The words hung in the air like an arrogant "GG," a defiant middle finger to the entire Silicon Valley Internet community.
After all, according to the latest industry reports, the total number of Internet users across North America was barely over two million.
This meant that yesterday, one out of every ten people online had clicked on that rudimentary blue link.
In a Palo Alto coffee shop, a group of young entrepreneurs stared at their screens, their coffee growing cold in their hands.
"One million two hundred thousand clicks..." one of the bespectacled programmers muttered, his voice dry. "Our entire site barely broke five thousand clicks last month."
"There's no technical skill involved!" another snapped, slamming his mouse down with a loud thud. "It's just a bunch of hyperlinks! Give me half a day, and I could build something ten times prettier!"
"And then what?" a companion coldly doused the idea with cold water. "Where will you post it? On your personal homepage that only your mom visits? Don't forget, Silicon Valley Online controls the largest BBS community in the country. With a single click, they can siphon off users like water from a tap. What do you think you can offer to compete with them?"
Similar conversations echoed in countless corners of Silicon Valley.
Envy, jealousy, and resentment fermented in the cramped office spaces, threatening to tear the very fabric of their sanity apart.
Many green-eyed rivals stormed into the "Internet Chat" section of the Silicon Valley Online BBS, desperately trying to gain some visibility in the pinned hot thread.
A user named "Net—Warrior" left a bitter comment: "This kind of technically worthless stuff becoming popular? It's a step backward for the Internet! It violates the spirit of decentralization—it's just an online version of the phone Yellow Pages, completely devoid of innovation!"
The comment was buried under hundreds of replies within two minutes.
"Is it that hard to admit someone's smarter than you?"
"Go ahead and build your own then. No one's stopping you. Oh, right—I checked yesterday, all the good domains with 'Directory' and 'Web' are taken. Maybe you could register Wb—"
"What about 'Trash.com'?"
"Don't be bitter. As someone who just learned to use the internet two weeks ago, I think this website is a lifesaver. I wouldn't go back to the days of memorizing domain names for anything."
Frank sat in his office, reviewing comments while listening to the GG Merchant's urgent inquiries on the phone. The smile on his face was brighter than the California sun.
"Yes, Mr. Smith, I understand your urgency regarding the banner GG. But as you can see from the data, the current pricing is different from yesterday's—how much has it increased? No, no, we're not talking about an increase; we're talking about a value reassessment."
After hanging up, Frank tossed the receiver back onto the desk and turned to Tom Kalinske, who was flipping through magazines on the sofa.
"Is this what Takuya called a 'dimensional reduction strike'?" Frank grabbed the data report from his desk and snapped it sharply, the crisp sound echoing in the room. "This feeling—it's fucking exhilarating."
Tom closed his magazine and glanced at the report. "It's exhilarating, alright, but you'd better pray the servers can handle it."
"Tell them to add servers, increase bandwidth—if they can't, make the telco add new equipment and lines!" Frank waved his hand grandly, his previous stinginess with bandwidth costs completely gone.
In a trailer office within the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University, the air was thick with the acidic tang of stale coffee and the heat radiating from cooling fans.
David Filo pulled his Stanford-logo baseball cap down over his face, slumping back in his chair with a long, drawn-out groan.
On the screen, the Webdir website glowed with a faint blue light. The figure "200,000 Independent Visitors" flashed like a slap to the face, making his head buzz.
"It's over, Jerry," Filo's voice muffled under the cap, thick with despair. "Our 'Jerry's Guide to the Global World Wide Web' died before it was even born. Look at this traffic—if ours had launched, we'd be lucky to get two hundred visitors."
Jerry Yang remained silent.
He sat cross-legged on the desk, a half-eaten French fry dangling from his lips, his brow furrowed in concentration.
It had all happened too fast.
They had been so proud of their idea for a categorized directory, convinced they had stumbled upon the gold mine of the internet.
But Silicon Valley Online had moved with lightning speed, as if they had stolen their blueprints and executed them even better—they had seized all the memorable domain names.
"Maybe we should just give up," Fei Luo said, lifting his hat to reveal his disheveled hair and a look of utter despondency. "Let's focus on writing the paper. At least the professor won't fail us for not doing Webdir."
"Wait."
Jerry Yang suddenly jumped down from his desk, leaning close to the screen and rapidly clicking the "Business Cooperation" link at the bottom of the Webdir page.
The page refreshed, displaying a crude and blunt pricing sheet.
"Look at this," Jerry Yang said, pointing at the screen, the dejected look in his eyes fading. " 'Homepage Recommendation Slot Bidding Mechanism' and 'Featured Category Top Placement Fee.' See the prices? Starting at five thousand US dollars."
Fei Luo leaned over to take a quick look and clicked his tongue. "Are they out of their minds? Classic corporate greed—their tactics are so ugly."
"Exactly. It's too commercial," Jerry Yang said, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, the expression of a hunter spotting a flaw in his prey. "David, think about it. If you were a small-time webmaster running a personal site about raising lizards, or the homepage for a university club, could you afford to pay thousands of dollars in GG fees to secure a top slot?"
Fei Luo shook his head. "That's insane. If I had that money, I'd buy a new server instead."
"Exactly," Jerry Yang snapped his fingers. "Webdir's strategy is clear: it's targeting wealthy corporations and major commercial websites. It's the 'Fifth Avenue' of the Internet, selling only luxury goods."
He paced the narrow corridor, his words coming faster as his thoughts sharpened. "But the Internet isn't just Fifth Avenue. It's more like our back alleys, those quirky, low-budget but fascinating personal homepages. People looking for like-minded individuals, wanting to share their passions but lacking the funds for promotion—Webdir doesn't care about them. Or rather, on Webdir, they'd be buried beyond the hundredth page, forever unseen."
"Since Webdir wants to be the tail of the phoenix, we'll be the head of the chicken."
Jerry Yang grabbed a pen and drew a bold circle on the whiteboard's architecture diagram, which they had originally planned to erase. "Webdir lists a thousand top-tier websites. We'll list ten thousand, a hundred thousand—the mid-tier and long-tail sites."
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