The progress of cooperation negotiations between Igrit and the New York Times Group, the company's recent response plans for a series of lawsuits, IE browser free plan, buyout to subscribe for the basic tool software of the World Wide Web, the development profile of key startups supported by the venture capital department, etc.

Although he did not go to San Francisco, Simon spent all day in his villa study on Saturday discussing various matters with Silicon Valley.

Simon has always tried to avoid becoming a micro-manager, but as the scale of Igret's company becomes larger and larger, more and more things need to participate in the decision-making process. It is not that he distrusts the management, but that the Internet, as an absolute emerging industry, has no precedent to compare. Once you go in the wrong direction in the early stage of development, it will be even more difficult to reverse it.

For example, this time with the New York Times Group.

Both Jeff Bezos and Carol Butts, who is not in charge of the network portal, said they should refuse to join the content resources of the New York Times Group in the news field where the company can provide content to users alone. The two believe that doing so may lead to the diversion of Egret's media voice in the Internet field by the New York Times Group.

To a large extent, it is actually true that the two of them think so.

Introducing news content from the New York Times Group and even guiding traffic to the other party’s professional news websites will inevitably lead to many users leaving the Igrit portal for more professional news information. This is on the surface very unfavorable for the Igrit portal to control the Internet media trend.

However, if we refuse to cooperate, can Igrit really hold this position for a long time?

Not to mention the rest, just comparing the size of the news and information team, the number of about 500 employees in the news and information department of the Egret Portal is less than one-third of the 1,600 employees in the New York Times.

The backwardness of paper media groups in the Internet field is by no means that they are not strong in creating content. The key is that traditional media must protect their vested interests.

Once the paper media forces are completely relaxed and march towards digitalization, the Igrit Portal cannot compete with traditional media with profound backgrounds in terms of news and information.

Of course, unless you are facing a critical moment of life and death, it is unlikely that the print media will completely turn to digital for a long time in the future. However, even if it is only a part of the effort, if the Igret Portal refuses to cooperate with it, it will only push a large amount of content resources from traditional print media to the competitors, and ultimately may even lead to the competitors becoming bigger.

The most important point is that Simon has repeatedly emphasized since the beginning of Igret's development that the portal website is not the core of Igret's company.

In the field of online business, Igret needs to protect only three things at all costs: search engines, social networks, and e-commerce.

Several executives may not have understood that with the continued popularity of the Internet and users more proficient in surfing the Internet, the rapid growth of the search engine business is completely visible to the naked eye. After all, after being familiar with the Internet, users will only increasingly tend to bypass the recommendations of portal websites and directly find content they are interested in.

As for social networks.

When everyone is concentrated in one social circle, it is basically unlikely to change to another online social environment, so it is difficult for later generations to shake up the social network that has formed a sufficient scale.

Mastering search engines and social networks will be the future that you can truly master the content interface of the Internet.

At that time, through these two invisible networks, Igret will only see what users want to see. No matter how professional or rich your news content is, if it cannot appear in search engines and social networks, or is deliberately hidden in the most inconspicuous corner, then everything will be useless.

This is the true indestructible right to speak!

Relatively speaking, it is much easier to copy a portal website.

If in the Internet 1.0 era where portals are still crucial at this stage, Egret will push a large number of content resources to the competitors, which will likely bring opportunities for transformation to the other party, resulting in Egret being caught up or even overtaken before its foundation in the Internet 2.0 model is still deeply rooted.

On the contrary, relaxing the content resources will largely form the Matthew effect of the stronger the stronger.

Not only that, the digital content of traditional media seems to have gained more influence in this process, but if many print media want to obtain traffic import from the Igrit portal, whether it is active or passive, they must follow the rules of the Igrit portal.

It is very simple to say that content that tends to be inclined to be more recommended. Articles that attack the Westeros system will definitely be suppressed. This potential impact will be further transmitted to traditional paper media platforms. As long as a newspaper cooperates with the Igret Portal, even if it just wants to publish an article on the Westeros system on the paper media platform, it is necessary to consider whether this will affect the cooperation between the two parties in the Internet field.

Therefore, introducing content from the New York Times Group and even cooperating with more paper media companies will not affect the influence of Igrit's Internet media, but will increase this voice.

In addition to content cooperation, the New York Times Group also proposed to invest in Broadcast, an online radio website invested by Igret, and also obtained patent authorization for online video live broadcast technology.

Simon agreed.

Broadcast, the online radio website in my memory, is a typical example of the most failed corporate in the Internet 1.0 era. Yahoo spent billions of dollars to acquire the website in the stock exchange model, and in the end she only got a mess.

Since similar projects have also been launched, Simon does not want to repeat the same mistakes.

Therefore, during the project planning process, Simon adopted the "Himalaya Network" model in memory. In addition to introducing traditional radio resources, the new Broadcast focuses more on the development of online film review content such as personal radio, audio books, online music, and educational courses.

Compared with the immediacy of traditional radio stations, Broadcast invested by Igret will save a large number of fixed audio resources.

Simon even considered that when iPlayer is launched next year, Broadcast can be used as a content cooperation platform for this hardware player.

It is not realistic to lobby large record companies for providing music resources to the Internet in the short term. However, in addition to music, the rich audio books, educational courses and other types of audio resources provided by Broadcast can also promote the promotion of iPlayer digital music players.

Since this Broadcast is no longer the same Broadcast, Simon is actually reluctant to share this website with the New York Times Group.

It was only considering that the large amount of paper media content owned by the New York Times Group could be converted into audio resources that Simon agreed, but at most he only agreed to give the other party a 15% stake and the offer was 30 million US dollars, so the Broadcast website was valued at $200 million.

In comparison, when the project was launched last year, Egrett acquired 80% of the Broadcast website for only $10 million. Of course, the additional advertising resources and traffic import value that Egrett gave is not comparable to that of just $10 million.

The other online video live broadcast technology is mainly because the recent London Girls live broadcast has made the public realize the possibility of the Internet replacing the TV industry.

Traditional paper media have always expected to enter the TV industry, but they are not able to do so due to the long-term restrictions of the "cross-media ownership ban". The New York Times Group saw the possibility of directly crossing the TV platform to go to Internet video media, so it wanted to take advantage of the pit in advance.

In addition to this display live broadcast, Egret has no plan to create a special video website or live broadcast website in the short term, and will only open a small number of tests like the trailer of the Igret Portal movie section.

At this stage, most users' network bandwidth and hardware devices are unable to watch online videos in a process, and the storage and bandwidth consumption of video websites is too large. Opening a professional website cannot provide users with the best video experience, and the cost is also very expensive. Therefore, since the New York Times Group wants it, just take it away.

I personally made a decision on the cooperation with the New York Times Group, and the other IE browser free plan and the buyout and subscription plan for the World Wide Web basic tool software, which was completely confirmed during today's discussion.

Regarding the free plan of IE browser, after completing communication with pre-installed hardware manufacturers and telecom operators, IE will probably officially announce free before May.

Another plan to shift the sales model of the basic tool software of the World Wide Web from buyout to subscription was proposed by Carol Butz. In fact, this matter was discussed after several basic software was first born. At that time, Simon tended to buy out at one time, mainly because of the software sales environment at that time. After all, Microsoft's Windows and Oracle's database software were both bought out at one time.

After a few years, Carol Butz re-mentioned this matter, expressing his hope to turn the buyout to subscription, so that he can obtain more lasting and stable income. On the other hand, it is also due to the consideration of promoting the latest technology of the World Wide Web as soon as possible.

As the Internet enters an explosive period, the update speed of World Wide Web technology is also a flying block.

Many software versions purchased by users may be lagging behind in just one year. Timely updates undoubtedly require additional expensive expenses. If they are not updated, many brand new World Wide Web technologies will not be used. From the perspective of Igret, a software developer, constantly promoting users to purchase new versions of software is undoubtedly the best choice to maximize benefits. However, everyone is not stupid, and doing so is too easy to attract hatred.

This has led to the fact that pirated Ygritte series of basic tool software is rampant at this stage.

Many small startups simply turn to piracy after purchasing a set of genuine software because they are unwilling to spend subsequent updates. Even if Igrit official pursues it, they can use the old genuine software to make up the numbers, which has caused great losses to Igrit Company without realizing it.

Therefore, switching from buyout to subscription can not only ensure that users can use the latest software at any time, but also avoid expensive one-time expenses. The current Internet speed can basically support the online instant update of software. For Igrit, doing so may lead to a significant decline in the short-term sales of the software department, but will bring more lasting long-term and stable revenue. At the same time, the problem of piracy can be solved to the greatest extent through subscription user registration.

Until five o'clock in the afternoon, Janet came to the study and Simon was discussing with the head of the Egret online game department that will be officially launched.

Just nodding with Simon, Janet sent the girl A who was walking beside him to sort out a thick stack of information and picked up a copy of it at his own heart. This was a lawsuit file that a website called 33list sued the Igret Company's advertising alliance plan for suspected monopoly.

Just looking at the name 33list, Janet couldn't help but curl her lips.

It's obviously following the trend of 58list.

I threw it away and picked up another copy. This is an IE browser plug-in development studio sued Igret for banning its development of the homepage plug-in.

Tsk.

Change the IE homepage.

Such an anti-human plug-in is simply trying to go to heaven!

After throwing it away again, searching for several times, I finally saw a relatively "reliable" lawsuit. An Internet user in New York State who works as a lawyer questioned that the precise advertising push of Igret Company was suspected of infringing on his personal privacy, so he joined forces with some other users to launch a class action lawsuit.

After selecting this information, Janet leaned on the sofa in the reception area and looked through it with relish.

Simon continued to discuss with San Francisco for more than ten minutes, finally turned off the call screen on his desk, turned to the computer screen next to him and browsed the general information of "Happy Farm" that will be officially launched next Friday.

The "Happy Farm" social game project was launched in mid-January. The development cycle of this simple game in memory is only two weeks. Simon initially generously gave the development team one month.

However, after Simon gave the general plan, the game development team who moved to Alabama farm was obviously letting themselves go.

It is necessary to encourage the development team to maintain a strong interest in their own projects and develop a lot of ideas. In addition, the new plan provided by the team also made Simon very satisfied, so they simply let them play freely. In order to support this game, the total number of small teams on a farm in Alabama during the development process has more than doubled.

Of course, Simon also gave a deadline to launch the game before Easter.

In two months, the brand new "Happy Farm" was finally completed.

Compared to the simple web page Flas***, which only has planting and stealing vegetables in my memory, it is probably because I am used to relatively complex stand-alone games. The development team from EA has added a home upgrade system, beast attack settings and pet development systems to this mini game in the past two months. The interaction between different players has also increased significantly. Not only can they steal vegetables and take care of each other's fields, but they can also help friends drive away beasts attacking the farm, help upgrade houses and even go to strangers' farms to explore and hunt.

Simon also specially provided some suggestions for the home upgrade system based on the "Zhengtu 2" game he had played in his memory. The most important point is that the higher the level, the more beautiful the house, the more beautiful it must be. For this reason, the development team asked him for the image authorization of Dumei Point Manor Shell Villa, intending to be one of the templates for the highest level 12 houses.

Simon did not agree to this request, but the team also collected a lot of beautiful patterns.

The final game is completed, all settings perfectly form a complete mini ecosystem.

After the output of farmland is sold, you can not only buy seeds, but also exchange them for building materials from your home, which are used to continuously upgrade more beautiful home houses and other kennels, fences and other facilities.

Repelling wild animals can obtain rations for all types of pets.

Pets have also added a simple attribute system. The better the pets have the ability to protect the farm, the stronger the pets, and the pets between friends can also reproduce and trade with each other.

For the stealing of vegetables, the game also adds trap tools. Once the thief is arrested, he needs to pay a ransom to escape.

For the house upgrade system, if the player does not spend a penny and works hard to "farm" every day, it will take at least 1 year to reach the level 12 of the maximum level.

Of course, if you use "fertilizer props" to make production at all costs, because the upgrade of parts such as houses, kennels, fences and other components has time limits, and it is impossible to use props to shorten them, it will also take at least one week to reach the maximum level. Moreover, if you really do this, the money you need to consume in the whole process to purchase fertilizer props will reach 2 million US dollars, which is completely the cost of a real villa in reality.

All these.

The overall playability is more than ten times more than the simple mini-games in Simon's memory.

In addition, the 'Fertilizer Props' is still set as the final source of income for this mini-game.

According to the theory that if you want to get it, you must give it first. The game sets a sign-in system. You can get a bag of fertilizer props that you can only buy for money by signing in every day. There will be additional rewards for continuous sign-in.

Of course, the increase in playability inevitably leads to the more complicated this mini-game.

If players want to try this game, they need to download an installation package of about 15M, which is equivalent to the current IE software itself.

Fortunately, this process does not need to be achieved overnight. After the user enters the game interface and clicks to download the license, according to the basic network speed of 256K of the American Online ADSL network, it can be downloaded quietly within 10 minutes, and there is no need to install it in special circumstances.

10 minutes is by no means long.

The user ended the simple initial guidance process for beginners and harvested a little crop. The game was downloaded and installed unknowingly.

In order to support the promotion of the new Flash technology, the IE software team of IGRENT has specially optimized the Ygritte Flash Player software for this mini game, and plans to develop a more independent Flas*** support kernel once the game is accepted by users, even if it is not very successful.

This plan was delivered from the head of the IE department to Simon, and everyone agreed.

Just like the Ygritte Flash Player software that focuses on video support, adding a game kernel that is more suitable for web games can further strengthen the technical barriers of the IGritte IE browser software.
To be continued...