The weather in Las Vegas is cool and pleasant in March, and the large open-air garden of Caesars Palace is bustling with guests enjoying a drink or lying in the sun while waiters walk around with plates. It was almost noon, and "MIT-21-Team" also suspended filming and came to a lunch break.

At a dining table with a sun umbrella, Natalie, wearing big sunglasses, looked at the script in her hand seriously, and discussed a few words with Rachel sitting opposite from time to time. The two were talking about the afternoon's rivalry, picking up a drink and taking a sip when they heard someone next to them laugh in French: "Bonjour!

"Do you mean you are seated? Thank you. Wang Yang smiled and moved a chair out and sat down, and Joshua, the assistant next to him, also sat on the other side, Wang Yang looked at the mysterious Natalie and the smiling Rachel, and asked, "How is it to read the script?" Rachel shook his head and smiled: "I don't have any problems, I don't know until I'm there to know that you're not satisfied." ”

Wang Yang nodded, Natalie looked at it and turned another page, and said, "I don't have either, it's quite understandable." She took off the big sunglasses on her face, but her eyes were full of doubts and interest, and said, "But I have another question, didn't the newspaper say that your company has made another acquisition in the past few days?" She raised her eyebrows and asked, "But I don't understand like those newspapers, why did you buy artists? For those 6,000 movies......?"

She shrugged her shoulders slightly and said, "I heard that those are not good movies." Why? If I can't say, when I didn't ask. She smiled softly and coquettishly, "I'm just planning a course for my handsome Charlie movie." ”

"What are handsomecharlie-films?" Joshua couldn't help but ask, looking at Natalie, who was quite proud, and laughed, "Don't say it's your company?" Natalie nodded calmly and asked rhetorically, "What? That's my future company." Wang Yang took a drink from the passing waiter and said with a smile: "Charlie is her love." ”

Natalie nodded again and asked with a smile, "Why the hell is that? I thought about the shortcomings of this acquisition, you wouldn't have thought of it?" Rachel's face was curious when she was intrigued by her words. Joshua propped his hands on the table, glanced at the two women, and exclaimed, "Oh my Ali!

"There's nothing you can't say, but just listen to it, keep it secret for the time being. Looked at by Natalie's interested and Rachel's curious gaze, Wang Yang smiled and took a sip of his drink, their curiosity was stronger than the other, unlike Jessica who basically didn't ask about his company's affairs. Jessica just laughed at the acquisition and said, "Congratulations! This must be another big surprise, right?

Wang Yang looked at the two of them, pondered and organized for a while, and then said: "You are puzzled because the current commercial market is based on a theory, the law of 28. Only hot products can make money, 20% of the big movies make 80% of the company's performance, and comparatively, 80% of the bad movies can only produce 20% of the performance, they are unsalable products that no one wants, the company produces them, but it will lose money at any time, and even the 20% performance can not be obtained. ”

Natalie bit the straw of the drink and said vaguely, "Well, that's why the artisan will go out of business, right? Their movies are all in the 80%, not 20% at all, is "The Adventures of Vegetable Baby" counted?" Rachel also smiled suspiciously: "That's why everyone doesn't understand the flames, shouldn't they spend their money on pursuing those 20%?" Joshua listened with a pensive expression, and didn't even bother to look at the hot beauties who walked by.

"Yes, 'The Adventures of Vegetable Baby' is 20 percent, and in fact it sells very well. Wang Yang smiled and continued: "However, the reason why the artist went out of business was not because he didn't sell movies, but because he didn't run those 6,000 movies well. He looked at Rachel and said, "It's right to go for a big-grossing movie, but have you ever thought that it's very risky, you may spend 100 million and only get a bad movie." ”

Rachel frowned, and Natalie asked, "Would it be nice if all 100 million became bad movies?

Wang Yang spread his hands indifferently and said with a smile: "There is no chance, but there is no risk either." Because when we bought it, both good and bad movies had already been marked with price tags, 100 million to buy 50 good movies, or 5,000 bad movies, you can buy whatever you like, and there is no risk in spending this money. A lot of people have a question, why doesn't Flame finance to make a movie? Because we don't need venture capital, we just need to go down a safe path. ”

"You still haven't explained why we bought Artisan, do you? You think those 6,000 films are worthless. Wang Yang smiled and took a sip of an iced drink to moisten his throat, looked at Natalie, Rachel and Joshua, and said: "But the 80% is not worthless, it's not that it can't make money, because the times are different! They are as important as the 20% mainstream!" He smiled: "Guys, the current market is not the era when the 28 law reigns." ”

Hearing that he finally got to the point, Natalie felt very excited, and muttered in her heart: "This guy is used to being a director, and he can also mobilize other people's emotions when he speaks." She also knows a little about business, and the law of 28 no longer rules?, she asked, "Why?" Joshua tried to remember, though he didn't quite understand, and he felt that his memory was better than ever.

"The Internet has changed everything, and it has dramatically reduced the cost of attention for a commodity. Wang Yang stretched out his fingers and counted: "You know that there is search, Amazon, eBay...... A normal person will find and consume on the Internet by himself. To put it simply, it's no longer 'what can we give to the customer', but 'what the customer asks us to give him', and now there is no such thing as a product that no one wants, and no matter how cold the movie is, it has a certain number of sales and rentals for a year. ”

Natalie's eyes suddenly lit up, vaguely understood, and blurted out: "Are you saying that the total annual sales of 6,000 movies have a 20% mainstream effect?" Rachel on the other side blinked and asked, "Are there really so many?"

Wang Yang smiled and nodded, the company's operation in the past few years has been proven, he said with a smile: "As long as the channels are big enough and enough, the total sales of those non-mainstream and low-demand movies can compete with the total sales of mainstream and high-demand movies." For example, "Star Wars Episode 1" sold 100 copies in one day, and although it received terrible reviews and the heroine's performance was said to be terrible, it was indeed a movie in the 20%. ”

"Haha!" Natalie nodded in agreement, pretending to be stupid, "Who played the heroine then?" Joshua said quickly: "Natalie Portman!" Wang Yang said, "Keira Knightley." Natalie bit the drink straw and shook her head, "I don't know." Rachel smiled lightly and didn't speak.

Under the gaze of the three of them, Wang Yang continued to smile and said: "It sold 100 sets, but "Unpopular Movie 1" and "Unpopular Movie 2" ...... 1,000 movies that can't be sold, and the total number of them in a day is actually 100 sets. So the current situation is that mainstream products account for 50% of sales, and non-mainstream products account for 50% of sales, but do you know how fierce the market competition is for the former? Why not do ......this?"

Seeing that he couldn't seem to find a word, Natalie said "yeh?" in confusion, Rachel tried to remind: "Unpopular market?" Wang Yang suddenly remembered an adjective for the characteristics of this market in the future, and said with a smile while holding a pen and paper in his pocket to draw a storyboard: "I don't know, it's like a long tail, this long tail is the 80% worthless goods in the past, but it realizes the sum of many, many small markets." ”

Natalie and Rachel both looked sideways at the painted piece of paper on the table, and Joshua looked at it with both hands.

Wang Yang drew a hillside graphic on paper with a pencil, pointed to a short peak of the figure and smiled: "These are the mainstream, there are only 100 movies, 50% of sales." He pointed to the back and descended all the way to a straight tail, and said with a smile: "This is the long tail, 10,000 movies, 50% sales." Why don't you make this tail? Do you have to fight to the death with someone else on the head?"

"It seems that this is really the case...... Natalie thought about the drawing, looked at Wang Yang again, and asked a key question: "100 and 10,000, their cost is the same?"

"Originally, it wasn't, so the law of 28 rules the market, but I said, thank you for the Internet! Thank you for being so developed now!" Wang Yang put down his pen and raised his hands in celebration, Rachel and Natalie also laughed, he smiled, "All this can reduce the cost of single product sales, don't you watch the flame movie There are more than 8,500 movies ......"

He wrinkled his nose with a wicked smile and whispered: "But we don't have much inventory, only when customers place orders on the Internet, and there is demand from video rental stores around the world, we copy out the disc and deliver it to them, what is the cost?"

Thinking of the company's performance in the past few years, Wang Yang added: "And because we have a large base, the fluctuation of total income is ironed out by the law of large numbers, so the growth of this long-tail income is very stable." ”

Hearing him say this, Natalie and several people have already understood that they can always add up to a lot, but in the past, the more varieties, the higher the cost of single product sales, and in the end it was unprofitable and even lost money. It's like a CD store, it may take 100 square meters to put 1,000 movies on the shelves, and how many stores do you need to put all 10,000 movies on the shelves?

But the Internet has dramatically reduced costs, making it possible to subvert the Law of 28. Even if a website is crammed with a list of 1 million movies, it will cost much less than a supermarket or other physical store to put 100 movies...... Now the long tail of flame movies is like McDonald's delivery, someone buys me before I do it, I sell it, and I won't lose money at all in this business alone. However, there is a premise that there are really so many customers who come to Longtail.

Natalie couldn't help but be very surprised when she thought about it, and asked like Rachel just now, "Are the sales of those unpopular movies really that high?" Rachel had long wanted to get the answer, and also looked at Wang Yang.

"According to the situation of our original 2,500 movies, yes!" Wang Yang nodded heavily, raised his drink glass and saluted, and said with a smile: "Our goal is very clear, the head is from FF, and the long tail is responsible for FM." Let's see if the Flame Movie will go out of business! It's still getting better and better, watch. With that, he drank a drink to moisten his throat.

After getting the answer and unraveling the confusion in their hearts, the three of them reminisced contemplatively.

"Wow wow......" Natalie sighed softly, raised her eyebrows, and said with interest, "I think this is a great business idea, what should it be called?" Rachel also laughed, "the-long-tail-theory?" Joshua muttered his lips, remembering the "long-tail theory" just now.

Wang Yang smiled, remembered something, and said with interest again: "By the way, you may know, you may not know, blogger launched a new system a few days ago, and now you can make money by blogging!" Joshua was immediately interested, and quickly asked: "What's going on? I really don't know, how much can you make money by blogging?" Rachel vaguely remembered this incident and wondered: "What about Google's advertising system?"

"Yes, google-adsense, individuals can post ads when they join, and there is a commission for every click. Wang Yang shrugged his shoulders, this thing can benefit bloggers and many websites, and even take off. He looked at the three of them and continued: "If you are a small website, you can also join the public, if you are a business, pay a certain amount of advertising fees to Google, you are in the advertising system, this is the long tail theory. ”

Natalie was a little puzzled when she heard this, so she saw him shake her head and sighed: "You don't know what Google will get by doing this, think about it, it can quickly gather millions of small and medium-sized websites, hundreds of millions of individual customers, if you put one of them forward, compared to those big advertisers that Yahoo and Microsoft cooperate, it is like an atom, but the sum of this long tail is ......!"

He smiled and didn't say any answers, under the thoughtful gaze of the three people, he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled: "If I were Yahoo, or Microsoft, I would do my best to develop similar technologies now, otherwise their position on the network will definitely be caught up by Google and then surpassed and defeated...... Seriously, Yahoo is so disappointing right now, it's not Terry Semel's business, it's that its technology is constantly falling behind and can't keep up with the trend...... I don't even know what Yang Zhiyuan is doing, if he continues to be so unenterprising in technology, Yahoo will be eaten away by Google little by little, and it will be too late in a few years......"

Listening to him talk about IT endlessly, the three of them gradually began to understand what Yahoo has too big an appetite and is unrealistic, and what Google is taking a cool route...... Seeing him look like he was eager to replace Terry Semel and become the CEO of Yahoo, Natalie couldn't help but laugh, and her drink almost squirted, what kind of best director is this?

Rachel also smiled: "Then there is one more IT star now." ”

"Maybe. Wang Yang scratched his head with a smile, didn't continue to say anything Yahoo Google, and said with a smile: "I did think about applying to Stanford, business school or computer science before, but then I didn't." Natalie asked, "Why not?" Wang Yang suddenly laughed, looked at the three of them, and spread his hands: "Why not? I applied to USC, New York University, UCLA...... All of them are filmmaking majors, why? because I like it. ”

Natalie smiled with encouragement and said, "Please, brother, you should have gone to Stanford at that time! Then I wouldn't be sitting here now, I should have been in class at Harvard, and you caused me to skip class." Wang Yang looked at his watch with a smile, stood up, and said, "Yes, if you don't read movies, you won't know you." Forget it, it's okay to talk about it, but I'm going crazy to do it every day for work. ”

He shook his head and smiled: "That's not the dish I ordered, the movie is." ”

"Haha, it seems that someone is fascinated by which thigh. Natalie smiled and said something that sounded a little incomprehensible to others, Rachel didn't understand, but guessed something in her mind, and she glanced at Natalie with a smile...... Really!

"You guys go ahead and read the script, I'll go back and talk to Varley about the shooting plan. Wang Yang smiled, looked at Joshua, who was thinking of something, and shouted, "Joshua, you stay?" Joshua nodded and said, "Okay." ”

In the casino of Caesars Palace, the bright yellow lights illuminate the nervous faces of gamblers, the tinkling of slot machines, and the joyful cheers and angry curses...... the crew of "MIT-21-Team" occupies a frontal aisle, with slot machines flickering on both sides, two cameras set up in place one after the other, and a huge film crew in place.

Wang Yang squinted at the camera viewfinder, and the disguised MIT team stood in the front of the field, and he ordered: "Natalie, stand a little to the left, Ali, you come up and take a step......

As he spoke, Natalie, who wore a long brown wig and heavy eye shadow, and Alexis, who wore a long golden ponytail, all adjusted their positions. The position of Rachel and other casino personnel had been adjusted before, and seeing that this side was also ready, Wang Yang raised his head and left the viewfinder, and said with a smile: "Okay, let's start!"

This is the main event, and after unremitting efforts, the female detective Belif finally intercepts them head-on in another operation of the cunning MIT team, announcing the capture of this group of genius card counting gangs.

"Gentlemen and ladies, we know who you are!" The casino security guards in black suits blocked the road back and forth, all staring at the MIT group opposite with fierce eyes, and the burly bald head of security standing at the front said coldly: "You are no longer welcome here!" At this time, more than a dozen casino security guards suddenly got out of the way, and Rachel, who was lagging behind, walked up slowly, she was wearing a gray and white detective coat with a smile on the corner of her mouth.

It seems to be victorious, it seems to be proud, it seems to be happy...... Rachel came to the front and stopped, scanning the group members opposite one by one, if this was the screen, it was a specific shot, Nick Canon, Jay Baruchel, Karen Mok, Alexis, Wu Yanzu, and finally looked at Natalie, who was less than a meter away, her eyes were full of victory, and she smiled: "It's game over." ”

Natalie smiled calmly, as if it didn't matter at all, just being caught playing hide and seek with her playmate. At this time, Alexis said very uncoolly: "You are a superhero? The casino is not God, it is not a natural way to make money, we just use legal means to make money from them! You help the casino, you only help an evil devil!"

"Excuse-me?" Rachel tilted her ears, a blank look on her face, and then slowly revealed a demonic evil smile, like in "Ghost Record", she laughed, "What's my business? Let those idiots who want to get rich overnight die, let them go! But I'm not interested in any of that, I'm just interested in catching you guys. ”

Jay Baruchel and Karen Mok all had cold faces, and Wu Yanzu seemed to be about to say something, when Natalie suddenly smiled and nodded, "The game is over." She lifted the bulging chip bag in her hand, looked at the security supervisor, and asked, "By the way, can these chips be exchanged?"

Looking at the performance in the field, Wang Yang clasped his hands to his chest without any opinion, feeling very satisfied, these days, Natalie and Rachel's rivalry collided with a very chemical effect, their demeanor, tone, and gestures have shaped the charm of the characters, which is very interesting.

Rachel is cool, but Natalie's casual action or line is even cooler than Rachel. This is naturally arranged in this way in terms of design, because the audience is in the camp of the MIT group, and the role of female detective cool is more for the foil.

"Cut! It's a wonderful performance! Nata, Rachel, you guys feel so much, what else can I say? Change the camera position and continue!" Wang Yang laughed and shouted to stop, and patted Vary-First next to him who was operating the camera.

Natalie and Rachel on the other side each took a step forward, raised their palms with a smile on their faces, and struck hard, completely devoid of the tension of the needle-to-wheat mang.

Everyone was laughing and talking while adjusting the camera position, and Jay Baruchel asked Ma Kaiwen on the sidelines, "How were you at that time?" Ma Kaiwen smiled: "It's not so chic, we didn't understand at that time, how did they recognize it......"

Wang Yang walked next to Wu Yanzu and said, "Daniel, I wasn't very satisfied with your shot just now, I will make up a few close-ups later, you look a little expressionless and emotion......less" Wu Yanzu listened carefully and nodded from time to time.

Joshua enthusiastically took a bottle of water and handed it to Alexis, as if he were her personal assistant, and complimented, "Wow, when you read the lines just now, I can completely feel what Jan has been saying all day long! Alexis twisted open the water bottle and took a sip, smiling, "Thank you, I think it's the feeling ......"

(To be continued)