My 1999

Room 1414, Peking University Resources Hotel.

The sound of typing on the keyboard came one after another. Li Yanhong, who was wearing a black suit and looking elegant, was looking at the computer screen, her brows furrowed, as if she had encountered something difficult.

Just then, a thin-faced man wearing a white shirt opened the door and walked in.

"Yanhong, the first tranche of funds from Defengjie and IDG has arrived."

Xu Yong said with a happy face.

He did have reason to be happy.

When global Internet companies were struggling to survive under the Nasdaq crisis, Baidu obtained key winter funds.

In September, DFJ Global Venture Capital Fund and IDG jointly invested US$10 million in Baidu.

Li Yanhong responded without saying much.

"What's wrong with you? You don't seem happy."

"Look at this."

Li Yanhong clicked on her computer screen.

Xu Yong came over to take a look.

Most of the entire IE display page is blank, except for a horizontal search box in the middle.

There is a button on the right side of the search box that says 'Search' in Simplified Chinese.

Above the search box, Chinese and English logos are displayed.

must.

Between the logo and the search box, there are four buttons.

The order is consultation, encyclopedia, Q\u0026A, and music.

Below the search box is a sentence.

"The best search engines, don't be evil."

Li Yanhong entered the word Bing in the search box using Wubi and pressed Enter.

Uh-huh.

Soon, a content page appeared in front of you.

Xu Yong was shocked.

"The jump is so fast, less than 0.5 seconds."

The speed of the jump is a reflection of the technical capabilities of a search engine and the strength of the company itself.

At present, their search engine can only index 15 million web pages. In addition, due to limited funds, they cannot purchase servers on a large scale, and the search delay is nearly two seconds.

The experience is far from comparable to the Bing in front of you.

On the content page, in addition to the horizontal bar with a search box at the top, there are four options: consultation, encyclopedia, Q\u0026A, and music.

The bottom is divided into two columns: left and right.

On the search page on the left, the first link is the 'Bing' official website, followed by the word 'official website' in eye-catching blue fonts.

The second article is the ‘Bing’ encyclopedia.

Below are the web pages about ‘Bing’, which are highly relevant.

On the right is Bing’s business phone number.

"Yanhong, why have you never heard of this Bing search? The technology seems to be stronger than ours."

"I've never heard of it before, but look."

Open the encyclopedia page.

There is an introduction to Bing above.

"Hongmeng Company? It turns out to be them." Xu Yong suddenly realized.

They are no strangers to Hongmeng, because many of the search talents they were originally optimistic about have been poached by the other party with high salaries.

Baidu has always been paying close attention to Hongmeng.

But the other party kept poaching people, but never launched its own search engine, so they slowly relaxed their vigilance. Unexpectedly, if the opponent didn't take action, it would be fine. If he did, he would be the king of attack.

"Look here."

Li Yanhong clicked on the computer with the mouse.

Xu Yong looked over.

"The South Korean subsidiary and the Xiangjiang subsidiary, have they become internationalized?"

"It's hard for me to believe it, but there shouldn't be any random writing on this kind of encyclopedia page."

After Li Yanhong finished speaking, her expression became serious.

"Old Xu, we should pay attention to this.

Bing is not Google, Vision, and Extie, which have not officially entered China, nor is it mechanical search engines such as Skynet and Youyou.

Their technology is better than ours, their applications are better, and they even have more money.

If we cannot keep up with them, we will slowly be eliminated by the market. "

Xu Yong also realized the powerful threat of Bing.

"I'll call everyone together right away, and let's work together to find a solution."

Li Yanhong nodded.

——

Wangjing Building.

Xu Liang, Xie Wen, Yu Jun and others gathered in front of the computer, staring at the screen.

Soon, the first click appeared on the backend of Phoenix Advertising System.

"It's a search for Bilang."

The technical department quickly reported.

According to the contract negotiated between the sales department and Bilang washing powder, one click is a dime.

This click earned Bing a dime in advertising fees.

After the first, there is the second.

"Successful."

Yu Jun shouted excitedly.

In the office, the search department employees also cheered happily.

Xu Liang breathed a sigh of relief and looked at each other with Xie Wen. They both saw the excitement on their faces.

The PPC advertising model was successful.

Greet Xie Wen, come to the office and sit down.

“How many companies have signed advertising contracts with us now?”

"There are currently 307, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises."

Xu Liang nodded, "If you want people to accept a new advertising model, there is always a process. Fortunately, we have laid a good foundation."

"Thanks to the website directory, otherwise it would be difficult for us to attract small and medium-sized enterprises to accept our bidding ranking."

"Continue to recruit customer service personnel. Each customer service agent will be responsible for up to ten companies, and they must communicate in a timely manner.

In addition, we need to strengthen the training of customer service staff on bidding ranking and keyword optimization to ensure that they can provide the correct keywords in a timely manner when consulting companies, so that companies feel that our promotion is worth the money. "

Xie Wen nodded and said.

“The quality of customer service and front-end promotion personnel is becoming more and more important to us.

Therefore, I plan to establish an online training school in each of our North China, Central China, and South China regions.

Specially train our and our partners' Internet promotion personnel to improve their professional quality. "

"Okay, no problem." Xu Liang nodded.

"There is another question." Xie Wen continued, "After more than a month of publicity, only counting the domestic market, the Bing search engine index database has reached 140 million, with 74 million daily visits.

But most of them click on the horizontal search box of the website directory, and rarely directly open our client to search for content.

On the contrary, many netizens are still accustomed to searching for the content they want from the search box of the portal website instead of the search engine.

To increase the frequency of Bing usage, users must change their online habits. "

"What are your plans?" Xu Liang asked.

Xie Wen handed over a document.

While Xu Liang was watching it, he said: "Now YS has a variety show called "Happy Dictionary". The ratings across the country are very good. And it fits well with our search engine.

My idea is, let's sponsor some money.

When the host reveals the answer, he does not report it directly, but first searches for the answer through our search engine, which subtly affects the audience's online habits. "

When Xu Liang talked about "Happy Dictionary", he was quite impressed.

Because the TV at home does not receive many channels, except Qilu Channel and a few local channels, namely ZY1 and ZY2.

Around 2,000 years ago, one of ZY2's popular TV programs was "Happy Dictionary".

"sure?"

"Are you really sure?"

"Are you sure you won't change it?"

"Congratulations, you got it!"

To this day, he still remembers Wang Xiaoya’s classic quotes.

"Let's talk to Y Video first and see how much it will cost if we sponsor it?"

Originally, he planned to use Qu Guangyun, the president of the Xiangjiang subsidiary, to influence the audience and change their search habits using the Monopoly prize-winning quiz.

But Xie Wen’s plan is also good, and it reaches a larger audience.

Xie Wen nodded.

"How are the negotiations with ICBC going?"

"Basically, it has been negotiated, 100 million Chinese coins, an interest rate of 5.52%, a five-year term, interest first and then principal."

"The interest rates are very cheap."

“Banks all over the country are now lending money, and we at Hongmeng are making money every day because of “Legend: War of Overlords”. The website’s revenue last month was as high as tens of millions.

With so much money leaving ICBC's account, as long as they are not fools, they will understand how rare quality customers like us are. "

Xu Liang nodded. In his previous life, he also went to the bank for a loan.

We know very well the nature of banks. If they have high revenue and good profits, the interest rate will be much lower if the bank begs you to lend money.

Your efficiency is not high, and the market is not doing well. You require the bank to not only have high interest rates, but even to lend a sum of money, you also need to give rebates to the bank's manager responsible for issuing loans.

Banks are so realistic.

"Now that the money has arrived, how is the negotiation going with Excite over there in the United States?"

"The other party is asking for US$28 million. Xiang Jie and people from Goldman Sachs are still negotiating, so they should be able to squeeze it out."

Xu Liang nodded.

"You can sign the contract if the price is below US$25 million. Don't delay for too long, otherwise the significance of acquisition and expansion will be lost."

Now Bing is spending money to grab time and market.

"I know. By the way, Sina has agreed to sign a contract with us and let Bing Search become their search service provider." Xie Wen said.

Xu Liang nodded, this result was within his expectation.

After all, the Nasdaq crisis is still bottoming out, and Internet companies are having a hard time. They rely entirely on the funds raised during listings to survive, so they can spend as little as possible.

And compared to Baidu, Hongmeng is still a major advertising customer of Sina.

This year and next, ads on Sina's homepage will be taken down by them.

Comparing the two, even a fool knows how to choose.

"Hurry up and talk to NetEase, Sohu, China.com and TOM. If we win them over, Bing's future will be stable."

Xie Wen nodded.

“Aren’t we going to enter the enterprise market?”

"No. The scale of the enterprise market is limited, so we won't join in the fun."

"In this way, Bai Du cannot be completely killed." Xie Wen said regretfully.

"Haha, there is only one breath left. However, it is better to leave them lingering than to fight to the death."

With 10 million US dollars in financing and many talented people, Baidu is always a threat on search engines.

If pushed to the extreme, they would risk everything to keep up with Bing, and also develop independent search engines and bid rankings.

Although it may not be as good as Bing, which has the advantage, it is still a headache.

It is better to leave the enterprise market, which is currently the most fragrant bait in the search engine field.

After they finish eating the enterprise market, looking back, Bing has established an unshakable advantage in independent search.

"Let's go, call Yu Jun, let's hold a celebration party for the people in the search department."

Xie Wen stood up with a smile.