Back to 1995

Chapter 149
Evan Spiegel, who was sitting in the technical department of ICQ, looked at the $[-] check in his hand. Even if he came from a family with a decent amount of money, Evan Spiegel was still amazed by the huge profits and turmoil of the Internet industry. high salary!

Evan Spiegel is just 17 years old this year, and he is already a talented freshman at Stanford University. He comes from a family of lawyers, and his parents are both lawyers from prestigious universities in America.

Like countless young people or geniuses, Evan is also rebellious. Because of his family background, he even has a bit of profligacy. He is very pursuing cars. His father bought him a Cadillac worth 6 dollars a few years ago. But what Evan wants is a BMW worth $[-], but none of these can conceal Evan's genius, and he successfully entered Stanford University this year.

It has been less than ten days since Evan Spiegel joined ICQ. Previously, ICQ was wearing the double-click and Hotmail vest, and recruited a group of talented Internet technicians in San Jose and surrounding universities, and Evan was one of them.

Evan Spiegel didn't know what ICQ wanted them to do until he entered the project.

Now Evan Spiegel has not yet entered the core project of ICQ, so he can only be regarded as a handyman, but even so, in just a few days after joining ICQ, Evan Spiegel also received [-] dollars, which is far away. Super America's average salary today!

He glanced at the director who was booking the best restaurant in San Jose for his girlfriend and family. Evan saw just now that the director of his department had at least received a bonus of more than [-] dollars!
But these are not the most important. Evan Spiegel even heard that some people still have the opportunity to get the equity reward of ICQ, and that is the real profit.

Looking at the noisy and boiling office in front of him, there are still people cheering. Evan Spiegel has a real understanding of the Internet industry for the first time. In other places, it may take more than ten or twenty years to get everything. It may only take one night here, and Evan Spiegel looked at the meeting room where Willis and other executives entered.

Looking at everything in front of him, Evan Spiegel suddenly felt that if he could reach Wesley's level, or start his own business, maybe he would be able to achieve financial freedom without waiting until his parents' age!

In America, there is nothing more exciting than giving money directly. If ICQ was a storm in the Internet industry, if ICQ’s internal personnel did not have much feeling, then these money, equity rewards and so on Yes, enough to stimulate Evan Spiegel and these young people to become ambitious, desperately climb up, and shine for ICQ...

In the ICQ conference room, a group of executives gathered at this time, all with smiles on their faces. The performance of ICQ since its launch is enough to make them have such expressions. These executives all know that they are creating a new Internet industry!
Before Song Yang was present, the most glorious person was of course Willis. Although the media did not pursue him too much these days, the title of "Father of Instant Messaging" was also worn by Willis. On the head, even if he shares this title with Song Yang, Willis is already very satisfied.

With the popularity of ICQ, Willis's reputation in Silicon Valley and the Internet industry is naturally getting louder and louder. Even if it is not as good as Linus, the father of Linux, and Gosling, the father of JAVA, he can gain the Internet in America. In Jianghu, with the title of the father of instant messaging, Willis can be regarded as setting up a flag!

Even since yesterday, there have been senior headhunters who have quietly approached Willis, wanting to poach ICQ's corner and poach Willis away. The conditions offered are quite generous.

Even though those headhunters did not mention which Internet companies they were, the Internet circle in America is so big now, those small Internet companies dare not take Wesley's idea at all, and they can really offer conditions and have the strength to tap Weisley For Liss, it doesn't matter if it is Microsoft, Netscape, AOL, Yahoo, Lycos, etc. That's all.

However, Willis has no interest in going to these companies. Even if the other party offered him the condition that Willis be the president of the instant messaging business of the other company directly, and Willis be fully responsible, Willis still did not agree. Impressed.

How much he owns, Willis knows well that he is just a bull and a horse, and he is indeed a technical genius outside, but it depends on who he compares with. Anyway, facing Song Yang, Wei Li Lisi couldn't bear the slightest thought of being inferior.

What's more, Willis is a bully, and he has almost reached the ceiling level of a technician. He wants to be famous, rich and rich, and he even got a stake in ICQ. Why does Willis mess around? !
The door of the meeting room was pushed open, and Song Yang, Irene, Greg, Marcus and others entered in a row. Willis keenly noticed that Irene had a happy expression on his face, while Greg looked a little unsightly. Willy Si knew what happened just now.

"Everyone has worked hard. ICQ's performance in the past few days is inseparable from your support!" Song Yang said to the heads of ICQ's technology, operation, logistics and other departments, and then looked at Irene.

Irene got up, directly used the projector, and released a lot of data, "Since the launch of ICQ, it has entered nine English-speaking user regions including America, Canada, and England, with more than 230 million users. This is the number of users since the Internet appeared. The record for the fastest increase!"

The conference room burst into applause. ICQ is making history every step of the way. The concepts of instant messaging and social networking are definitely the two most popular terms in the Internet industry this year.

"According to background statistics, the average online time of ICQ users has exceeded 1.4 hours, and the frequency of use is still increasing. In addition to the most basic chatting and sending messages, the ICQ space community is the function that users use for the longest time after sending messages. Currently The most followed user in the ICQ space community is Hollywood actress Drew Barrymore. After she posted photos and blogs, more than 13 clicked and watched users, and more than 2 people shared the pictures posted on ICQ!"

Drew Barrymore was the first Hollywood actress to enjoy the first wave of bonuses. In the past, star interactions were all through meetings and press conferences, but now as long as they are on ICQ, they can interact with stars. This is Never before.

"Currently, Drew Barrymore is promoting his new film through the ICQ space community, but he has not released an advertisement yet!"

When those stars or celebrities realize that the ICQ platform can also become their publicity platform, and even post advertisements to make money, they will flock to ICQ, but at that time, it is estimated that it will be completely different from the current ICQ. Completely commercialized.

As for those celebrities, if they publish advertisements and endorse products in the ICQ space community, they must share part of it with the ICQ platform.

However, it will be a matter of time before the advertisements are launched, and the difference is only sooner or later. Song Yang heard this, "Let Double-click Company connect with ICQ's business operations, and the ICQ space community can slowly try to place advertisements, but the chat homepage of ICQ must not appear. advertise!"

ICQ is an instant messaging software. The first thing to ensure is the user experience. If there are advertisements on the chat interface, who can accept it? Space is a product attached to ICQ. Only when ICQ continues to attract traffic to the space can ICQ space start business. change.

If ICQ drives away all the users, no matter how many stars are attracted to the space, no matter how many advertisements are placed, no one will watch it at all.

Irene nodded, wrote down Song Yang's words, and said, "Currently ICQ can make money from NFT avatars, but to prevent NFT avatars from being abused and losing their collection value, you can't put too many NFT avatars. In the future, ICQ Earnings from NFTs will start to diminish.”

NFT avatars are a sharp tool for cutting leeks, but they can’t be cut every day. The reason why NFT avatars are hyped now is because of the small number. There are only [-] NFT avatars. But if ICQ is launched on a large scale, NFT avatars will become a bad street. Things, it is estimated that dogs don't want this stuff!

"For NFT avatars, it will be enough for ICQ to release a batch every year in the future. To preserve the value of NFT avatars, and the NFT Foundation, we must pay attention to protecting the copyright and interests of NFT avatars and users."

Song Yang didn't want to make much money for the NFT avatar. The NFT avatar was originally launched to promote ICQ, but now the effect is very significant, which directly makes ICQ break the circle.

In the future, a batch of NFT avatars will be released every year, which will continue to increase the popularity of ICQ. Once the market really recognizes the scarcity, value preservation, and collection of NFT avatars, even if only a batch of NFT avatars are released every year, it is estimated that they will be given. Go ahead and earn more from an NFT avatar at the auction than if you issued [-] copies!
"Now we should also pay attention to other companies, using the name of NFT avatar to make hype." Greg, who was sitting on the side, said.

The NFT avatar issued by ICQ has cost tens of millions of dollars in such a short period of time. It is impossible to say that other companies have no idea.

In the past few days, more than a dozen companies have announced their entry into the NFT market at the same time, announcing that they will launch NFT avatars, pictures, artworks, etc. Anyway, they are all sharpening their knives and preparing to cut leeks.

"ICQ issued a statement that it will never recognize NFT products issued by other companies, and NFT avatars issued by other companies cannot be used on ICQ, Hotmail and other platforms. If necessary, several companies can be sued!"

Song Yang said to Greg, even if ICQ does this, it probably won't be able to stop people who want to harvest leeks through NFT. As long as it is profitable, even if ICQ doesn't recognize them, those companies that engage in NFT will also It will definitely try to hype it up. What ICQ has to do is to distinguish itself from those companies that are obviously cutting leeks.

(End of this chapter)