Like Hastings, Fly's CEO Bai Yunfei also saw Zhang Ran's purpose. After all www.biquge.info Zhang Ran founded YouTube and created the Century Peak online website in China, so after seeing Zhang Ran's announcement of the acquisition of Blockbuster shares, Bai Yunfei immediately guessed that Zhang Ran's real purpose was to do video streaming.

But it was just a guess, Bai Yunfei looked at Zhang Ran in front of him and asked, "You should be preparing to do video streaming when you take a stake in BesTV, right?"

For Bai Yunfei's partner, Zhang Ran made no secret of his purpose: "Yes, the future belongs to the Internet, and the film industry will inevitably be Internetized. ”

Bai Yunfei suddenly realized that Zhang Ran was looking for an outlet for the film and building an industrial chain, but he was still a little puzzled: "Why don't you just buy Blockbuster?"

Zhang Ran shrugged his shoulders and said lightly: "BesTV is promoting a plan called grid connection, which is to combine stores with the Internet, you can rent directly in the store, or you can place an order on the website and mail it by courier." The grid connection plan is good, but it will lead to a sharp decline in the company's revenue for a long time, coupled with the war between Blockbuster and Netflix, the stock price will inevitably fall. I expect the stock price to fall below $5 or even lower next year, and it's not too late to do so. ”

Bai Yunfei laughed and said, "You are really cunning and cunning!" But he immediately reminded: "I heard Chen Shijun say two days ago that Universal and News Corp., as well as Disney, have jointly established an online video website called Hulu, which launched a beta version just last week, which will be a very terrifying opponent." If you're going to do streaming, it's best not to delay it for too long, otherwise you won't have a first-mover advantage!"

Zhang Ran knows Hulu, and the three giants of video streaming in North America in his memory are Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Because Hulu is backed by large companies like News Corporation, it can get a steady stream of genuine movies and TV series, which is a huge advantage that other companies can't match. At the same time, this is also Hulu's biggest lifeline, because the boss behind Hulu has a TV station in his hands, and they are worried that the online drama is too hot, which will affect the ratings of the TV series, so Hulu has not dared to let go of the development of self-made dramas, and the company's development is far inferior to Netflix.

For Zhang Ran, a self-emasculating company like Hulu is not worth mentioning, Netflix is the real opponent, and said easily: "Running fast is not necessarily a good thing, the key is to run steadily." With only 50% broadband subscribers in the U.S. right now, it takes hours for even broadband subscribers to download a DVD-quality movie, and streaming is hard to really do in the short term. After two or three years, it will be time to exert force. The most important thing now is to promote the grid-connected plan and make Blockbuster Internet-based. ”

When it came to Blockbuster's online website, Zhang Ran was a little speechless: "You don't know how rubbish the Blockbuster online website is, the whole website is a direct copycat of Netflix, and it was sued by Netflix last year, and finally lost a sum of money." The worst thing is that they didn't copy it to home, the whole website architecture is very bad, I am now planning to transform the website, I need architects and designers, you can recommend two for me!"

After acquiring the shares of Blockbuster from Carl Icahn, Zhang Ran chatted with Blockbuster CEO Antioco, hoping that the grid connection plan can continue to be promoted, and in his opinion, the company's Internet will have a future.

Antioco agrees that the company must move forward with its grid connection plan to have any hope, and he said he will go all out to promote the connection. Antioco knew that Zhang Ran was an Internet elite and that Blockbuster was doing very badly on the Internet, so he hoped that Zhang Ran would find two experts in networking to improve Blockbuster's online functionality.

Zhang Ran came to Bai Yunfei this time for this matter.

Bai Yunfei chuckled: "It's simple, you still have to do streaming media in the future, it's best to poach people directly from YouTube, there are good candidates among our old employees in the past, I'll call them later." ”

Zhang Ran hesitated: "They belong to Google now, YouTube's influence is getting bigger and bigger, and life should be good;

Bai Yunfei laughed and said: "Of course I can say that I can move, don't say ordinary employees, it's Chen Shijun, as long as I say that Zhang Ran's new company needs manpower, Chen Shijun will definitely run over." ”

Zhang Ran laughed: "This is too exaggerated, do I have that much charm?"

Bai Yunfei knew that Zhang Ran was in China, and he was not particularly clear about many things. Fly has grown rapidly in recent months, and the popularity of several of their founders has skyrocketed. Bai Yunfei was invited to be a guest on Oprah's talk show, and Mike Solomon was invited to kick off the game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs in the Major League Baseball, which was comparable to a rock star.

Bai Yunfei said with a grin: "You may not know that after Fly was launched, many old YouTube employees ran back. Everyone believes that there is meat to eat with Zhang Ran!"

Zhang Ran laughed: "Believe me so much? Then I'm under a lot of pressure." Okay, then please help me contact the two of me!" After saying that, he casually asked, "By the way, how is Twitter developing now?"

Bai Yunfei smiled disdainfully: "There is no progress in registered users, it should be less than 100,000, everyone is using fly, who will use Twitter!"

Zhang Ran was a little surprised, less than 100,000? This is too miserable, shook his head with a smile: "I thought Twitter would become a strong opponent, but I didn't expect it to develop so badly." ”

Bai Yunfei said lightly: "Twitter made a fatal mistake, so it focused on words and disseminated text information. The main force of the Internet is young people, and young people pursue coolness, and they are willing to show off good things, so it's really important to be able to post pictures. If you can't post pictures, netizens' psychology of wanting to show off won't be satisfied!"

Zhang Ran nodded, in fact, both Chinese and foreigners have vanity and desire to be recognized, and pictures can most intuitively satisfy everyone's psychology. Why was Twitter overtaken by INS in the last generation?

At the same time as Zhang Ran and Bai Yunfei were talking, the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco was immersed in a sad atmosphere.

Twitter President Evan Williams looked at the dozen or so employees in front of him and said with a sad expression: "Calling everyone here today, there is a very important thing to announce!" Williamston paused and said, "We have decided to shut down the Twitter service!"

No one spoke, and no one was surprised. This result was expected by the company's employees, Twitter was launched in July last year, and it has been more than half a year now, with less than 100,000 users, and the rival Fly, which was launched at about the same time, has more than 10 million users, which is too big.

Not only is Twitter's technology not as good as Fly's, but its marketing methods are also far inferior. Fly first used "Twilight" to attract a large number of young people, and after the release of "Dance Out of My Life", the movie Channing Tatum and others also settled in, and with the popularity of the movie, it attracted a lot of fans; by the end of November, a large number of fashion designers settled in Fly at the invitation of Zhang Ran; with the entry of celebrities from all walks of life, Fly is becoming more and more popular.

No matter how you look at it, Twitter is a complete failure, Fly is like a mountain pressing in front of Twitter, and Twitter has no hope at all!

Twitter designer Noah Glass wanted to hold on to it any longer, but Williams, the company's CEO, didn't want to do it anymore, and he had lost all hope for the project. In his opinion, instead of wasting time on Twitter, it is better to just cut it and find new projects again, just like he did a few months ago when he axed the podcast site Odeo to focus on Twitter. After some deliberations, Williams finally decided to shut down Twitter.

Williams took a breath and lifted his spirits: "Dear colleagues, it's been a year since Twitter was developed in March last year. We've been through a lot over the past year, and you've worked so hard to get to where you are today, and I'm very honored to have worked with you for so long!"

The eyes of the employees present were red, and the two female employees cried directly.

Over the past year, they have put in a lot of effort for Twitter, but this result is really a bit difficult to accept.

In the past year, they have had joys and quarrels, and now it is over like this, and it is really a little reluctant.

"It's over, it's all over. Williams exhaled that his podcast site, Odeo, had failed, and now Twitter had failed again. But as the founder of the blog, as a young billionaire, these two failures will not destroy his will, now all he has to do is to find a new project and move on.

Williams walked up to Jack Dorsey, gave him a hug, patted him the back and said, "Although we lost, I always think Twitter is a good product, and I'm proud of it!

Jack Dorsey also patted Williams on the back with red eyes: "Yes, Twitter is a good product, it just didn't come at the right time." Evan, it's been a pleasure to work with you!"

Williams let go of Jack Dorsey and walked towards Noah Glass, hugging him and saying, "Noah, you're a genius. Noah Glass cried directly: "Maybe we hold on a little longer and there will be a turnaround!" Williams didn't speak, patted Noah Glass on the shoulder, and walked to the next employee.

On this morning, Williams hugged each employee tightly with gratitude. The company can't hold on, he can't give everyone anything, the only thing he can give to everyone is a hug.

In the morning, Twitter posted a letter to all users on its official website.

"Thank you all for your long-term trust and support to Twitter! Due to the company's business adjustment, Twitter has been discontinued since February 24, 2007. Thank you all for being with us all the way, and once again I sincerely apologize. ”

Twitter's death has not caused any repercussions in the industry, Silicon Valley has companies born every day, companies die every day, who cares that a small website with less than 100,000 users closes?

Zhang Ran knew that Twitter died two days later, in fact, Twitter's death was expected by him, Fly was destined to die on the day he was born, after all, as a reborn person, he knew Twitter's flaws, and he also knew the future development direction of the Internet, and more importantly, he had resources in his hands, and there was no reason to lose to Twitter.

However, after receiving this news, Zhang Ran still couldn't believe that the giant in memory died like this? It wasn't until he saw the letter from Twitter to the user that he believed that the giant in memory was really dead.

Zhang Ran laughed, starting with a low laugh, then laughing higher and higher, and finally turning into a crazy laugh.

The huge Internet giant in the previous life, in this life, was easily stoned to death by himself wielding a stick called Fly, this is like a dream, and the sense of accomplishment is simply indescribable!