Half an hour later, Yang Zhiyuan looked at the young Asian in front of him, who was obviously a little younger than himself, and asked suspiciously: "This classmate, do you want to see me and Fei Luo?" ”

Pang Xuelin nodded, stretched out his hand and smiled: "Hello classmate Yang, I am Pang Xuelin, from Chinese mainland. ”

"Pang Xuelin, from the mainland?" Yang Zhiyuan frowned and muttered to himself, "I seem to have heard this name." ”

Immediately, Yang Zhiyuan seemed to remember something, looked at Pang Xuelin, and said a little incredulously: "I know, you are the Pang Xuelin who invented the Star Ring CVD and was praised as a small god by the Xiangjiang media?" ”

Pang Xuelin blinked and smiled: "Is my fame so big now?" ”

Yang Zhiyuan hurriedly shook hands with Pang Xuelin and said, "Mr. Pang, I have seen your news in the Chinese media in San Francisco. I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you just now, by the way, it's my roommate Ferro. ”

Yang Zhiyuan pointed to Fei Luo Dao, and at the same time introduced Pang Xuelin's identity to Fei Luo in English.

Fei Luo looked at Pang Xuelin with some surprise, obviously he didn't expect this eighteen-year-old boy to become a billionaire through self-employment in less than a year.

"Hello, Mr. Ferro!"

Pang Xuelin also shook hands with Fei Luo.

"Hello!"

Ferro said shyly.

Although he also belongs to the founder of Yahoo, he is introverted and more responsible for technical work, and the management of the company is basically led by Yang Zhiyuan.

"Mr. Pang, let's go to Starbucks to talk."

Yang Zhiyuan pointed to the Starbucks café not far from the library.

"Okay."

Pang Xuelin nodded.

Soon, the three of them sat down at Starbucks, and Yang Zhiyuan ordered a cup of coffee for everyone.

Then, Yang Zhiyuan turned his gaze on Pang Xuelin and asked curiously: "Mr. Pang, how did you know about the website that Fei Luo and I created?" ”

Previously, Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo searched for a lot of information in order to write their papers, and compiled them into a table of contents and sub-directories, put them on the Internet, and named them Jereh Global Information Network Guide.

Originally, this was just a whim move by the two of them, but who would have thought that it would soon attract widespread attention from netizens, and the traffic of the website also surged, and netizens put forward a lot of suggestions for improvement on the website's message board.

Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo felt the magic of the Internet for the first time, and in the past half a month, they have devoted all their spare time and energy to the Jereh Global Information Network Guide, and even the nature of writing papers is not much.

However, at this time, the two of them maintained and updated the website, more out of personal interest and novelty of Internet communication, and did not realize the great significance of their website at all.

Moreover, not long after the Jereh Global Information Network Guide came out, not many people in the school even knew that this website was created by him and Fei Luo, where did this Pang Xuelin know about it?

Pang Xuelin had been prepared for this question for a long time, and said with a smile: "I checked the IP of your website, and it turned out that it was in Stanford, and then I found it by the way, and checked the information of this IP at the student office, and found that it was managed by you and Fei Luo, so I asked for your contact information by the way......

Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo glanced at each other, and they both saw a look of surprise in each other's eyes.

Although there are already traces of hacker activities in this era, Pang Xuelin's such an understatement that he has located their location still makes Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo a little surprised.

After pondering for a moment, Yang Zhiyuan said curiously: "Mr. Pang, then the purpose of your appointment to come over today?" ”

Pang Xuelin looked at Yang Zhiyuan with a smile and said, "I am very optimistic about your information provision model of Jereh Global Information Network Guide, and I am ready to create a similar company and would like to invite you to join." ”

"Invite us to join?"

Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo glanced at each other, a little incredible.

"Mr. Pang, do you really think this website can make money?"

Pang Xuelin said with a smile: "Classmate Yang." Do you know how many PCs there are now in the United States? ”

Yang Zhiyuan shook his head.

Pang Xuelin stretched out a finger and said: "There are more than 15 million units, of which at least 80% are connected to the Internet." In 1993, Americans spent a total of $9 billion to buy about 7 million home computers, which accounted for more than 40 percent of the computers sold in the United States throughout the year. Among consumer electronics, it ranks second only to color TVs in terms of sales. We can almost certainly say that PCs will continue to grow at least 20 to 30 percent a year this year, next year, and all the way through the year 2000. We don't have to worry, the personal computer will become a fashionable ornament, everyone can find the functions they need in the computer, the educational and entertainment platform for children, the various financial management tools for parents, and all kinds of word processing work. and the most important port for obtaining information on the Internet. People can receive and deliver a variety of digital products and services through their personal computers, such as online e-magazines, interactive games, home shopping functions, and virtual classrooms. In the future, audio audition, communication media and other services will be integrated into computers, and personal computers will also be used, which will become home entertainment centers and universal terminals in the information age......"

Pang Xuelin paused and continued: "However, for most netizens who have not experienced online education, they often have no idea where to start in the face of the vast sea of Internet, even some Internet enthusiasts can only share information through chat rooms or BBS. There are also companies that are doing a model similar to yours. By collecting information comprehensively and compiling it into different directory models, the efficiency of information sharing can be improved. Personally, I think that these models are quite immature and inconvenient, and netizens need a simpler and more functional way to access the Internet. I think the portal will be a clear way forward......"

"Portal?"

Yang Zhiyuan looked at Pang Xuelin puzzled.

Pang Xuelin laughed and said, "Yes, it's the portal." The so-called web portal, in a broad sense, is a Web application framework, which integrates various application systems, data resources and Internet resources into an information management platform, and provides users with a unified user interface, and establishes an enterprise-to-customer, enterprise-to-internal employee and business-to-enterprise information channel, so that enterprises can release various information stored inside and outside the enterprise. In a narrow sense, the so-called portal website refers to an application system that provides a certain type of comprehensive Internet information resources and provides relevant information services, which can provide netizens with one-stop Internet services such as news, navigation, search, mailbox, forum, and communication. ”

Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo's eyes couldn't help but light up, Pang Xuelin's words seemed to open a door to the correct answer for them.

During this time, they had been compiling the Jereh Global Information Network Guide, but they didn't realize what the website was for.

The reason why they put all their energy into it is more because the website has won a wide range of popularity among netizens, which gives them a great sense of accomplishment.

But they didn't have a clear idea of where the site would go in the future.

And what Pang Xuelin just said undoubtedly pointed out the direction for them.

Yang Zhiyuan pondered for a moment and said, "Mr. Pang, you mean, you are going to make a website similar to the role of online media?" ”

Pang Xuelin snapped his fingers and said with a smile: "Smart." ”

In fact, the portal proposed by Pang Xuelin is very different from the Jereh Global Information Network Guide founded by Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo.

Jereh Global Information Network Guide is actually a website that mainly provides search services, which plays the role of "entry" for netizens and becomes a "portal" for netizens to enter the Internet.

The portal proposed by Pang Xuelin is to provide news services as the main business and even the core competitiveness of the portal.

Yang Zhiyuan frowned and said, "Mr. Pang, then how should we make a profit?" ”

Pang Xuelin smiled faintly: "Open, free and advertised!" ”

One of the biggest reasons why Yahoo failed in later generations was that it was obviously a good media company, but it wanted to package itself as a technology company, and in the end it lost sesame seeds and watermelons.

Yahoo's success is mainly due to the fact that it has created a new business model for the Internet: open, free and profitable, which has stimulated the birth and rapid development of e-commerce.

You must know that in that era when the Internet was just emerging, some companies led by AOL were still developing paid dial-up users, trying to develop the Internet into a "second telephone network"!

Yahoo's intervention has greatly lowered the threshold of the Internet, and users only need to pay a phone and broadband to access the Internet happily!

In 1996, Yahoo was listed on the NASDAQ after only one year of establishment, and its stock price soared from $13 to $33 on the same day, and Yahoo became the first brand of the Internet in one fell swoop!

After the success of Yahoo, many companies quickly followed the trend and copied Yahoo's model, and the development of the Internet entered the era of "traffic is king".

Many companies have fallen into a state of madness, blindly pursuing traffic and not paying attention to content, resulting in worse and worse advertising efficiency, many companies do not feel pain, but crazy insertion of advertisements to try to carve up the already small Internet advertising market, as a result, traffic is becoming cheaper and cheaper!

Around 2000, Yahoo joined the ranks of the madmen, making crazy acquisitions without paying attention to technological improvements.

In 2000, when the Internet bubble burst, Yahoo was hit hard, and its stock value evaporated by more than 90%!

In 2002, under the management of Ms. Decker, the chief financial officer, Yahoo made drastic reforms, cutting many projects, such as online payments, auctions, shopping, etc., so that the company's budget was immediately controlled and the company's losses were reversed.

The new CEO, Samuel, turned a profit after acquiring Iure, and in 2005 he relied on search ad revenue to bring Yahoo's performance to the top.

But the good times were short-lived, and less than two quarters after the peak of 2004-2005, Yahoo's stock price hit rock bottom.

After tasting the sweetness of search PPC, Samuel blindly expanded and tried to compete with Google in the search market, instead of focusing on his own brand advertising, which greatly squeezed Yahoo's profit margins.

In 2004, Yahoo's profitability was no longer up to Wall Street's expectations, and by selling off Google's original shares in 2005, the stock price basically maintained its stock price, and in 2006, when there was no more Google stock sell-off, the stock price fell, and it has been slumping ever since!

On the other hand, looking at the entire development process of Yahoo, in fact, it is not difficult to see that as long as Yahoo firmly maintains the low position of the first brand of its brand advertising, it will not end up like this.

But why would Yahoo take the plunge to make a profit in the search market and Google?

There is no shortage of mistakes in decision-making, but more of it is the pressure from the greed of Wall Street!

Once a company's earnings fail to meet Wall Street's expectations, it will be ruthlessly abandoned by Wall Street, including: downgrading, malicious shorting, or even being directly dismantled and sold!

Wall Street is more interested in immediate interests, while the company's leadership needs to pay more attention to long-term development, and must find the perfect balance in it, otherwise it will be extremely detrimental to the company's development!

It's clear that Yahoo doesn't have a capable leader who can grasp this clearly.

For example, Overstock, an online sales company in the United States, reported earnings of one or two cents per share in the second quarter of 2005 that were one or two cents less than Wall Street's expectations.

Later, it was invalidated due to the inability to deliver on time, but the stock has long since plummeted, and the company is almost closed!

Another example: AT&T was forced to split into AT&T, Lucent and NCR in 1995.

Because AT&T and the other two long-distance telephone companies Mt are in competition, in order for the latter two to sell their own telephone equipment to divide their company into equipment manufacturing department and telecommunications service department, so Mt really came to buy Lucent equipment, which caused Lucent to grow explosively in the short term, investors made a lot of money, but it was very unfavorable for the company's rapid development!

After the market of Mt telephone equipment was saturated, Lucent began to lend to some small and medium-sized companies that could not repay in order to meet the profit expectations of Wall Street, and after the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000, those small and medium-sized companies closed down and were unable to repay, resulting in huge losses!

Later, there was the split of AT&T, which was divided into four companies: long-distance telephone, mobile phone, enterprise service and broadband, and the reason was nothing more than short-sightedness and greed.

The competition between Yahoo and Google is a must-lose matchup, but when you carefully analyze the reasons, it is not difficult to find that the company's genes play a decisive role!

Yahoo was born to provide web search services, in 2003 to buy the Inktomi search engine and later switched to Google, but never did the search itself, and Yahoo advocates manual editing rather than automatic computer processing of information, Yahoo still uses manual adjustment of search results.

Yahoo's technical shortcomings make it a traditional media company, while Google is a company with excellent technical genes, all search results and rankings in Google are ranked by computers, and engineers have a high voice and status.

If Yahoo had not blindly expanded in the Internet bubble in 2000 and had concentrated on its own brand advertising services, or had given up in competition with Google, but instead cooperated with Google and returned to the status of online media, it would have been very likely to stand tall in the Internet world as a strong media company.

What Pang Xuelin has to do now is to return Yahoo to its original position.

As for whether to develop a search engine in the future, it depends on what Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo can make Yahoo look like.