Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 675 Mr. Ma, I'll lend you my people! (4K)

When the Chinese season came to an end, the afterglow of the Olympics had almost dissipated.

Similarly, Chen Ran’s ATP points have been almost deducted.

Even he himself joked that the ATP's rules were simply exploiting the players to the extreme and there was no thought of letting them rest for a while.

Chen Ran also started some restorative training and gradually increased his intensity.

The unfamiliarity of the body still exists, and when one is absent from games and training for a long time, the physical fitness tank is likely to run low.

Recovery is a long process for any athlete.

Fortunately, the year-end finals are held in Shanghai, so Chen Ran is close to the venue and does not need to travel long distances like other contestants, suffer from jet lag, and adapt to the environment.

If the year-end finals were held in a foreign country, Chen Ran would most likely withdraw.

"Very good. At least with my current physical condition, the system no longer has red lights!" Chen Ran sighed.

On the eve of the Olympic finals, his physical condition, under the monitoring of the system, had actually given a warning, but Chen Ran had no choice but to burn himself.

This is the only exception.

After finishing a day's training, Chen Ran returned to the building of his company.

In the past few days, in addition to attending some tours of the China season as a guest, he returned to his hometown province and city to accept a series of commendation activities.

Although that little reward was insignificant in his eyes.

But Chen Ran did not act like a big shot at all. He appeared with other Olympic athletes and later appeared in activities on various campuses.

So far, China has the second largest number of tennis courts in the world, second only to the United States.

Originally, this number would not be reached until after 2023.

Chen Ran's sudden appearance brought this time point forward by 15 years.

Especially when he returned to his hometown, there were tennis courts everywhere, which was almost the same as in Wuhan.

Not long after Chen Ran lay down in the company's office, his cell phone rang.

This time it was the producer of the tennis movie who called, mainly to discuss the shooting time with Chen Ran.

At this moment, Chen Ran realized that being a professional tennis player was not easy.

For example, Michael Jordan filmed "Space Jam" during the NBA off-season, but the NBA off-season is very long, while the tennis off-season is very short, only more than a month at the end of the year.

"Then let's set it after the Australian Open!" Chen Ran thought about it and finally decided on this time period.

After the Australian Open, there will be a long vacation if he gives up the Middle East season, the North American season, and the early part of the clay court season.

Anyway, he has nothing to protect these days.

Actually, there was a holiday after Wimbledon, but it was too hot at that time.

However, this does not mean that Chen Ran will give up all these competitions, but he will make appropriate selections.

Of course, there will be dissatisfaction from the ATP side.

They hope that Chen Ran will participate in more competitions, and even set a goal post for players who want to participate in the "Year-End Finals" next year, commonly known as the "Chen Ran Clause."

"I have to participate in 10 of the 8 Masters tournaments to secure a spot in the year-end finals, so does that mean I can withdraw from two of them?" After hesitating for a long time, Chen Ran couldn't decide what to do for a while.

Theoretically, although the champion prize money of the 56-draw Masters is not as high as that of the 96-draw Super Masters, the points are the same, both 1000 points, and the competition only needs 5 rounds.

Chen Ran doesn't lack that little bonus, so he prefers to miss the Super Masters Tournament with 96 draws.

One less round is one less round!

Starting from next year, there will be five Super Masters tournaments with 96 draws, namely Sunshine Double, Madrid, Rome and Shanghai.

The Magic City cannot be absent because this is a home game.

The Miami Masters is operated by IMG, so it would be difficult for him to miss it.

So he plans to choose two out of the three stops: Indian Wells, Madrid and Rome.

In addition, there is the China Open, which will be upgraded to a Masters tournament with 56 draws next year, and Chen Ran will not be able to miss this stop.

As for the Paris Masters?
In the past six years, Chen Ran has only participated once, which is considered to be quite arrogant.

But starting next year, the year-end finals will be held in London, and if things go as they have in the past, it will be held in London for exactly twelve years.

Therefore, Chen Ran’s competition plan must be adjusted, including the Paris Masters and the year-end finals in London.

It's a package deal, and the Paris Masters is a perfect warm-up for the year-end finals in London.

After finalizing the filming date for next year's tennis movie, Chen Ran left the rest of the matters, including the official announcement, to the team.

However, as a boss, he took a general look at the company's performance.

Up to now, "Qidian.com" is almost the only dominant company in the industry, especially after Chen Ran acquired the second and third largest companies in the industry.

What surprised him was that "Zhongheng.com" was never established. It was originally scheduled to appear in September 2008.

It seems that the strength of "Qidian.com", especially after the introduction of QQ login and traffic diversion, is so obvious that it has discouraged countless wait-and-see capital, including Perfect World.

What does it mean that "Zhongheng.com" did not appear? Maybe Fenghuo, who is known as the "chief of the Silijian", will not change jobs?
But Chen Ran knows one thing very well: if one company dominates the market and there is no competition, it will not be a big problem in the short term, but it will inevitably cause problems over time.

For example, various internal conflicts, intrigues, and even management abusing their power for personal gain and suppressing dissidents will occur.

So, he immediately introduced a new rule, allowing all non-platinum authors to freely switch jobs among these three novel websites and choose at will in order to find the novel website that suits them best.

Roll up, all three of them must be rolled up.

Since there is no enemy outside, we can create competition internally.

It is not good for two companies to dominate the market alone; a three-way competition is the most appropriate.

Then, Chen Ran also received good news from Xiao Ma Ge.

Ever since Penguin took over "World of Warcraft", Yangzhu.com has become timid and even has less confidence in bidding.

After just a few rounds of competition, Penguin emerged victorious and won the renewal rights for "World of Warcraft".

Judging from the terms of the contract, although it is much more harsh than when Chen Ran first took it over, it is at least not as humiliating as the pig farming network.

In fact, Blizzard still wants to find a scapegoat and sign a long-term "unequal treaty".

But the problem is that the Chinese Internet market in 2008 was completely different from that in 2004.

At that time, many heroes were fighting for supremacy, and the then CEO of Sohu even jokingly called them the Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period.

But now, with the passage of time, the world has become dominated by giants.

Penguin has already distanced itself from other companies.

"Haha, congratulations to Mr. Ma, you got what you wanted!" Chen Ran also congratulated Xiao Ma Ge. "It was mainly due to your help. At that time, I directly transferred the remaining years of agency to Penguin Company, which saved me a lot of trouble." Xiao Ma Ge was also in a very good mood.

Today's penguins are so powerful.

"World of Warcraft", "Dungeon & Fighter", and "Cross Fire", who can compete with them?

Of course Chen Ran was happy too.

He can just sit back and collect money, and he also owns shares in Penguin, so he can also enjoy a share of the profits from "Dungeon & Fighter" and "Cross Fire".

Today, the "Golden Slam Company" has an absolutely transcendent status because it holds the title of the first noble in the Penguin Empire, which makes everyone else envious.

It's only 2008, and countless people have already begun to envy Chen Ran's unique vision.

This thigh is so thick.

Of course, no one can deny the contribution of Golden Slam Company itself.

In the fields of online novels and online music, Jin Man Guan Company has become the number one in the industry, and was the first to introduce Tencent Capital Holdings and retire with honor.

In terms of online games, we have also reached a win-win cooperation with Tencent and have been successful in everything.

Therefore, the position of "Golden Slam Company" in the Penguin Empire is so stable and so transcendent.

However, Chen Ran also realized that after 2008, it would be 2009, and the era of mobile Internet was about to arrive.

So should he prepare for a rainy day?

……

A few days later, Mr. Ma from Penguin came to Shanghai.

He is preparing to sign a long-term sponsorship contract with the organizing committee of the Shanghai Masters, and it will be a top sponsor.

The contract is for ten years, and the QQ logo will always appear in eye-catching advertising columns in the future.

Penguin also spent real money to sponsor the Shanghai Masters.

The outside world has always believed that this was Brother Ma giving face to Chen Ran.

You should know that the series of tennis tours held in China are still in the stage of cultivating the market, and nine out of ten of them will lose money. The only difference is whether the loss is big or small.

This time, Penguin spent a huge amount of money to become a heavyweight sponsor of the Shanghai Masters, which greatly reduced the financial pressure on the latter to organize the tournament.

On the other hand, Chen Ran's influence has long gone beyond the scope of sports and is also very important in the business field.

It was during these few days that Chen Ran met with Xiao Ma Ge in private.

He pointed out that in the future there will be a need for a mobile phone-based communication software that is more convenient and simpler than QQ, and its functions can even replace today's text messages.

After asking, Xiao Ma Ge roughly understood what Chen Ran meant.

"Brother, are you going to do this or am I going to do it?"

"Boss Ma, why don't you let me do it? After all, you are in the open and I am in the dark. If you develop it, the target will be too big and it will be easy for the news to leak out. But if I do it, it will be much safer and more reliable."

Brother Ma thought about it and it made a lot of sense.

He didn't realize how important this software would be to the future of social interaction.

Xiao Ma nodded and said, "Okay, I'll let you do this! What kind of help do you need from us penguins?"

"It's not much help, just provide some research talents in instant messaging." Chen Ran said calmly, "When the time comes, you can give me a list and I can pick some from it, and continue the win-win cooperation!"

Xiao Ma Ge also nodded in agreement, this thing is indeed feasible.

At present, there seems to be a guy named Zhang Xiaolong who is in charge of QQ Mail, but that guy has always felt that he is being wasted and wants to do something bigger.

Then he was loaned to the Golden Slam Company to be responsible for the development of this new software.

Anyway, it is not his turn to take charge of QQ's core business at the moment.

Yes, that’s it!
Xiao Ma Ge also thought so as a matter of course.

"Brother, there are some vacancies in my QQ Mail team. I can't make much money from this business anyway, so why don't you borrow them first?"

Chen Ran was slightly stunned. This little brother Ma actually took the initiative to provide assists.

It seems that Zhang Xiaolong is in the QQ Mail team.

In fact, he doesn't care whether Zhang Xiaolong himself is the one who develops the product. After all, he has the general concept of WeChat. The biggest reason for the success of WeChat is that it is bundled with QQ, and QQ users are imported into WeChat.

This time, the reason why Chen Ran took the initiative to ask Penguin to borrow people was also for this reason.

With the participation of the Penguin team, we will be able to use QQ to divert traffic with greater confidence and then integrate them into one.

This is different from Zhang Xiaolong in his previous life. That guy wanted to develop independently at the beginning and didn’t want to rely too much on QQ, but because his development reached a bottleneck, he had to shout “QQ is so good”.

But Chen Ran's idea was completely different. He was ready to rely on QQ from the beginning and never thought about taking a difficult path.

Why cross the river by feeling the stones when you can take the sunny road?
With QQ as my weapon, I can cling to others without any shame!
In the previous life, when WeChat had become successful and even surpassed QQ, Zhang Xiaolong ungratefully kicked QQ out.

That's a bit unfair.

Without QQ, would you have WeChat today?
You think it is your credit, but actually it is QQ's credit.

If you had asked another company to develop WeChat, without the traffic from QQ, would WeChat have come into being?

Chen Ran’s plan is that in the future, QQ and WeChat will be inseparable, and we will never separate!
But this time, since Xiao Ma Ge offered to lend him someone, Chen Ran didn't refuse.

The initiative is in his own hands, and Zhang Xiaolong is just a tool this time and will not be given too much decision-making power.

At this moment, although Xiao Ma Ge had some questions about Chen Ran's proposal, he did not have much expectations.

He never thought that there would be any social software to replace QQ.

Today, in Pony Ma's eyes, the biggest rival is still Microsoft's MSN, but MSN is already on the decline and is not something to be feared at all.

Another point is that Chen Ran’s contribution is really great.

Xiao Ma Ge also felt a little overwhelmed because Chen Ran is now the vice president of Penguin.

If this continues, he really feels like there is no limit to what can be done.

Of course, this is not a feudal empire.

No matter how great Chen Ran's contributions are, he can never threaten Xiao Ma Ge's position in Penguin, and Xiao Ma Ge is not worried about this.

Besides, Chen Ran is just a tennis player and is not interested in office politics at all.

……

(End of this chapter)