Chen Pingjiang nodded and praised:
"This event is well done. We need to use Renren.com to further boost the popularity of Parking Mania, and also use Parking Mania to increase Renren.com users. The two complement each other and neither can be without the other."
"Additionally, there's another very important matter. Previously, Renren.com was mainly used by students from two university towns in Dongjiang. The topics they discussed were relatively limited to the small circle of Dongjiang and mostly concerned campus affairs.
If all posts are like this, it will be difficult for social users and national users to participate, and thus unable to drive Renren.com's activity. It's best to open another section and move all these posts there."
"For the next two months, the homepage should feature more premium recommendations, promoting topics that social users are interested in and keeping up with current events."
"The most important focus point is also to cultivate some opinion leaders, or internet celebrities, invite famous people and celebrities to join, and we ourselves should also create some."
As Chen Pingjiang spoke, Zhuo Ling diligently took notes.
In essence, Chen Pingjiang was doing this to remove the "university student" and "Dongjiang" labels from Renren.com.
These would not be conducive to Renren.com's nationwide promotion.
White-collar workers would find university students too "low," thinking,
"How can I use such a community?"
Users from other provinces and cities nationwide would also think,
"A community from Dongjiang? What's the point of me using it?"
This is also like a brand upgrade for some products, shedding pettiness and giving off a high-end feel.
......
If you draw a curve graph of Parking Mania's popularity and registered user count, you would see a vertical column shoot up almost ninety degrees that evening.
The fission reaction reached its 24-hour peak that evening.
In fact, Renren Parking Mania's retention rate was quite impressive, reaching seventy percent.
That is to say, out of ten people who clicked into Renren.com, at least seven would play, which is an astonishing number.
The most intuitive feeling about the popularity of Renren Parking Mania was that before its dedicated section went live, it was as if the entire platform had been flooded, with topics about it everywhere.
This was also Chen Pingjiang's little trick.
If a separate Parking Mania section were set up and all posts categorized there, outsiders wouldn't feel the full impact.
"My teacher parked his car in my spot, and after I ticketed him, he called me out in class!"
"I found a new career and am willing to work hard for it."
"Today I accidentally invited my dad to play with me, and now his car is in my spot. I want to ticket it but don't dare."
"I found a great method: register a few sub-accounts, park their cars in my main account's parking lot, and then ticket all of them."
"This game perfectly satisfies my fantasy of luxury cars. It's impossible to own them in reality, so it's good to enjoy them in the game."
"Currently, there's only the BMW 730; rumor has it that sports cars will be added later."
"This game is suitable for slacking off at work; no need to waste time sitting in front of a computer. It's quite suitable for office workers like me and those with children."
"My wife used to scold me when she saw me playing games, but tonight when she got home, she actually played with me enthusiastically."
"Looking for Parking Mania friends, DM me to connect."
All kinds of posts about Parking Mania emerged, generating even greater buzz than "the first cup of milk tea in spring."
As a social game with mass appeal, Parking Mania was undoubtedly suitable for all ages and genders.
Consequentially, the original Renren.com users, meaning students from various universities in Dongjiang, suddenly discovered that at some point, many office workers had appeared on the Renren.com platform.
Users from other cities even started to appear.
As more and more people played the game, they also began to pay attention to the main Renren.com site.
What made most office workers feel welcome was that, compared to Xiaonei.com, Renren.com seemed more inclusive of them.
First, there was a difference in names; "Renren.com" was clearly more inclusive than "Xiaonei.com." The three characters "校内园" (Xiaonei Yuan, meaning "campus garden") overly emphasized the campus attribute.
In terms of UI design, Renren.com had stronger appeal, appearing grand, concise, and aesthetically pleasing.
Nor did it have cumbersome "Popularity Stars" at the bottom of the homepage like Xiaonei.com, which, when clicked, revealed mostly ordinary university students in the eyes of adults.
Chen Pingjiang had always defined Renren.com as a communication platform, not a media outlet.
Any new application related to users could be integrated, and numerous sections were opened before the launch of the Parking Mania mini-game.
These included not only general categories like: Internet Buzz, Emotional Life, and Domestic and International News.
But also more specialized and niche ones: Car Enthusiast Club, Online Literature, Workplace Life, Story Discussion, Culinary Exchange, Mahjong, and Pet Communication.
These sections alone were enough to deliver a dimensional-reduction strike against Xiaonei.com.
After all, at this time, Xiaonei.com was rapidly advancing among university students.
At least for now, the positioning and target audiences of the two websites still had some differences.
Xiaonei.com was truly an SNS used by students, while on Renren.com's side, Chen Pingjiang merely used university students as a springboard, with the ultimate goal being office workers and all social users.
After all, Xiaonei.com was established earlier and had already largely divided up the university user base, so Renren.com didn't need to engage in direct combat with Xiaonei.com in its early stages.
Chen Pingjiang only needed to capture social users through social games and cultivate sufficient loyalty to be invincible.
By the time Xiaonei.com reacted, it would be too late; it would have to eventually target the office worker demographic anyway, as the university student market alone was not enough to sustain it.
This was like flag bearers in a standoff, each developing independently before a final decisive battle.
However, Renren.com's user quality was a notch higher than Xiaonei.com's.
.........
Huijin Building.
Some employees had almost finished their tasks and could have left at eight, but seeing that it wasn't long until nine, they decided to wait a bit longer to get a free late-night snack.
After nine, they figured, since it was already this late, they might as well wait until ten to go back, as the taxi would be free then.
Free late-night snacks tasted better.
Many people weren't even hungry, having eaten dinner less than two hours ago, but Chen Pingjiang allowed them to take the snacks home.
In the lounge, board members sat together, eating late-night snacks and chatting.
Among them, Miao Bingwei and Li Xi were the most excited.
As the project leader for Parking Mania, the game's excellent performance naturally brought him prestige.
The entire department's bonuses were already secured, and Miao Bingwei appeared much more confident during internal department meetings today.
The explosive popularity of Parking Mania even gave him the illusion,
"Was I that amazing at making games? Was game development this easy?"
However, this thought only lingered in his mind for a few seconds before being dismissed.
He wasn't that arrogant.
This project itself was spearheaded by the boss, Chen Pingjiang, who also provided the ideas and partial planning.
Their technical department was more like an OEM.
Miao Bingwei even felt ashamed that he had argued with Chen Pingjiang about server expansion back then.
Looking back now, it was fortunate that his boss hadn't listened to him.
In less than 24 hours, today's daily active users had already surpassed 150,000, and it was possible to exceed 200,000 or even 300,000 tomorrow.
This was far from his initial estimate of 200,000 daily active users.
If servers had been configured for 200,000 daily active users, they would probably have crashed tomorrow.
Li Xi's excitement stemmed from the fact that the game's success meant all the gambling agreements could be fulfilled, and there would be additional income from exceeding targets, which was a huge sum of money.
The pressure on him, and indeed on the entire company, instantly vanished.
Currently, it seemed that Parking Mania could surpass a million daily active users in a very short time.
Even if calculated based on a million daily active users, Renren.com could earn tens of millions in advertising fees from Chery alone.
There were eight such partners, four of which paid more in advertising fees than Chery.
This alone accounted for one hundred million in revenue!
He planned to immediately send an email to all partners to show off once he got the 24-hour daily active user data upon arriving at the office tomorrow morning.
After finishing his late-night snack, Chen Pingjiang wiped his mouth, then picked up the mineral water on the table and guzzled down more than half a bottle, only then letting out an ungraceful burp.
With female colleagues present, he held back from smoking after the meal, and instead said with a smile,
"When we have our own headquarters building in the future, we'll build the best cafeteria, arranging famous snacks from various regions and all eight major cuisines. Everyone can eat whatever they like."
As soon as he said this, it immediately drew cheers.
As corporate drones, who wouldn't want a good company cafeteria, preferably with good quality and low prices?
Shu Mang immediately raised her hand in agreement:
"This is great. Tonight's late-night snacks were overly salty and terribly expensive, and they were already a bit cold when delivered. Heating them in the microwave is troublesome, and most importantly, they're in plastic boxes, so they can't even be microwaved."
Wan Yuqian also said,
"It's best to take only as much as you can eat; I can never finish it all."
"I can finish my food, but it's too much trouble to run downstairs every day to eat and then run back up. Plus, once I'm down there, I don't even know what to eat. It would be great if our Renren Waimai could launch services in the city center."
Chen Pingjiang pondered,
"It's probably not possible in the short term. Renren Waimai could be implemented in university towns partly because destinations are more concentrated, and partly because there are many part-time university students.
Currently, these conditions are not met in the city center; payment issues and the limited number of riders restrict development, unless we invest heavily."
Li Xi nodded:
"The boss is right."
Chen Pingjiang tapped the table and said,
"Let's change up tomorrow's late-night snack. We've been eating bento boxes for days, and I'm tired of them."
"What do you want to eat?"
Chen Pingjiang thought for a moment:
"Sichuan plays with oil, Cantonese plays with soup; Shandong cuisine emphasizes thirteen spices. Southerners eat shrimp, northerners eat crab; Guangdong and Guangxi eat through nature. Northeast bean paste dips the world, and Yunnan mushrooms explore the fairy realm."
"So, tomorrow let's have duck blood vermicelli soup and soup dumplings."
"?"
"?"
Everyone looked at Chen Pingjiang speechlessly.
Well, after all that talk, making us all drool, that's it?
(End of Chapter)