceiling level of technicians. He wants to be famous and rich, and he also got the equity of ICQ. Why does Willis bother? !

The door of the conference room was pushed open, Song Yang, Irene, Greck, Marcus and others filed in. Willis keenly noticed that Irene had a happy expression on his face, while Greck looked a little unsightly. Willy He knew what just happened.

   "Everyone has worked hard. ICQ's performance in the past few days is inseparable from everyone's support!" Song Yang said to the directors of ICQ's technology, operations, logistics and other departments, and then looked at Irene.

Irene got up and used the projector directly to release a lot of data, "Since ICQ was launched, it has entered nine English-speaking regions including America, Canada, and England, with more than 2.3 million users. The fastest increase on record!"

   There was a round of applause in the conference room. ICQ is making history every step of the way. The concepts of instant messaging and social networking are definitely the two most popular terms in the Internet industry this year.

"According to background statistics, the average online time of ICQ users exceeds 1.4 hours, and the frequency of use is still increasing. In addition to the most basic chatting and sending messages, the ICQ space community is the function that users use for the longest time after sending messages. At present, The most followed user in the ICQ space community is Hollywood actress Drew Barrymore. After she posted photos and diaries, more than 130,000 users clicked to view them, and the pictures posted on ICQ were shared by more than 20,000 people!”

Drew Barrymore was the first Hollywood actress to receive the first wave of bonuses. In the past, the interaction between celebrities was through meetings, press conferences, etc. Now, as long as you are on ICQ, you can interact with celebrities. never appeared before.

   "Currently, Drew Barrymore is promoting his new film through the ICQ space community, but has not released an advertisement!"

When those stars or celebrities realize that the ICQ platform can also become their publicity platform, and even make money by advertising, it is estimated that they will flood into ICQ, but at that time, it is estimated that it will be completely different from the current ICQ. Completely commercialized.

   For those celebrities who publish advertisements and endorse products in the ICQ space community, of course, they must share a part of the ICQ platform. The proportion of this part of the income depends on how the celebrities and the ICQ platform are divided.

However, it is a matter of time to launch an advertisement. The difference is only sooner or later. Song Yang heard this, "Let Double-Click Company connect with ICQ's business operations. The ICQ space community can slowly try to place advertisements, but ICQ has to chat on the homepage and must not appear. advertise!"

ICQ is an instant messaging software. The first thing to guarantee is the user experience. If there are advertisements on the chat interface, who can bear it, and the space is a product attached to ICQ. Only when ICQ continuously drains the space can the ICQ space be able to start business. change.

  If there are no skins, there will be no hair. If ICQ drives all users away, no matter how much space it attracts stars, no one will watch it.

Irene nodded, wrote down Song Yang's words, and then said, "At present, the only profitable thing for ICQ is NFT avatars, but to avoid the abuse of NFT avatars and the loss of collection value, we should not put too many NFT avatars. In the future, ICQ The revenue from NFTs will start to decrease.”

NFT avatars are a powerful tool for cutting leeks, but they can’t be cut every day. The reason why NFT avatars are hyped now is because there are only 10,000 NFT avatars, but if ICQ is launched on a large scale, NFT avatars will become rotten Stuff, then it's estimated that dogs don't want this stuff!

   "NFT avatars, ICQ will release a batch every year in the future. It is necessary to preserve the value of NFT avatars. In addition, the NFT Foundation should pay attention to protecting the copyrights and interests of NFT avatars and users."

  Song Yang didn't want to make a lot of money for NFT avatars. Originally, NFT avatars were launched to promote ICQ, but now the effect is very significant, which directly broke ICQ's circle.

In the future, a batch of NFT avatars will be released every year, which can continue to increase the popularity of ICQ. Once the market really recognizes the scarcity of NFT avatars and the value of preservation and collection, even if only a batch of NFT avatars are released every year, it is estimated that they can be given by others. Grab the head, an NFT avatar earns more than 10,000 copies in the auction!

   "Now also pay attention to other companies and use the name of NFT avatar to hype." Greg, who was sitting on the side, said.

  The NFT avatar issued by ICQ has cut tens of millions of dollars in such a short period of time. It is impossible to say that other companies have no idea.

   In the past few days, more than a dozen companies have announced their entry into the NFT market, announcing that they will launch NFT avatars, pictures, artworks, etc. Anyway, they are all sharpening their knives and preparing to cut leeks.

   "ICQ has issued a statement that it will never recognize NFT products issued by other companies, and NFT avatars issued by other companies cannot be used on platforms such as ICQ and Hotmail. If necessary, you can sue several companies!"

Song Yang said to Gleick, even if ICQ did this, it probably wouldn't stop those who wanted to use NFT to harvest leeks, as long as it was profitable, even if ICQ didn't admit the so-called them, those companies that engaged in NFT would not be able to stop them. It will definitely try to hype it up. What ICQ needs to do is to distinguish itself from those companies that are obviously cutting leeks.

   (end of this chapter)