Tina. Brown certainly understands what this means, standards mean monopoly, and monopoly means profiteering, a truth that has been proven countless times.

Although governments around the world are clamoring to oppose monopoly, and countless anti-monopoly investigations emerge every year, in fact, monopoly is everywhere and is the ultimate goal pursued by countless enterprises. Thinking that she might have the opportunity to participate in a new kind of monopolistic industry, Tina. Brown was even slightly excited in his heart.

Over the next week, Eric began the merger of the three companies non-stop, and finally confirmed the former head of Internet Explorer. Gnier serves as CEO of the combined Yahoo Network. Locke serves as chief operating officer and remains primarily responsible for Yahoo's website. Mitnick got his wish to get the position of CTO and will be responsible for all technology research and development projects of Yahoo Network in the future. Brown serves as editor-in-chief of Yahoo's communications division.

The original Internet Explorer, Hotmail online mailbox and other services will also be renamed Yahoo Browser and Yahoo Mail in the next month, and the upcoming instant messaging software will also be named Yahoo Chat-Room, referred to as YCR.

After Yahoo Network's main management framework was established, Chris flew back to the United States from Finland and immediately arrived in Boston.

Eric picked up Chris from the airport, and instead of going to the hotel, the two went straight to Yahoo's headquarters for the first high-level meeting after the company's reorganization.

In recent days, perhaps because of Eric's arrival, Yahoo's headquarters seems to be much cleaner. Of course. Eric also knew that the real reason was that there was an extra woman in the management of the original three big men. Tina. Brown is second only to Ian at Yahoo Networks. Ggnier. With Jeff. Locke and Steve. Mitnick is comparable, although it is certain that Yahoo's content editing department will not be based in the headquarters, but the distance between the two offices is only a few hundred meters. For Ms. Brown, Yahoo's previously somewhat cluttered office environment was hard for her to tolerate, so she arranged for things like logistics and cleaning

Eric and Chris walked side by side down the neat staircase to the conference room on the top floor, chatting a little bit about Nokia's side of the way. Chris only then asked, "Didn't you invite John. Chambers and Steve. Keith, are they coming? ”

Eric said: "Of course, it is only after this layout is arranged that they will come, otherwise I am not sure if I can 100% impress them to join this plan, they will all come over tomorrow." ”

"If they don't join that program, I think they'll regret it in the future," Chris said. ”

"There's nothing wrong with Cisco, we're still the largest shareholder in Cisco, and that plan is definitely good for Cisco. There's no reason why Chambers wouldn't say yes. But AOL maybe," Eric shook his head with a smile, "although I would prefer AOL to focus on being an Internet service provider." But many of AOL's services overlap with Yahoo, and even imitate Yahoo for the AOL portal. Want to convince Steve. Case's intention to withdraw from competition with Yahoo is not an easy thing to do. ”

"Steve. Keith is a smart guy and can certainly understand what kind of decision is best for AOL's development. ”

Eric smiled and shrugged, "Smart people tend to be very stubborn. ”

Pushing the door and walking into the conference room, Ian, who was talking in a low voice. Gnier and the others stopped chatting and got up to greet Chris.

Today's meeting is crucial to Yahoo's future development, and the level of confidentiality is also the highest, and the next level of company executives are not eligible to join the meeting, and with Eric and Chris, there are only six people in the entire room.

Eric knew all the details of today's meeting and thought about it countless times, without relying on any copywriting materials, and when a few people were seated, Eric walked to the clipboard in front of the conference room and wrote two simple lines of phrases on the clipboard with a pen.

"OK," Eric said, putting down his pen and clapping his hands gently, "While many of you already know a little bit about today's meeting, today, you're going to hear the full picture of Yahoo's plans for the future." ”

Tapping two lines on the clipboard, Eric continued: "In the next few years, or the next dozen years, all of Yahoo's development will revolve around these two initiatives, the Yahoo Technology Alliance and the Yahoo Advertising Alliance. ”

"First of all, Yahoo Technology Alliance, after more than two years of unremitting technology investment, Yahoo has obtained the absolute leading technology reserves in the same industry, and successfully launched Yahoo portal, browser software and online mailbox service three successful products that change the habits of Internet users, and we will launch more products in the future. But at the same time, if we are only satisfied with this, it will be a very stupid idea, pure technological leadership is difficult to maintain for a long time, then, in order to maintain Yahoo's absolute leader position in the future, we need to promote the Internet technology developed by Yahoo, more companies, more users under Yahoo's technical standards, as long as Yahoo becomes the industry technical standard setter, we can form an invincible huge alliance, Nip all possible competitors in the bud. ”

If Eric's remarks at this time are recorded, Yahoo will definitely become an explosive piece of evidence in the future when it encounters an antitrust investigation, and it is irrefutable. However, at this time, several people in the conference room were obviously not selfless advocates of the spirit of online sharing. Instead, the eyes of Gnier and the others flashed with a frenzied light.

"In the next year, technologies such as the browser-based IES scripting language, the new MP3 audio technology, and the GIF image format will be licensed to the industry for free as Yahoo's first batch of technology promotion projects. Firefly Investment Company will provide more funds for the research and development of Internet multimedia technology for users. I hope Yahoo will be the first high-tech company in the world to launch moving image and even video playback technology that works successfully on Internet software. Meanwhile. The company will also launch the research and development of YahooPay, an online payment tool. Users can take advantage of this online payment tool to conduct any transaction over the web, whether it is a virtual purchase of a software product or a physical transaction of goods. I look forward to all online payments in the future on the YahooPay payment platform. ”

It was the first time that Eric revealed the idea of the YahooPay tool, and noticed that Chris and Ian in the audience. Gnier and the others turned their attention to Steve. Mitnick, Eric laughed, "Don't look at Steve, the YahooPay online payment tool is something I only thought of in the last few days, before leaving Boston. I will write a simple proposal, but the specific technical research and development work will be jointly undertaken by several of you, and I hope that within a year you will be able to produce a formal product. ”

Ian. "This online payment tool definitely needs to work with brick-and-mortar banks, would they be willing to work with us?" ”

"You don't have to worry about it, I'll follow up on it myself, and as long as you develop a platform that ensures security and usability, I can bring in enough banking partners for Yahoo," Eric said. ”

Steve. Mitnik rubbed his hands together with shiny eyes and said, "Eric, I have a good idea......

"Stop," Eric smiled. Stopped Steve. Mitnik said, "I don't know what you're trying to say. But I know I don't understand your terms about encryption, software architecture, etc., so you might as well discuss it with Ian and the others after the meeting. ”

Everyone burst out laughing, Steve. Mitnik smiled and made a frantic choke at Eric.

After the laughter, Jeff, who has a somewhat reserved personality. Locke raised his hand, and after getting a nod from Eric, he said: "Eric, I think that if we really want to develop YahooPay, we need to have an operating system platform to focus on, although we have realized that the browser software runs on all mainstream Windows, Linux, Unix, MacOS and other operating system platforms, but when it comes to the user's capital operation, security is absolutely the first, the more platforms, the more security can not be guaranteed." ”

When he came into contact with computers in his previous life, Microsoft had dominated the world, and Eric was used to Windows like many ordinary people, so he really didn't take into account the current situation, however, this is not a difficult problem to choose, pretending to think for a while, Eric said: "Then start with the most popular operating system Windows now, the graphical interface operating system will definitely become the mainstream of personal computers, so we can directly give up Unix, Dos these platforms, There is no need to consider an open-source system like Linux. ”

Ian. "What about Apple's MacOS, which is second only to Windows in popularity among the general user base, I think we can do YahooPay technology research and development based on both platforms at the same time?" ”

Apple currently sells more than 500,000 personal computers a year, which is insignificant for more than ten years later, but the annual sales of personal computers in this era are only a few million. It's no surprise that Gnier is taking Apple's operating system seriously.

However, if history does not deviate too much, after the launch of the Windows95 operating system next year, Apple's personal computer sales will have a terrifying cliff-like decline, and the originally vibrant Apple will quickly slide into the brink of bankruptcy, even after the return of Jobs, Apple can only gain a foothold in the high-end PC field, and it is not cost-effective to prioritize the research and development of the MacOS platform with Windows.

"We still have so much to do, and for YahooPay, juggling both platforms at the same time will delay the overall development schedule. Therefore, it is still necessary to start with the Windows platform, and after accumulating enough technology and experience, it will be very simple to launch products on other operating system platforms, and the time can be shortened a lot. ”

"I think Eric has a point, but in order to prevent other platforms that we don't have time to juggle from being overtaken by competitors, I think YahooPay might be able to merge with YCR, the instant chat tool, to at least ensure that we have an absolute advantage in the user base," said Tina. After Brown finished speaking, he smiled again and said, "Also, Eric, I think the name YCR is too uncreative. ”

Eric said with a smile: "When everyone gets used to the name YCR, then someone will automatically add all kinds of connotations to it." ”

Many of the names of the chat tools in the original time and space are not special, and as users get used to them, they automatically accept those names. It's a bit of fun to create a new chat tool abbreviation.

Tina. Brown spoke in support, Ian. Gnier and the others also realized the benefits of doing so, and they accepted the decision.

"So, then there's the Yahoo Network," Eric said, "and the purpose of this program is obvious, so I won't explain the terminology for anything." ”

In a faint laugh, Eric said in a slightly serious tone: "But this plan will be related to the life and death of Yahoo, even if I personally do not care about the return at all, but the amount of money that can be invested in Yahoo is limited after all, if Yahoo can't survive through its own profits, then all plans about Yahoo will be reduced to empty talk, so the Yahoo Advertising Network Program is more important than the Yahoo Technology Alliance." The current network environment is very similar to that of the early public television networks, and users currently have no concept of paying for online content except for network access fees, and the possibility of us charging users for high-quality content services is almost zero. Therefore, as the scale of users continues to explode, it will become inevitable to monetize the website through advertising. Therefore, in the next step, Yahoo must increase the development of advertising technology to achieve accurate and effective advertising, so that online advertising can achieve advertising effects comparable to TV advertising, and enterprise customers will be willing to pay for advertising to Yahoo. ”

Tina. Brown asked, "Eric, you're talking about 'Yahoo Ads,' so what do you mean by 'Alliance'?" ”

"The so-called alliance is, of course, an alliance with other websites on the Internet. Yahoo's platform is limited after all, and even if we have more than a million pages of our own content in the future, Yahoo's content is still insignificant compared to the vast amount of cyberspace. On the Internet, most of the websites are not capable of advertising operations, what we have to do is to unite these thousands of small websites to carry out advertising in a unified manner, and these small websites can also obtain income through advertising sharing, which is a win-win solution, and Yahoo will also become the biggest winner. ”

Chris had been listening quietly to Eric's explanation, and at this time he couldn't help but ask for the first time: "Eric, even if it is technically possible to implement the affiliate program you mentioned, does it really make sense to unite these tiny websites that don't have much traffic?" (To be continued.) )