Chapter 270 That's Daily Active Users
"Actually, it means five hundred thousand users logged in within a 24-hour period," Pony explained, seeing the confusion on Su Yuanshan's face. "Simultaneous online users are only about a hundred thousand."
"Ah, so that's the daily active users," Su Yuanshan finally exhaled and smiled. "That makes sense. If there were really five hundred thousand users online at once, it would mean at least ten times that number registered, which would be five million — a third of the global internet users!"
Earlier this year, the global number of internet users had just passed the ten million mark, with the Lighthouse Country accounting for about 80% of that. According to the latest statistics, the Lighthouse Country's internet population surpassed ten million in August, and globally it had reached over fifteen million.
The explosive growth in internet users meant a bright future for the internet market. Sharp-eyed investors were rushing in like crazy — if you were a programmer and said you wanted to build a website or start a project, investors would immediately ask if you needed funding.
Xinghai Ventures was no exception; they had started angel investing in internet-related companies as early as last year.
"But I still feel it's happening pretty fast," Pony said as he brought coffee over personally to Su Yuanshan and Zhou Xiaohui, smiling. "Registrations have already surpassed a million, although there are probably some duplicate accounts."
The booming success of EM finally put Pony's mind at ease. When they launched EM, the decision to use a server-based data relay model had made the server costs astronomical. Moreover, because they aggressively promoted EM across several countries, it became the internet center's most expensive project.
However, under Su Yuanshan's subtle guidance and with the capital market's enthusiastic response, the internet center team gradually realized that in this era, if you could capture the market, any amount of spending was justified — at least from the investors' perspective.
Su Yuanshan nodded. "As long as EM stays on the right path, reaching one million, ten million, even hundreds of millions of users is perfectly normal — inevitable, really."
Pony's face lit up with happiness.
The best part of working under Su Yuanshan was right there — he often had even more optimism and confidence in your project than you did yourself.
Where else in the world could you find such a boss?
"Messaging apps have a very obvious first-mover advantage. Once users form a stable social circle, it's extremely difficult for competitors to break in," Su Yuanshan continued thoughtfully. "Have you all been paying attention to the legal standards in the West?"
"Yes," Pony said. "During the second version, we modified our user agreements based on legal advice from Xinghai's legal department. We also added privacy notices in a lot of places." He couldn't help but sigh. "According to feedback from our colleagues working overseas, Westerners' awareness of privacy and legal rights is incredibly strong. Compared to us..."
Pony trailed off and simply smiled, shaking his head.
Su Yuanshan chuckled. "I usually dislike blaming 'different national conditions' for things, but sometimes the reality is just that."
"Yeah... Anyway, have a look at our next plan," Pony said, handing two documents to Su Yuanshan and Zhou Xiaohui. "Right now, we're not sure what should be prioritized next."
Su Yuanshan took the documents. It was EM's project roadmap.
The current project, group chat, was almost complete — about 90% done — and they would soon release an internal beta. The next projects included "Friend Recommendations," "Advertising Display," and "Instant Translation." Beyond that were some more imaginative ideas, like launching casual games such as Tetris, implementing a ranking system, and even introducing a virtual currency.
"Some advertisers have already contacted us, hoping to place brand promotions," Pony said with a grin. "They really like the idea of advertising on the top banner of our chat windows."
Su Yuanshan couldn't help but laugh. "Dream on!"
At the top of the chat window, there was only the EM logo and the slogan — "Making Communication Simple."
"If we put anything there, it should be something for Yuanxin..." Zhou Xiaohui chimed in, pointing at the file. "I think the Instant Translation idea sounds great. What exactly is Friend Recommendation? And why can't we work on multiple features at once?"
"Because it's impossible to do it all at once," Su Yuanshan said, putting down the file. "Each one is a major project."
Zhou Xiaohui looked over at Pony.
Pony nodded. "Instant Translation, for example — when we first proposed it, it was meant to represent our pursuit of barrier-free communication, allowing people around the world to chat regardless of language. But once we dug deeper, we realized it's a massive undertaking... Without ten years and a hundred-person international team, it's impossible to do it properly."
Zhou Xiaohui frowned. "But Friend Recommendation sounds easier?"
"Relatively, yes. But to recommend friends, you have to analyze data and build algorithms. And once you add that kind of load, our current servers wouldn't be able to handle it."
"Of all the options, the easiest one is advertising. Just add a link entry, click it, and it jumps to a web page."
Su Yuanshan thought for a moment, sipping his coffee before saying slowly, "We can build the advertising framework, but don't actually launch ads yet. Maybe just link it to the EM homepage."
"As for Friend Recommendation, Instant Translation, and even the mini-games, they can all be added later."
"But remember one thing," Su Yuanshan said seriously, lifting his head. "Every new feature must be considered based on real user needs. Never bloat the software to the point where it loses its core — simple communication."
"We're keeping that in mind," Pony said, pointing to an old computer in the corner of the office. "That's a four-year-old 486 machine. Every time a new version comes out, we first test it on that. Smoothly running EM and basic office software is our minimum standard."
"Good." Su Yuanshan put the file down and smiled. "Honestly, I don't have much more to add. Push Instant Translation back a bit — we're still mainly targeting same-language socializing for now. As for Friend Recommendations... that's worth doing."
"Actually, I think the mini-games are worth it too," Zhou Xiaohui said, her eyes lighting up at the mention of Tetris. "It would turn EM into a kind of casual gaming platform."
"One step at a time," Su Yuanshan chuckled. "You can't fatten a pig in one day. Our biggest issue isn't lack of ideas — it's that the computers can't keep up."
"Mainly the CPU and memory can't keep up," Pony joked. "Maybe once our Sol architecture chips are ready, we can finally save the software world."
"Haha, the Sol architecture is almost ready," Su Yuanshan said, thinking about Cyrix's progress and feeling genuinely pleased.
Just yesterday, he received the news: Cyrix had sent their chips for tape-out.
Which meant... the storm surrounding Intel's first-generation Pentium was about to break.
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