It was the introduction of the Microsoft Windows operating system that greatly accelerated the pace of the promotion of personal computers from professional and technical personnel to ordinary people. Today's computer network browsing tools, just like the original DOS system, require a lot of professional knowledge to operate, which is why personal computers have become widely used but computer networks have not developed much, Chris can imagine that if Eric's idea can really be realized, it will definitely cause a revolution in computer networking.

Just the first thought already made Chris's eyes light up, and he couldn't wait to ask, "What about the second thought?" ”

Eric took a sip of his coffee and said, "The second idea is an online email service. ”

"I've got this already there, I just learned it recently, but I don't think it's anything special, and it's not very convenient."

"I'm talking about 'online' email services," Eric said, adding the word 'online,' "most of today's email transfers are point-to-point using software, from one computer to another, and often within a small local area network, so that if you're out of the office, you can't watch the email." I want to be a company that provides an online email service that uses independent websites and servers as email carriers, so that users can view emails from friends or colleagues from anywhere, no matter where they are, as long as they are connected to the Internet. ”

"I don't think too many people would pay for an email account like that, it's not too expensive to make a phone call now, and public phones are all over the place," Chris said. Anything can be said on the phone. And. People don't necessarily send emails every day. ”

Hear Chris's words. Eric even had some emotion, he proposed this idea, Chris could immediately think of spending money to buy such a service, and did not expect it to be free, Eric didn't bother to complain, and quickly said: "I didn't plan to charge at the beginning, this will be a free online service, the first stage of what we have to do is to accumulate users." If the computer network becomes ubiquitous, then our email service users will also expand to a very large scale, and you can imagine how many dollars would those advertisers pay to allow us to send advertising emails to these users, if we have 100 million active email users? ”

Chris seemed to really calculate for a moment, then showed a numb and admiring expression, and smiled: "Okay, what about the third one?" ”

"PortalWeb." Eric said, taking up some water. Two words were spelled out on the table.

Although the Internet has just developed a prototype, but on this primitive network, all kinds of websites have appeared, in terms of movies, the most famous movie information website IMDB in the previous life, was established as early as 1990, and it has been quite large-scale now, therefore, it is not too advanced to launch the portal now, even if it is really early, it is a big deal to burn 1.8 million US dollars a month, and slowly wait for the golden age of the Internet to come, and the expenditure of a year is equivalent to a small-budget movie, Not worth mentioning to Eric.

The first two ideas Chris can probably guess the general meaning by listening to the name, but 'PortalWeb' is definitely a very foreign concept.

Eric didn't know exactly how to translate the portal in his previous life, so he could only use the word 'Portal' on the surface: "Basically, it is to classify the cluttered websites on the Internet and create a web directory, in which Internet users can easily find the consultation they want." ”

Chris nodded, indicating that he understood a little, but compared to the first two more amazing ideas, Chris felt that Eric's idea did not have much commercial value, a classified directory website, although it was very practical, but it seemed that it was very easy to imitate, and it was estimated that it would be difficult to achieve a monopoly.

Eric can also see that Chris should regard his last idea as a 'head' for the first two projects, but he is not in a hurry to explain anything, just let the facts surprise Chris, the market value of Yahoo in the previous life was dozens of times that of contemporary browser companies and online email service companies.

The two talked about late at night in this roadside café with great interest, although it was already three or four o'clock in the morning according to Eric's more accustomed western time, Eric did not feel tired, his young body and sufficient exercise allowed Eric to maintain a full personal energy, and it would not be a problem to stay up all night once in a while.

It wasn't until two o'clock in the morning Eastern Time that Chris and Eric got up and left under the 'resentful' gaze of the coffee shop waiter, and the streets of Manhattan in the middle of the night seemed even colder, but it didn't affect their mood in the slightest.

"In the past few days, you have the time to write out the plan, and when the things of AOL are completed, I will do my best to prepare these three companies, by the way, since you have already come up with these ideas, have you thought of the name?" At the end of the day, Chris asked.

Eric smiled a slightly mischievous smile: "Of course, the three companies are called 'Internet Explorer, Hotmail, and Yahoo.' ”

……

Over the next few days, Eric and Chris continued their conversation with AOL's Steve Brown. Keith argued over the terms of the partnership, and during the meantime, the 64th Oscars were also held at the Los Angeles Music Center on March 30.

As this year's "Dances with Wolves", which received 12 Oscar nominations, it was no surprise that it won seven awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, because of the good news of winning the Oscars, the box office of "Dances with Wolves" rebounded sharply again, and in the fifteenth week of its release, it received more than $11 million at the box office in less than 1,500 theaters. The total box office also exceeded 150 million, and the box office results of this feature film, whose commercial prospects are not even optimistic about Eric, surprised everyone.

Although there is only the theatrical distribution rights of the film. But according to the table of "Dances with Wolves" at the box office in North America and overseas. The film is expected to grossed more than $500 million worldwide. Under the share agreement, Fox will receive nearly $100 million in profits from the money. For Fox, this huge amount of money, which is equivalent to half of the profit of last year's film business, is similar to what he picked up, and even many insiders who know the inside story have ridiculed Murdoch on some pies that he gave birth to a good daughter.

In addition to that, because Eric brought Silence of the Lambs forward by a year, there was no Judy. Foster's Competition, by Susan. Sarandon also won the Best Actress for TG's "Crazy Flowers of the End", and "Crazy Flowers of the End" also won the Best Original Screenplay Award.

"Flowers of the End" was both a commercial and artistic success. More people have paid attention to TG, a film company composed of three girls, although they know that the supporters behind TG are the two giants of Firefly and Fox, but there are still many investors Keyes frequently contacts the three girls, trying to buy shares or invest.

Alone. Even if a film occasionally gets a good result, because the seven major distributors who monopolize the channel default on their shares, these film companies have to raise funds in order to shoot new films.

However, for TG, the problem is completely absent, and TG's films are either distributed by Fox or Firefly. are able to get their share on time, and. Even if there is still a lack of funds, both Eric and Murdoch are more than willing to invest, so those investors who try to take a stake in TG are disappointed.

In New York, because the cooperation intentions of both parties are very urgent, Firefly Investment has reached a preliminary agreement with AOL, however, the specific investment amount will be determined by Chris's team and Steve Brown. Case negotiates in detail.

At the same time, Eric also identified the letter to Emily. Brighton's investment firm plans to invest $8,000 were negotiated by Eric, Chris and Emily.

A week later, Eric left Chris with three project proposals and rushed back to Los Angeles.

The preparation of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is very smooth, because it is his first film in Hollywood, Wu Baige seems to attach great importance to it, and will personally participate in every detail, the film's scenery, scene design and supporting role selection are carried out in an orderly manner, and it is expected that in late April, waiting for Nicole and Pierce. Brosnan's two protagonists have finished their firearms training at the 'Secret Service School', and the movie can start shooting smoothly.

Because he didn't have to worry too much about "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", Eric put most of his energy into the preparation of "Jurassic Park", and the most important part of "Jurassic Park" was the design of dinosaur characters. According to paleontologists' restoration of dinosaur fossils, in fact, whether it is a Tyrannosaurus rex or a velociraptor rex, the original image is very different from the image in memory.

Eric combined his memories and had many discussions with several paleontologists to identify the most important dinosaurs.

For the special effects of "Jurassic Park", although because of Eric's investment in technology research and development regardless of the cost, "Jurassic Park" is completely made with CG special effects, there is no big problem in terms of technology, but it takes a lot of time, after all, no one has ever made a very realistic dinosaur monster in a full CG way before, and it takes a lot of time and energy to explore technology from scratch. Winston was already an expert in model special effects, and after thinking about the pros and cons, Eric quickly decided to use a combination of models and computer effects in the manner of Spielberg in his previous life.

After this decision, a large number of model effects designers in the huge studio in Preavista quickly invested in the production of dinosaur models. In addition to the realistic shape and skin, the dinosaur also needs to use complex mechanical transmissions, however, compared to computer special effects, the dinosaur model is still very cost-effective, and, in any case, the model is more realistic than the current stage of computer special effects.

In the middle of April, Disney's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" cooperated with Columbia officially started shooting in Los Angeles. Carey and Claudia. "The Strange Jack in Disguise" starring Schiffer was also completed, and the digital field soon took over the special effects production of "The Strange Jack in Disguise".

It's been less than two months since the summer season, and Firefly and Disney have also begun to carry out more intensive publicity work for the main film of the summer file. Of course, several other major studios have rightfully joined the marketing war.

At the same time as the start of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", when Firefly cooperated with Columbia, another secret condition that the two Columbia helmsmen promised Firefly also began to be implemented.

Actually, it's not too complicated, Peter. After several confidential conversations with Cooper and Eric, a concrete plan was decided.

In April, in an obscure Hollywood professional magazine, Colombia announced that in order to reduce Colombia's operating costs, Colombia will lay off 2,000 employees within six months, and will also eliminate some less important departments in Colombia.

The outside world did not have much reaction to the layoffs in Colombia, after all, the performance of Columbia Pictures in the past two years has indeed been sluggish, and it has also caused losses for more than two consecutive years.

However, although most people do not know the truth, how can such a large-scale movement not attract the attention of Hollywood insiders, when Colombia announced the news in the first week, directly closed the branches in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia in Latin America, many people realized something unusual.

You must know that although Latin America is extremely close to the United States geographically because of its general hostile policies towards the United States, it is dozens of times more difficult for Hollywood films to enter Latin America than it is to enter the European market.

But even so, it seems too much to completely eliminate these branches, after all, although Latin America is closed, it is still a super market with a population of more than one billion, and the potential for the future is limitless, just like Eastern Europe, when the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, the Eastern European market, which was originally very resistant to Hollywood movies, opened up in an instant, and the film companies that originally had a foundation in Eastern Europe could gain more advantages than other film companies, and the situation in Latin America is obviously the same. (To be continued......)