The start date of filming of "Iron Man" was finally set for March 2, and according to convention, there is only about a month left before the start of filming of the movie, and the crew has already begun to assemble. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

However, as the leading actor, Eric was destined not to be able to fully focus on the movie.

With Yahoo's 1997 full-year earnings report, Eric had to leave Los Angeles again and fly to Boston to attend Yahoo's annual meeting, which would not only discuss Firefly Investment's re-investment in Yahoo, but also initially discuss with Morgan Stanley about Yahoo's listing.

In order to pave the way for Yahoo's IPO at the beginning of next year, Yahoo's annual financial report was released as soon as it was released on the homepage of the Yahoo portal.

This annual financial report, which is full of highlights, has caused major media to reprint frantically, and at the same time, it has also made the capital circle boil again.

Throughout 1997, Yahoo had 70.9 million registered users worldwide, accounting for 70 percent of the world's Internet users, including 51.7 million in North America. That's more than twice as many users of all other portals of the same type in the U.S. combined.

In addition, Yahoo's online payment tool Yahoopay, which Yahoo focused on promoting in 1997, also exceeded the 10 million mark and reached 11.35 million.

Since the Yahoo Music Store launched in April, the number of songs has increased from 200,000 to 700,000 now, and 55.3 million songs have been sold throughout the year. While this is a modest figure relative to the total value of the global record industry, the rise in online music sales has put the traditional record industry under strong threat.

Of course, the most dazzling data in this annual financial report is undoubtedly Yahoo's annual revenue in 1997 once again exploded.

In 1997, Yahoo's total annual revenue soared 327 percent to $636 million, compared to $194 million in 1996.

The annual revenue of $636 million is far from being comparable to that of the later Internet giants. However, in 1998, this data made the entire Internet industry look sideways.

Because, although Yahoo's annual financial data is still a loss of $359 million, the annual revenue of $636 million means that after six years of investment since 1992, Yahoo has finally shown a clear profit prospect.

Prior to this, due to the gradual free sharing of Internet services, countless industry analysts and media outlets were questioning whether Internet sites such as Yahoo Portal could achieve the same stable revenue and profits as traditional media.

In any industry, if it only inputs but cannot output, it will not be able to develop and grow after all.

Now, with more than $600 million in annual revenue, Yahoo has finally proven the broad prospects of a pure Internet company.

Eric was well aware that the new Yahoo was definitely far superior to the other Yahoo of the same period in his memory, and that the two sides were completely different.

However, in Eric's view, this is actually a matter of course.

The all-new Yahoo was not only established two years earlier than the original time and space, but also took the lead in the rise of the new wave of technology. Moreover, graphical interface browsers, e-mails, web portals, instant messaging, search engines, online payment tools, etc., a series of popular Internet products and services that were not originally created by a single company, have all been concentrated under the brand new company's umbrella.

It can be said that compared with Yahoo, which once did not seem to find an accurate development direction from its rise to its decline, the new Yahoo has been on a completely correct high-speed fast lane since its inception, and Yahoo's products have almost occupied the essence of the entire Internet era in the original time and space.

The strong synergy formed by a variety of Internet products and services has also allowed Yahoo to gain the advantage of almost monopolizing the Internet industry in advance.

In the context of the explosive growth of Internet users, Yahoo's multiple popular Internet products have formed a huge user base, which has prompted Yahoo's advertising business based on the long-tail theory to gradually show more and more obvious ability to attract money. Of Yahoo's annual revenue of $636 million in 1997, advertising revenue reached $527 million, accounting for 82.7% of the total revenue.

Yahoo's annual meeting was held for four consecutive days, from Feb. 3 to Feb. 6.

It was finally determined that based on a market value of $15 billion, Firefly Investment will inject another $1 billion into Yahoo and acquire 14.5 million shares of Yahoo.

In the original Yahoo equity incentive plan, due to Jeff Locke and others giving up equity awards and leaving early, Yahoo spent a total of 17.3 million shares, equivalent to 17.3% of Yahoo's total share capital at that time. Subsequently, after several successive capital injections by Firefly Investment, Yahoo's management and employees' shareholding began to gradually decline.

With the $1 billion capital injection to acquire another 6.7 percent stake in Yahoo, Yahoo's total share capital rose to 216.5 million shares. Firefly Investment's stake in Yahoo has also been further increased to 91.7%.

At the same time, according to the current valuation and share capital, Yahoo's single share price has approached $70, in order to ensure the smooth IPO at the beginning of next year, after discussions with Morgan Stanley, Yahoo will also carry out a stock split at the end of this year, dividing the original stock into three, bringing the total share capital to 649.5 million.

In this way, after the IPO of 30% of the shares, Yahoo's total share capital will be close to 1 billion shares, and the unit price of the stock can also be guaranteed to be around $15, which is a very easy price to attract investors, and the total share capital of 1 billion shares is also just right.

Early next year, with the Nasdaq hitting new highs, Eric knows Yahoo's valuation will skyrocket again. Therefore, according to this plan, it is absolutely impossible for the stock to remain around $15 at that time, but he did not express any objection to the plan discussed by Yahoo management and Morgan Stanley. The plan can't keep up with the changes, and then it will be revised.

After four days of meetings, the Internet business partners who had come to Yahoo's annual meeting left and the Morgan Stanley team returned to New York satisfied.

Eric was in no hurry to return to Los Angeles.

On February 7, even though it was a Saturday, Eric and Chris, Yahoo's Ian Gnier, Steve Mitnick, and Tina Brown, as well as Firefly Electronics' Victor McNelli and Bill Olsen, and Nokia's Vice President of Firefly Electronics, Jeff Klebel, arrived in a heavily classified lab at Yahoo's headquarters.

A few days ago, Eric had just arrived in Boston, and Steve Mitnick told Eric that he had successfully built a prototype of a tablet computer through the current research and development of Yahoo and Firefly Electronics, and that the eight of them had come here today to watch Steve Mitnick's demonstration of the prototype.

In the lab, Steve Mitnick sat at a console, holding a prototype tablet with a size of ten inches and a thickness of nearly two centimeters, and explained to the other seven people around him: "The core of the operating system is completely based on Arm's latest 32-bit chip architecture. Drivers for hardware such as displays are now being programmed for network connectivity modules, and specialized application software will be developed based on several Yahoo Internet products by the end of this year. ”

Eric watched Steve Mitnick directly use his fingers on the color touch screen to demonstrate simple text input, picture browsing and audio playback and other operations, patiently listened to the communication of several professionals for a while, and finally took the prototype in Steve Mitnick's hand, although the screen pixel is very low, it looks grainy, but with the current technology accumulation of the two companies, Eric is very satisfied with the effect of the prototype in his hand.

After typing in a piece of text and playing with it for a while, Eric remembered to turn the prototype over, looked at the flat shell, and asked with some disappointment, "Steve, didn't you have a camera?"

Steve Mitnick said: "Eric, the laboratory of Firefly Electronics did not give me a camera module that I could install in this machine, and I have also read the materials of Nokia's related laboratories, and their research and development progress is also very slow. ”

Eric thought for a moment and said, "What about Japan, they should be much better than us in terms of digital camera technology?"

"Well, I don't know," Steve Mitnick said, glancing at the three Victor McNelly of Firefly Electronics.

Victor McNelli explains: "Eric, we lack the technology and patents for digital cameras, and the team in our hands can only develop on the basis of other companies' technology, and it is difficult for us to come up with our own miniature camera module. As for Japan, Toshiba, Sony, Sharp, and other giants in the electronics industry should be conducting research and development in related areas, but if I want to get detailed information, unless I go to Japan in person. ”

Eric did not hesitate to say: "Victor, then you should go to Japan as soon as possible, if you can buy the patent of the relevant technology, it is the best, if not, take the model when we commissioned Seagate to develop the microhard drive, in short, I hope that our tablet will have the camera function when it is released." ”

Victor McNairy said, "Eric, as you originally conceived, I think this tablet is attractive enough even if it doesn't have a camera function. The size of the tablet screen we planned for was 7 inches, and at that size, a tiny digital camera with only 100,000 pixels would not be able to take very good pictures. ”

"It's 100,000 pixels now, and in two or three years, there will definitely be 300,000 pixels, 500,000 pixel cameras developed, and what we have to do is to lay out in advance," Eric said, looking at Victor McNelli's expression and some hesitation, said: "If it's just a touch screen, as well as basic functions such as reading, listening to music or surfing the Internet, in fact, the traditional PDA can be realized in a few more years."

What we want to do is to strengthen the entertainment and interactive function of this tablet, so as to make this product more popular. People have a strong desire to be expressive, and adding the photo function can just meet this demand of users.

I talked to Ian and a few of them some time ago, and now is not suitable for the development of Internet social networks, but if this tablet with a camera function is launched, in my opinion, the time is initially ripe. Think about it, if anyone can use a tablet to take pictures of their work and life anytime, anywhere, and then share them with friends and family through the Internet in real time, do you think they will be more attracted to this product?"

Steve Mitnick said, "Eric, I'm still curious, how do you share instantly without using a mobile network?"

Eric shook his head mysteriously and smiled, and said: "Using mobile communication networks, that is the goal of our further smart phones, as for the networking problem of tablets, I will try my best to solve it at that time, what you have to do now is to make the product I want." ”

In the face of Eric's insistence, Victor McNelli decided to make a personal trip to Japan despite the imminent release of Fireflyer II.

After watching the demonstration of the development results of the mobile operating system, Eric and the others visited several other important laboratories of Yahoo, and did not leave Yahoo's headquarters until the afternoon after work and dinner together.

Tomorrow Eric will leave Boston directly, say goodbye to everyone in the parking lot, and wait for Victor McNelly and the others to leave, but Chris is not in a hurry to go back to the hotel, leaning on Eric's black luxury car and saying to Eric with a smile: "So, you really plan to play Tony Stark in person?"

This matter, so far, the Firefly Group has not been made public, because there is no news about the actor of "Iron Man" for a long time, some media even think that the project was affected by Warner's "Batman and Robin" last year and aborted.

Chris only heard about it for the first time when he asked Eric about his work schedule for the next few months a few days ago. Eric didn't deliberately hide this from Chris, but Chris never asked, and he didn't take the initiative to say it.

Eric nodded in response: "I have signed a contract, and the salary is 3 million US dollars." The movie is about to start shooting, and now the breach of contract will have to be compensated. ”

Chris had watched Eric's "Seventeen Again" that he participated in, imagined Eric playing Tony Stark, shook his head and smiled, and said, "You are really suitable, perform in your true colors." ”

"That's what everyone likes," Eric also smiled, "Otherwise, I haven't appeared in front of the camera for so many years, and no one will be relieved to let me act." ”

"Otherwise, I'll make a cameo appearance and be a driver for you or something?"

At the mention of this, the smile on Eric's face was even bigger, and he said, "This is not your turn, someone has already grabbed this job." ”

Chris thought about it, but didn't have a clue, so he had to ask, "Who is so boring?"

"Larry Ellison. ”

Chris was surprised again: "How is it possible, he is such an arrogant guy." ”

Eric reminded, "Last time, he wanted to get rid of us and sneak up Apple. ”

"Oh, I see, he wants to make up for it with this, it's just, it's too understatement. ”

"Of course it's more than that," Eric shook his head and said with a smile: "Oracle decided to sponsor the "Iron Man" crew for $5 million, a cameo driver, just a ride." ”

Chris probably straightened out the whole thing and laughed, apparently Larry Ellison was being cheated by Eric.

The two talked and laughed for a while, and Eric said: "I'll go back tomorrow, "Iron Man" has a lot of locations to come out, and it will be very busy in the first half of the year." You pay more attention to Yahoo's side, and by the way, AOL. If Steve Begins insists that AOL become an Internet media company, we will have to consider seizing control. ”

Chris nodded solemnly: "Of course, I will arrange it, don't worry." (To be continued.) )