Network Media Tutorial

Author: Liu Ren / Han Lei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: All business models on the internet start with network media. First, learn how to tell what you want to express, attract what you expect, and retain valuable content online, then you can discuss other specific businesses, such as what to sell to them or what to make them sell to others. Network Media Tutorial systematically introduces the characteristics of network media, how to use classified promotion to distribute your content, layout design, network media norms, and how to use communities to retain users. Specifically, it covers how to determine themes, the role of moderators, the use of mailing lists, BBS, BLOG, CMS interactions, and another content organization form—WIKI.
At the end of 1994, my colleague Shao Li and I were planning a computer newspaper in Chengdu. She said, "We should also set up a BBS to interact with our readers." A few days later, she took me to a computer company on Mochang Bridge in Chengdu’s electronic street. The manager wasn’t there, but two young men in their 20s demonstrated the BBS operation for us. When asked about the situation, one young man said, "Only three or four people usually log in daily, mainly to download software." Shao Li’s newspaper project never got approved for a publication number and failed, so setting up the BBS was naturally dropped. Shao Li later went to the U.S., and I joined China Computer News. If we could have treated the internet as a media in 1995, like today, and abandoned the paper media to independently set up our own BBS, who knows what would have happened afterward? At that time, BBS used "phone-line Modems" for PC-to-PC communication in FidoNet, which originated in the U.S. in 1984 and had inter-station relay functions, unlike Usenet, which appeared in Chicago in 1978. China’s earliest FidoNet BBS was the Great Wall Station set up by Luo Yi in Beijing in 1991.
Initially, the Great Wall Station had only a handful of users daily, most of whom were Chinese students dialing in from overseas. After spending time browsing foreign BBS networks, they discovered that their hometown also had a BBS station and decided to make the long-distance trip to check it out. According to Shi Tongyu, a famous FidoNet user in China, "The Great Wall Station mostly communicated directly with overseas amateur BBS networks via international long-distance calls. And Roy, who just launched the station, would do anything to get someone to Chat."
In 1993, Ding Lei, founder of NetEase, set up his BBS station with the help of Meng Chao, another founder of China’s FidoNet. In February 1995, Pony Ma, founder of Tencent, spent 50,000 yuan on four phone lines to set up Ponysoft in his home in Shenzhen. In January 1996, Vincent Qiu, author of WPS and a programmer, set up the "West Line" BBS station in Zhuhai. In May 1996, Lei Jun, CEO of Kingsoft, set up the "West Point" BBS station in Beijing.
In winter 1996, when I met Lei Jun at the bar in Zhongguancun for the first time, he asked for my email address. I reminded him to give me higher privileges on the "West Point" BBS so I could stay logged in for more than half an hour. In 1996, even though I was already obsessed with the internet, I still enjoyed the non-internet phone network FidoNet. In the office of China Computer News, colleagues would always know I had logged into the BBS the moment they heard the "meow" sound of the modem. I used a software called "Blue Wave Express" to log into the BBS server at the other end of the phone line. After logging in, I had to quickly download and upload message packets before disconnecting, all within a few minutes, because each phone line could only support one user online at a time. Most BBS stations only had one or two phone lines, so only one or two users could be online simultaneously, making the time for each user very limited. The message packets I downloaded contained replies to my last uploaded messages, and the packets I uploaded were my replies to the messages I had downloaded. This cycle of downloading and uploading took place five or six times a day. Not every attempt succeeded; most of the time, the line was occupied by others, so I used software to dial automatically. The moment I heard the modem's "meow" response, it was the most wonderful sound.
Email was the primary media form of early network media, and it has been replaced by the World Wide Web today. However, its zero-cost, large-scale distribution feature still reflects the essence of network media. Therefore, no network media today would ignore the importance of email magazines.
From January 1 to 2, 1998, the second national conference of China’s FidoNet station leaders (representatives) was held in Foshan, Guangdong. Qiu Bojun replaced Luo Yi as the China regional coordinator. At the end of 1996, I arranged for Qiu Bojun to visit Li Chaoyun, the editor-in-chief of China Computer News, to discuss establishing a BBS user division for Chinese computer users. By then, FidoNet had nearly 100 BBS stations in China, and Qiu Bojun wanted to bring FidoNet under national management through this division. Li Chaoyun, who valued BBS content, initially agreed, but the plan ultimately fell through because, after 1998, the internet rapidly expanded like wildfire, and the phone-based BBS, due to its outdated technology, quickly faded into history. Even today, technology remains the core element among the many factors of network media, and any network media lagging behind in technology will eventually fail.
At the end of 1997, while interviewing Wang Zhidong, then CEO of Sina.com (the predecessor of Sina.com), for the book Knowledge Heroes, the topic was still how he developed RichWin. Not a single mention was made of www.srsnet.com (Sina’s predecessor). In March 1998, I interviewed again for Knowledge Heroes, this time with Yan Yuanchao, chief engineer of Sina.com and the author of CCDOS. After the interview, we had lunch with Wang Zhidong and Yan Yuanchao at a nearby small restaurant. We discussed putting the upcoming Knowledge Heroes on www.srsnet.com. Wang Zhidong asked me to contact Wang Yan, who then asked me to contact Chen Tong. On an rainy morning in August 1998, I waited in Sina.com’s office for Chen Tong. After 10:00, a student-looking person rushed in with an umbrella—he was Chen Tong, who later became Sina.com’s senior vice president. At that time, Chen Tong was the only editor at srsnet.com, with a part-time student from Peking University handling design. As a result, their http://ithero.srsnet.com substation took more than a month to go live. This was more than two years after Wang Yan’s New multimedia group merged with Sina.com in April 1996, and less than four months after Sina.com announced the acquisition of "China Online," the largest overseas Chinese website company, on December 1, 1998.
Wang Zhidong’s initial goal in setting up srsnet.com was to promote RichWin, not to create what later became Sina.com. Wang Yan and technician Li Songbo were mainly responsible for maintaining the virtual hosting in the U.S., constantly busy with forums and chat rooms, but they didn’t write content. In August 1998, few people understood the internet. Some newspapers, when publishing news about Knowledge Heroes, automatically changed the second-level domain http://ithero.srsnet.com to http://www.ithero.com. Knowledge Heroes was China’s first book to be promoted online, and to keep http://ithero.srsnet.com engaging, I was particularly keen on updating it continuously. Chen Tong gave me the FTP password, but after I once messed up the entire website, I gave up manual updates. After that, I always wanted a personal website that was easy for me to update. It wasn’t until April 2000 that Donews.com was born. At that time, finding a programmer who could write a publishing system was extremely difficult. I eventually found Lin Xinglu, the author of Donews’s first version, who finally helped me get onto the internet.
On October 20, 1998, Chen Tong, following Wang Yan’s idea, used all the Xinhua news agency cables purchased for the World Cup coverage and organized them by category on the homepage of http://www.srsnet.com. The redesign began at 3 a.m. and was completed by 5 a.m., with the national anthem played throughout the office building to celebrate. This "trial-and-error" redesign laid the foundation for Sina.com’s news model.
In early 1999, while interviewing Ding Lei for the book Enterprise Methods at the Beijing Taiwan Hotel, he had already decided to abandon the free email development that had earned 4 million yuan in 1998 and shift to a commercial portal. Ding Lei was even willing to part ways with his original technical partner, Chen Leehua. Without Chen Tong, who understood content, Ding Lei focused on portals, with BBS and email as core interactive services. Shortly after getting to know Ding Lei, the survey I conducted for the book Zhongguancun Problem appeared prominently on the newly redesigned homepage of NetEase. Through this survey, I received feedback from a large number of netizens and experienced the thrill of one-to-many communication and the power of interactivity. Wang Jizhi, the inventor of the QWERTY keyboard, left a message online: "Please contact me, wjz@usa.net." Wang Jizhi later wrote a brilliant chapter for Zhongguancun Problem.
In early 1999, I interviewed Wang Zhidong again for my article Dreaming Online. After the interview, I told him, "srsnet.com is more valuable than RichWin." At that time, Wang Zhidong clearly did not agree with this view. He said, "RichWin won’t be abandoned, and we’ll release a new version in March, transforming it into a Chinese platform for the Chinese internet environment. The new RichWin will help users improve browsing speed and integrate multiple internet functions, such as email, online instant messaging, chat, and multiple encoding systems. Therefore, RichWin might be better named RichNet or RichWeb." Meanwhile, Zhang Chaoyang of Sohu had already firmly grasped the internet, even though he had neither technology nor money at the time. "You say I’m hyping things up, but American companies do it this way! We’re doing business while improving our products—can you say we’re just hyping?" Zhang Chaoyang recalled. He had spent a lot of money buying Microsoft’s free email product but said, "Without the source code, we can’t do deep development—it’s frustrating." For instant messaging, "Our collaboration with Polaris didn’t work out." Regarding personal homepages, "We did a lot of work, but it all felt rushed."
On September 14, 2000, Sohu announced it would use 4 million shares worth 30 million U.S. dollars to acquire ChinaRen. Later, Zhang Chaoyang told me he was willing to buy ChinaRen mainly because of its community and technology. "There are many tech experts at Tsinghua. Since Sohu’s founding, we’ve never had a tech expert, which is a big regret. I can do tech, I can program, but I’m too busy—I don’t have time. I have to raise funds, I have to manage." AsiaInfo was founded by a partnership of three or four people, who could divide tasks, but I’m the only one."
After 2000, Sina.com, Sohu, and NetEase grew increasingly similar, successively filling in their gaps, and China’s network media began to take shape, marking the start of its rapid development.
Liu Ren