LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 57: Blowout & Black Material
"Crossdress! Crossdress! Crossdress!" The group of contestants and four mentors clapped and heckled. The cameraman also came with the camera and took close-ups of Tao Mu's face as if it didn't cost any money.
Tao Mu looked at Du Kang with some exasperation. Du Kang chuckled gleefully and shrank back behind Wen Bao, doing good deeds and hiding it deeply——but with his 1.9m height, hiding behind Wen Bao's 1.75m height was no different from not hiding at all.
The school beauty selected by Beijing Film was Xu Yingying from class 01 of the junior year of the acting department. She still remembered Tao Mu's talent for photography during military training so she smiled and jokingly said: "I have to tell you guys, Tao Mu is not only good-looking, but also very good at photography and makeup. I think if he dresses up in women's clothing, he won't even need a makeup artist to put makeup on him, he can take care of the styling perfectly and without problem."
After a brief pause, Xu Yingying deliberately said: "I asked Tao Mu to help me take the art photos when I was doing my resume. It was very beautiful. The military training photos used during the preselection for the national school beauty and hunk competition by the girls of Beijing Film's '08 class were all taken with Tao Mu's help."
Listening to what Xu Yingying said, many contestants immediately recalled the various military training uniform photos uploaded by Beijing Film students when FlyNews was just launched. Many people were very curious at the time. But they also felt that the photos were very beautiful and gave off a unique aura. Later, the scope of the selection of school beauty and hunk was expanded, and many Beijing Film girls also changed to artistic photos. But in contrast, they actually did not leave a greater impression than those previous military uniform photos that lacked any makeup done.
They really didn't expect that these photos were taken with Tao Mu's help.
The female contestants who originally didn't know now looked at Tao Mu with brighter eyes. If it was a woman’s nature to love beauty, then Tao Mu, who could take beautiful pictures, must be the type of boyfriend that all girls aspire to find——handsome, talented, good personality, rich, and could take beautiful pictures of his girlfriend.
At that moment, a male contestant asked Gu Xun: "Did Tao Mu take your photos for you?"
Gu Xun smiled bitterly and shook his head with a grievous expression on his face: "No. Tao Mu only takes pictures of girls, and they must be beautiful girls. Big grown men like us can forget it."
One remark and the contestants bursted into laughter once again. Everyone clapped their hands and heckled, deliberately making weird "yo yo" sounds to tease Tao Mu.
Tao Mu had a helpless expression on his face as he raised his hands to defend himself: "Slander, absolute slander. Who says I don't take pictures of boys? The key is that no boys asked me to. It's not like I can take the initiative myself, right?"
Tao Mu felt he was very justified, only to be refuted back by Gu Xun: "Then how can you take the initiative to look for female classmates with your camera?"
"Acknowledge it. You are a gals before pals person. Your dorm's classmate Du Kang has already told us all about it."
Tao Mu turned his head abruptly, staring at Du Kang with piercing eyes. Du Kang looked up at the sky with an innocent look. Suddenly someone pulled the topic back on track: "Ai, don't let Tao Mu lead you by the nose. Weren't we talking about Crossdressing!"
"That's right!" The words reminded everyone, and everyone clapped their hands again and heckled: "Crossdress! Crossdress! Crossdress!"
"Fine! Fine! Fine!" Tao Mu interrupted the contestants. Just when everyone thought Tao Mu was about to surrender, they heard Tao Mu outrageously saying, "Today is everyone's rehearsal and it won't be good for me to steal the show. Then how about this. When the number of registered users on FlyNews exceeds 100 million, I will wear women's clothing and dance for everyone, okay?"
"No!" The contestants screamed and expressed their disapproval.
A school hunk from a 985 science and technology university said loudly: "According to the "Statistical Report on the Development of the Internet in China", in 2008, the number of people who use the Internet in China as a whole is less than 230 million. You are clearly acting shamelessly."
Worthy of being a top student from the 985 science and technology university, reciting statistics and providing evidence with just an open of the mouth. When this bunch of boys and girls heard this, the heckling became more and more fierce.
Tao Mu was forced into helplessness, so he could only put his hands together cutely to beg for mercy: "Come on. We young people should have some expectations for the future, don't we? Anyway, I have given the conditions, and whether or not you can see my crossdress dance performance, it'll depend on the sincerity of all Chinese netizens."
"So it's happily decided then!"
Tao Mu fled amidst the wailing of all the contestants and mentors. But he didn't know that this small episode was quickly edited by the unscrupulous post-production group into the rehearsal footage and uploaded to FlyNews in one fell swoop. Moreover, it was even marked in bold!
The melon-eating netizens who saw this video all went crazy. As if they had been injected with chicken blood, they began urging their classmates, friends, colleagues, and family members to sign up for FlyNews. Then they took screenshots of the new accounts they worked hard to bring in and posted them on FlyNews, continuously @-ing Tao Mu and even including a line of limerick they came up with——Tao Mu must not only crossdress and dance, he must also take my photo stance.
Netizens’ trend following characteristic had already shown itself as early as the National Day military uniform celebration. Coming across such a fun thing, of course they would not miss it. So one by one, they all became the tap water of FlyNews, lobbying people around them to register for FlyNews accounts while offline, and then upload screenshots and attach a line of limerick. (TN: Chinese word for ‘lobby' sounds the same as ‘tap water')
In addition, celebrity artists who had already registered for FlyNews accounts, and school beauty and school hunk contestants also used their FlyNews accounts to urge fans to bring in new users. So in order to attract users, some fans posted on various message boards, forums, and campus websites. These children, who were on average between 14 and 20 years old, don’t know the difficulties of the world. They only heard a contestant saying in the video that the people on the Internet in 2008 China numbered 230 million.
So they thought: Then wouldn't I just need to bring in less than half of the people to complete the request of FlyNews' CEO in order to see Tao Mu dancing in women's clothing with my own eyes? !
Adhering to such a simple mindset, these children began to jump actively around. Because the initial audience for FlyNews was students from various colleges and universities. Therefore, the initial registration mechanism stipulated by FlyNews was based on a system for identifying users——one must register with one's student ID or mobile phone number. This decision was originally made to ensure the fairness of the voting. But in fact, one mobile phone number could register ten accounts. However, most netizens did not know this rule, or had never noticed it.
As a result, a lot of netizens also had a set mind-set when they pulled people offline, those people they pulled into FlyNews were all real registered users. When these newly registered netizens were drawn in, they all joined in the fun and followed the trend, adding their own effort to this publicity event.
Soon, this incident inexplicably turned into an Internet event. Almost all Chinese netizens joined this carnival. They watched the number of registered users of FlyNews increase from the original couple hundred thousands little by little, 200,000, 300,000, 400,000…..breaking one million…..breaking two million…..
In the end, even the news media got wind of this and began to publish articles to discuss the phenomenon of Internet carnival caused by FlyNews. There were even authoritative financial magazines and Internet magazines commenting that FlyNews' blowout user growth was "unbelievable" and "spectacular", and could be included in textbooks' "classic marketing cases".
As the group of netizens entertained themselves, they also suddenly developed a "simulation game" type of pleasure and accomplishment.
It was us who created this "miracle" spoken of in the industry. FlyNews being able to exceed tens of millions of registered users within just a few months of its launch was all thanks to us. There were even attentive netizens who remembered that the one millionth user of FlyNews, the ten millionth user of FlyNews was absolutely someone I had brought over.
There was a saying in consumer psychology that once consumers developed a special attitude towards a consumer platform, they could easily become loyal users of this consumer platform. And in a market economy, customer loyalty meant strong purchasing power.
It was just that this kind of customer loyalty was difficult to cultivate. Many big brands and companies that had been established for decades or even over a hundred years were trying their best to find and maintain such a customer loyalty base. FlyNews, which had only been online for a few months, actually managed to easily achieve this——of course, under the continuous shameless operation of a certain founder.
So, besides Tao Mu's main job as an actor, his marketing talent was the first to attract the attention of the outside world.
For example, the Weibo platform that had always been paying attention to Tao Mu was the most dumbfounded——because of Tao Mu's outrageous yet brilliant crossdance dance performance incentive plan, all netizens' attention was once again attracted by FlyNews. In this extreme carnival mode, there simply were no people paying attention to the big event of "all Weibo employees taking over FlyNews" that was elaborately planned by the Weibo platform. The big news of Weibo's CEO personally registering on FlyNews was like a drop of water dispersing into the sea under this frantic user recruiting mode that all netizens had fallen under. Even if it caused a slight ripple, it soon disappeared in the storm of the Internet carnival.
As a result, Gao Yonghuai couldn't help but sigh at Tao Mu's marketing methods once again. And also deepening his mentality to have a good relationship with FlyNews and Tao Mu himself once again.
But these were all things to follow. Now, all netizens were trying their best to pull people to FlyNews, all waiting to see Tao Mu, the young CEO who created FlyNews, to crossdress and dance after the website exceeded 100 million registered users.
Tao Mu didn't expect that just a simple remark would cause such a big response on the Internet. Sighing with feeling, he looked at Yun Yi who was sitting in front of him with a smile. He was indeed worthy of being China's richest man in the future, just a casual gesture from him could cause such a bloody storm——
That's right, this time the publicity plan of "China's Netizens Uniting to Join FlyNews, Just Waiting To Watch Tao Mu Crossdress" was planned and launched by bigshot Yun. It had to be said, he really had the potential of being China's richest man in the future. Just a small test drive could become a classic marketing case sought after by the industry. Sure enough, excellent talents were excellent talents no matter what position they were in.
"That's also because of your good cooperation." Following Tao Mu's overflowing praise, Yun Yi also entered the mutual praising mode with a smile: "If you were not so handsome, able to create FlyNews at such a young age and also willing to play around, possessing none of the airs of a domineering CEO at all. It is estimated that those netizens will not so sincerely solicit users for FlyNews."
"So the top priority now is to find a way to reward everyone." Tao Mu touched his chin, putting the crossdressing thing aside. It was not that he had any resistance to wearing women's clothing and dancing. In fact, as an actor, Tao Mu had played all kinds of roles in his previous life, and dancing in women's clothing was simply child's play for him. It was just that having already said that, Tao Mu could not give the reward in advance before the number of registered users on FlyNews exceeded 100 million.
Besides, the netizens had worked so hard to help him and just a video of him dancing in crossdress could not express Tao Mu's gratitude at all.
"Then what are you planning to do?" Yun Yi asked with a smile. He knew that his collaborator had always had many interesting ideas.
"Don't worry, I have already prepared it a long time ago." Tao Mu raised an eyebrow at Yun Yi and smiled. It wouldn't be too troublesome, he just had to activate some of his development plans for FlyNews in advance.
That afternoon, Tao Mu met with Luo Xi and Long Tianao again to prepare to discuss with the two of FlyNews' desire to purchase the copyrights of the two major entertainment companies' backlogs of movies and TV dramas.
In 2008, the Internet had not developed as fast as in the later years, and copyright awareness was not high. Therefore, the movies and TV dramas produced by major film and television companies, other than being broadcasted on the TV station during a certain period of time, were all stored in the warehouse the rest of the time.
What Tao Mu wanted to do was to discuss with Longteng Entertainment and Summer Star Entertainment on buying the copyright of these dust collecting movies and TV dramas, and broadcast them on the website for free.
"I have no problem here." Luo Xi said immediately. Under Tao Mu's guidance, she earned a lot of money in the international crude oil market. Within the company, she was trusted and seen positively by even more shareholders, and her authority was increasing day by day. Even if it was just to reciprocate the favor, Luo Xi would not refuse Tao Mu's request. If it was not for the fact that she might not be able to explain it to the upper management, Luo Xi even wanted to give away all the films and dramas of Longteng Entertainment to FlyNews for free——anyway, it would just collect dust in the warehouse otherwise.
Long Tianao's thinking was similar to Luo Xi's. Because he strongly advocated that Summer Star Entertainment artists should register on FlyNews. At first, everyone didn't care all too much, they mainly agreed to make the young master happy. But with the continuous shameless operations from FlyNews, those celebrity artists who were willing to register on FlyNews——especially those who were very active on taking everyday photos and engaging with fans and netizens, unexpectedly received unprecedented attention on the Internet. Even their recognition among the public had increased.
Especially those two mentors who could not reject Long Tianao's request to join the competition. They were originally only C-list idol singers, the kind that no one cared about during commercial performances. But now just walking on the streets they could be recognized by passersby and be chased after for autographs and group photos. Even fans of other contestants came to cheer them on during commercial performances.
One must know that in the entertainment industry, the attention received by artists was directly linked to their interests and the future of their career. This change immediately attracted the attention of interested people. There were even celebrity agents starting to contact FlyNews, wanting their stars to serve as special guests on the national school beauty and hunk selection contest.
Even the companies, Longteng Entertainment and Summer Star Entertainment themselves came to be noticed by many netizens because of the free sponsor name attached in front of the program. Some netizens who were interested in becoming celebrities and joining the entertainment circle even found their way to the official FlyNews accounts of Longteng Entertainment and Summer Star Entertainment and asked how to become a celebrity artist.
This kind of thing happened frequently, bringing different degrees of benefits to both the company and the artists. Long Tianao, who had previously been a force to urge artists to join FlyNews, immediately became a "prescient" talent and also received more regard in the company.
It was precisely because of this that Long Tianao's position and influence in Summer Star Entertainment increased significantly. So now answering Tao Mu's words, he was more confident and more decisive than before.
Sure enough, as the two rich second-generation classmates returned to their respective companies and discussed it with everyone. The company executives who had tasted the benefits from earlier immediately agreed to Tao Mu's request for cooperation. Luo Xi was the most ruthless, and directly proposed to package all the film sources of Longteng Entertainment to Tao Mu at the cheap cabbage price of one million yuan.
Fortunately, Tao Mu was not the kind of person who killed chickens to get the eggs and only ate meat by himself without even letting his business partner have soup. He resolutely opposed Luo Xi's proposal, and the final clause was one million yuan plus 10% of the advertising fee as a share to purchase the network broadcast rights of all of Longteng Entertainment's film sources. The contract period was five years.
Summer Star Entertainment's conditions were the same.
Then, Tao Mu returned to FlyNews with all the film sources of the two major film and television companies. He ploaded all videos directly to the Bullet Screen Network, and then added an enlistment of advertising companies at the beginning of the videos.
Netizens who had already fallen into the "hot-blooded event of pulling people" mode were caught off guard, hit on their heads by a large number of classic film and television dramas. It was such a delightful surprise that they simply ignored Tao Mu's subtitles in the opening of the videos, and enthusiastically clicked into the video they wanted to watch, even forgetting about pulling more people.
The number of registered users of FlyNews which had been in a blowout state finally slowed down. Many competitors or industry colleagues who had been paying attention to the growth momentum of FlyNews shook their heads, feeling that Tao Mu was too young and didn't know how to grasp such a good opportunity. Actually, giving out benefits himself and affecting the enthusiasm of netizens to attract more users.
Tao Mu didn't mind at all. He always thought that it was meaningless for just himself to be happy and profitable, believing that everyone should have fun together. As the saying went "it is much more joyful to share the joy than enjoy alone". The wisdom of the ancestors was always right in the end.
After uploading all the videos, Tao Mu, who settled down to wait for the advertising companies to jump into his trap themselves, didn’t know that while he patiently waited for money to fly in, Yao Wenxiao, who had been hiring private investigators to investigate him, finally found his "black material." And was currently making preparations to sharpen the sword and make a big move.
A storm of public revelation that "the founder of FlyNews turned out to be a nightclub MB" broke the news jointly by more than a dozen paper and television media. At this time when the development of FlyNews was in full swing, it was like a pot of cold water being poured on hot oil.
Suddenly stirring up a huge wave.
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