The diva and I cross each other

Chapter 483: Visit from Mr. Li from Baidu
Lin Shuwen didn't expect that watching a TV series could affect her mood. She went to the bathroom to wash her face and calm down.

When she came out of the bathroom, Lin Shuwen noticed that breakfast was already on the table in the restaurant.

A trace of doubt flashed in Lin Shuwen's eyes. She turned to Luo Ming and asked, "A Ming, why did you get up so early today?"

"I have something to do at the company this morning."

"What's the matter?"

"Mr. Li from Baidu is coming today."

Lin Shuwen's eyes flashed with surprise when she heard this. She had been focusing all her energy on the cinema chain during this period. Occasionally, when she had some free time, she would go to Huayue Entertainment to listen to Sister Shan's work report. She had no idea that Mr. Li from Baidu was coming to visit Zhuoguang Technology.

"Do you want me to go?" Lin Shuwen asked.

"look at yourself."

Upon hearing this, Lin Shuwen knew that this visit was not very formal. It was probably that Mr. Li from Baidu came to Shanghai for some business and came to visit Zhuoguang by the way.

This is indeed the case. Mr. Li from Baidu came to Shanghai mainly to deal with the acquisition of Baidu Takeout by Ele.me.

Yes, in this life, Baidu Takeout still failed, even one year earlier than the acquisition in the previous life.

This is not to say that Baidu Takeout has collapsed. In fact, although the basic market of Baidu Takeout has been hit by the issue of paying deliverymen housing prices during the Chinese New Year, it will not collapse within a few months. In its previous life, Baidu Takeout was acquired by Ele.me in 2016.

The biggest reason why Baidu decided to give up Baidu Takeout so decisively in this life is that they obtained the big data algorithm of Zhuoguang Technology.

Even the fourth-generation big data algorithm eliminated by Zhuoguang Technology is still far ahead of the ones on the market. Baidu wants to use this big data algorithm to lay out a new track.

Therefore, Baidu Takeout was decisively abandoned by Baidu.

"Then I won't go. 'Beginning' just came online today. There must be a lot going on at Huayue Entertainment. I have to go take a look."

After listening to Lin Shuwen's words, Luo Ming nodded: "Well, go ahead! There shouldn't be anything serious here."

At 10 a.m., Mr. Li from Baidu and his working team came to Zhuoguang Technology, and Rongmu went down to greet them personally.

After a round of greetings, President Li asked his work team to go to the technical department of Zhuoguang Technology to learn, while he and Rong Mu went to Luo Ming's president's office.

Mr. Li from Baidu, like Luo Ming and Rong Mu, is from Shanxi. As a fellow villager, Luo Ming guessed that Mr. Li didn't like drinking tea very much.

Of course, no matter what she thought, Li Yan was still waiting there and could make tea at any time.

Rong Mu and Mr. Li came to Luo Ming's office, and Luo Ming stood up to greet them.

"Mr. Luo, we meet again." Mr. Li extended his hand towards Luo Ming.

Luo Ming smiled and stretched out his hand to shake hands with Mr. Li, then said, "I have long wanted to talk to you again, Mr. Li. Now I finally have the chance."

"I also want to talk to Mr. Luo. Mr. Luo, you don't know that after we completed the technical exchange, our company's technical staff was astonished by your company's big data algorithm!

We originally thought that your company was at the forefront of data processing of big data algorithms, but we didn't expect that your company has already integrated cloud computing technology into big data processing.

Based on this alone, your company’s achievements in big data algorithms are not only leading in China, but also second to none abroad.”

"Mr. Li, you are too kind. Your company has done a lot in the field of AI. Once we get your data, we will have completed the construction of our company's AI model."

Mr. Li was stunned when he heard this. He didn't expect that Zhuoguang Technology would complete the construction of its own AI model so quickly. This surprised him.

"Mr. Luo, can your company's equipment keep up?" Mr. Li asked tentatively.

“It’s OK for now, but it may not be enough in the future. In addition to the equipment, it is estimated that it will cost tens of billions of dollars to feed the subsequent large AI models.”

“Your company has so many big data sources, so you don’t need to acquire big data to feed it, right?”

"If we want to buy big data, I think 20 or 30 billion dollars would not be enough."

Mr. Li frowned. Baidu had naturally completed the construction of its own AI model, but it lacked big data processing algorithms and data sources, so it was unable to carry out large-scale feeding.

According to Mr. Li's estimation, with suitable big data processing algorithms and a large number of ready-made data sources, it should cost several billion dollars to feed a large AI model.

But after learning all this, Luo Ming said that it would cost at least 10 billion US dollars, not including the cost of purchasing equipment.

Did Luo Ming make a wrong estimate? Or did he underestimate the cost of growing a large AI model?
Mr. Li pondered for a while but couldn't come to any conclusion, so he simply threw the question aside and turned to talk about the main purpose of the visit.

"Boss Luo, let's not talk about the AI ​​big model for now, let's talk about big data algorithms! I have an idea for using big data algorithms recently. Boss Luo, can you please see if it works?"

"Mr. Li, can you tell me directly what you think?" Luo Ming asked after a moment of surprise.

"It's okay. I originally wanted to invite Zhuoguang Technology to work on this project together." "Is that so! Then please go ahead, Mr. Li. Mr. Rong is here too. Mr. Rong handles all the commercial matters of our company."

Mr. Li nodded and said, "I have tried your company's big data algorithm. It can accurately push advertisements. Since it can accurately push advertisements, can it also accurately push some products that netizens are interested in?"

Hearing what Mr. Li said, Rong Mu's eyes flashed with surprise: "Mr. Li, do you want to get involved in online shopping platforms?"

“Yes, in fact, we at Baidu have always wanted to do this kind of business, whether it is group buying or the subsequent food delivery war, the purpose is to open up online channels.

I believe Mr. Rong also knows that with the development of the Internet, everyone knows that the profits in the shopping market are huge, so big that people can't take it all.

However, when Alibaba almost monopolized the online shopping market, the only one that broke the monopoly and stood out was JD.com.

In my opinion, the reason why JD.com can rise is that its shopping industry developed relatively early, and it adopts a different operating model from Taobao, namely the online mall model.

But starting this year, Alibaba's resources have gradually shifted toward Tmall Mall, and I guess Liu is under a lot of pressure."

Hearing this, Luo Ming remembered that in his previous life, in mid-2015, Alibaba began to shift resources to Tmall Mall.

Tmall’s positioning is the same as JD.com’s, both of which are aimed at competing for the high-end market.

However, in order to rapidly develop Tmall Mall and suppress JD.com, Alibaba directly put Tmall and Taobao together. As a result, Tmall's development speed was faster, but in a sense, Tmall's growth was at the expense of Taobao.

This is definitely a bad move, because to put it bluntly, Alibaba is forcibly stratifying Taobao merchants, with high-end ones on Tmall and low-end ones still on Taobao.

On the same platform, Tmall merchants make more money, Alibaba takes more commission, and ordinary merchants suffer huge losses.

Not only do these merchants who sell ordinary, low-end manufacturing products fail to make money, but they also have to supply large quantities to the platform. These merchants must be anxious.

Just when these merchants were at a loss, a new platform emerged, which was engaged in the business of low-end industrial products and various agricultural and sideline products.

Since there was no place to stay here, there would be other places for me to stay. Merchants all ran away, and it was only then that Taobao realized that something was wrong.

If Taobao had not created Tmall, the entire Taobao would be extremely large. The cost for this new shopping platform to acquire a large number of merchants would be terribly high, almost impossible.

Without merchants there are no users, and without users there are no merchants. This is a chicken-and-egg problem that has basically no answer.

But Alibaba's operation is equivalent to cutting off one's own arm, making it easier to attract merchants.

This is the birth of Bing Xixi.

While Luo Ming was daydreaming, Rong Mu and Mr. Li also discussed similar issues.

“Alibaba has a monopoly on e-commerce, but it does not have a complete monopoly. Apart from JD.com, there are still competitors in some areas where Alibaba has no presence.

This is just like Penguin being taken over by Weibo, except that they don’t have the mobility of Weibo, nor the ambition to challenge Taobao’s position like JD.com, but instead adopt a misaligned competition approach.”

After listening to Mr. Li's words, Rong Mu asked tentatively: "Mr. Li, at this stage, the only things Alibaba has not involved in are vertical e-commerce or overseas shopping. What do you want to do?"

Luo Ming has some understanding of vertical e-commerce and overseas shopping.

In the past, these two were relatively popular e-commerce projects.

The so-called vertical e-commerce is a business that specializes in one type of product, such as cosmetics, fresh food, and clothing. The most typical representative is Vipshop.

Although Taobao has all these businesses, it is impossible for Taobao to spend huge energy on each of them.

Vertical e-commerce companies specialize in one or several of these things, and after integrating the supply chain, they have advantages in price and service.

Haigou is even simpler, it means literally that it is a direct sales business of seafood, implementing heavy operational investment to lower prices.

In his previous life, Luo Ming often bought shrimps from some overseas shopping stores and was very familiar with overseas shopping.

Many seafood stores on Douyin are engaged in direct sales of seafood, which is also known as overseas shopping.

They all promote seafood under the slogans of freshly caught seafood, kept fresh at low temperatures, and maintaining the taste.

This trick is indeed effective. Many users eat seafood just for the freshness, so they fall for this trick.

However, the quality of these seafood products varies greatly. Many users spend a lot of money, but end up buying seafood of average quality.

Of course, this is a problem of platform supervision, not a problem with the e-commerce method of overseas shopping.

To be fair, overseas shopping and vertical e-commerce are both very good sales methods, and they also bring more diverse choices to e-commerce. As long as you keep your eyes open and don't be greedy for small profits, you can buy good seafood at a relatively affordable price through overseas shopping.

(End of this chapter)