Since the beginning of April this year, the veteran BBS Tianya community website has been inaccessible for nearly two months, attracting the attention of former Tianya employees and even many senior Tianya netizens, and forming a volunteer team. At noon on May 16, Song Zheng (Lao Hei), the former executive editor of Tianya Community, officially announced the plan of "Restart Tianya in seven days and seven nights", hoping to raise 3 million yuan in the form of live streaming to restore server access to Tianya Community, and recently began to recruit more than 60 Tianya netizens to tell the story of himself and Tianya in the live broadcast.
Song Zheng told the upstream news (newspaper mailbox [email protected]) reporter that all the money raised this time, except for operating costs, will be handed over to Tianya Company. Wei Shouhua (Huazi), former executive editor of Tianya Community and a native of Chongqing, said that as the brainchild of hundreds of millions of netizens, the massive data of Tianya Community can still play an important role in artificial intelligence and other aspects today, and I hope that some large enterprises can see the value in it.
Before the service was suspended, Tianya still had nearly one million visitors every day
"Tianya has nearly 1,000 employees at most, mainly in Hainan, Chengdu has more than 100 people, and Chongqing should have 20 or 30 people," Huazi sighed, "Now everyone is still in various places, in fact, there is no distance, gathering online to do the restart together, there is still a feeling of being close to each other." ”
▲The tenth anniversary of the founding of Tianya Community was once popular on the Internet.
Huazi, a native of Hechuan, Chongqing, came to Hainan to work in his early years, because he was good at writing current commentaries and IT review articles, and served as a moderator and community administrator for many sections of the Tianya community. In 2005, he became an employee of Tianya Community from a netizen to an employee of Tianya Community, successively serving as the director of the community operation center and the director of the editor-in-chief office, and worked for nearly 10 years until 2015.
"From 2004 to 2008, Tianya developed the fastest, and at that time there was a saying called 'national topic, made in Tianya'". As a native of Chongqing, Huazi recalled that there were many Chongqing netizens on Tianya in 2005, and Tianya Chongqing should be the hottest section of Tianya community. "There may be some people who don't know Tianya in other places, but there are relatively few people in Chongqing who don't know Tianya. As long as you were still surfing the Internet or watching the news in that era, you would see the selling of your mother triggered by college student Chen Yi's post in Tianya, which was reported by all the Chongqing media at that time. ”
Before the Tianya community could not be accessed, Huazi still often logged in to the forum, "because my usual writing habits have not changed, and I also post some things on other platforms, and I also post it in Tianya at the same time, and sometimes I will reply to the post or something, but it is definitely not like soaking in it every day like before." ”
"Because I usually go to the forum, and I find that there are still many users. Later, I also asked, there are basically nearly a million UVs (unique visitors to the website of the day) every day. Although it is not in the same magnitude as Weibo and Douyin, in addition to the head website, Tianya is still a very large website. Hanako said.
In 1999, Song Zheng, whose screen name was still Xiaohei, participated in the establishment of Tianya Community as a moderator, and became the first full-time webmaster of Tianya the following year and the first full-time employee of Tianya Community.
In 2005, Song Zheng became the executive editor of Tianya Community, "I left in 2009, which was the golden age of Tianya Community. Before I also saw the birthday video sent by the stars on the 15th anniversary of the Tianya community in 2014, Huang Xiaoming and other first-line celebrities all appeared, which at least shows that Tianya has been a very influential Internet brand for 15 years. ”
In March 2015, Tianya Community registered more than 100 million users, and its total revenue climbed to a peak of 173 million yuan. However, with the advent of the mobile Internet era, the BBS community, including Tianya, gradually declined, and continued to lose money from 2013 to 2016, with a cumulative loss of more than 100 million yuan in 4 years.
Song Zheng believes that "the major opportunity missed by Tianya is the mobile Internet, and I suggested around 2012 that 968 (Xing Ming, the founder of Tianya Community) split the section of Tianya and use the section with special value to make an independent APP, such as making Lianpeng Ghost Talk an audio APP." However, Tianya believes that the mobile terminal must be large and comprehensive, and everything must be available, so that the influence of Tianya can be reflected. ”
Tianya's funds were frozen because of the lawsuit
Speaking of the decline of Tianya, Song Zheng believes that "the management of Tianya does not want to change, but it always wants to cut corners." In 2005, Tianya wanted to make Craig List Network (American classified information website); In 2006, I wanted to do Facebook again, Weibo came out, and Tianya also did Weibo. In the past two years, I have also begun to do meta-universe and blockchain, but I have not been able to seize the opportunity to use influence to take myself to a higher level, and I have been eating the old book. ”
▲Song Zheng, former executive editor of Tianya Community.
"The core competitiveness of Tianya is actually the creativity of netizens, especially in content. If these netizens were allowed to earn money in Tianya in that era, it would form a benign snowball effect. Song Zheng said.
Tianya Community was listed on the New Third Board in 2015, and then suffered from declining revenue, continuous losses, and negative cash flow, and announced in April 2018 that it intended to apply for delisting on the New Third Board, and officially terminated its listing in April 2019.
Due to the deteriorating business situation, Tianya Community has been rumored to be closed many times before. At the end of November 2022, due to several days of network failure, the Tianya community was exposed to be closed. However, the Tianya community refuted the rumors, saying that the fault had been fixed by the technical team, and that some articles circulating on the Internet were misleading to the public and had a bad impact on the reputation of the Tianya community. On April 1, 2023, the official Weibo of Tianya Community announced that technical upgrades and data reconstruction will be carried out in the near future, during which the platform will not be accessible, "Please be patient." ”
When I heard the news that Tianya had stopped serving in early April, Huazi still felt very surprised, "After all, I am in Hainan, and I also heard that Tianya's business situation is not very good, and I really don't know many details, but it is really very unexpected that I can't even pay for the cost of the computer room." ”
"Around April 20, it was confirmed that it could not be solved without money, and then everyone learned that Tianya was shut down, and we were shocked." Song Zheng told upstream news reporters.
On the evening of April 25, Song Zheng, who had changed from a small black to an old black, revealed on Weibo, "Tianya is not dead, but his whole body is paralyzed." IDC owes money and the server is stopped. Because of the lawsuit, the domain name was also frozen by the court. ”
"As far as I know, the funds on Tianya's own account, plus the fixed assets it holds, still have more than 100 million, and they have not completely reached the point of exhaustion, but the funds are frozen because of the lawsuit, and it cannot turn around and cannot survive." Song Zheng told reporters.
On April 26, the official Weibo of Tianya Community also replied in the comment area, saying, "Our main focus is companionship." Say an age-revealing word: I'll be back..." denying rumors of termination of service. But on the same day, Huazi released "Restart Tianya, Is There Still a Chance?" on his public account? article.
"Restart the world" has now become the name of this seven-day, seven-night live streaming event.
If the live streaming goods raise less than 3 million, it may continue to do so
According to people familiar with the matter, Tianya Community owed Hainan Telecom more than ten years of server fees, the amount of more than 10 million, and then due to inability to pay, Tianya Community packaged and downloaded the website data, and sold the rest of the assets to Hainan Telecom, and the company is communicating with Telecom. If it could pay 3 million yuan, Telecom agreed to let Tianya restore access first.
▲ "Seven Days and Seven Nights to Restart the World" plan.
As the first full-time employee of the Tianya community, Song Zheng decided to raise start-up funds through live streaming and obtained the official authorization of Tianya. A group of former employees and old netizens gradually gathered together, and some volunteers also joined in. Today, there are more than 30 volunteers in "Restart the World", and more than 800 people in 3 WeChat groups.
On May 16, Song Zheng officially announced the "Seven Days and Seven Nights, Restart Tianya" live streaming activity in the circle of friends, hoping to raise 3 million yuan for Tianya to pay for the telecom computer room fee by inviting Tianya netizens and former employees to live broadcast and bring goods, so that Tianya can restart.
It is understood that this live broadcast will be carried out on Douyin, starting at 20 o'clock on May 28, broadcasting for seven consecutive days, and ending at 20 o'clock on June 3.
"Many people remind me if it is too hasty, whether it is not thoughtful and start to start, but I think that if it drags on, the end of the world may really be gone." Song Zheng described the significance of the restart plan as follows: "Let netizens download what they want to save in time, even if Tianya is still difficult to escape fate later, at least we can give Tianya and our youth a decent farewell." ”
Speaking about the preparation progress of live streaming goods, Song Zheng said, "From the perspective of commodity preparation, there is basically no big problem, we have several netizens and former employees who specialize in live streaming e-commerce, and they have a lot of experience in this area. Now the main thing is that there are some guests to talk about, and there are not too many people who may be found, so this piece is still working hard. ”
Song Zheng introduced that the guests who have been invited so far include Kong Ergou, Ten Years of Wood Chopping, Du Zijian, Lao Leng, Luo Bing, Tan Boniu and other Internet celebrities who grew up from Tianya, as well as the parties to the major Internet incidents of that year, "Ten years of chopping wood will bring his own painting, Luo Bing will bring his own CD, Tan Boniu seems to bring his own book." ”
On May 19, in order to cope with the long live broadcast, the team announced that it would recruit more than 60 Tianya netizens to tell the stories of building buildings and shooting bricks on the forum back then.
"I have an agreement with Tianya, if the goal of 3 million yuan is reached, the company will ensure that my conditions are met, Tianya can be visited, if it does not reach 3 million, or continue to do it until the amount reaches 3 million; Or things turn around and the fee is waived. Song Zheng also explained the purpose of fundraising, "Our activities must first have costs, we do not take salaries, but there are still such as live broadcast room construction, personnel food and drink, travel expenses, accommodation expenses, the cost of selling goods, logistics costs, after deducting these, all profits we do not keep a penny, all to Tianya Company." ”
Massive amounts of data may help train artificial intelligence
Talking about the future of Tianya, Huazi told reporters, "When I left Tianya in 2015, the company had seven or eight hundred employees, and at its peak, there were nearly 1,000 employees. In the future, with a small team to operate, I think it is completely okay to maintain a breakeven, and even maintain a proper profit. ”
▲ Wei Shouhua (Huazi), former executive editor of Tianya Community.
"Now there is a saying that the Tianya community is a historical relic of the classical Internet era," Huazi told Upstream News Reporter, "but such a living fossil is still very influential and very valuable, so it quickly gained a lot of attention." ”
At the moment when the Tianya community announced the suspension of the service, the programmer and Tianya netizen "Dugu Shuqing" working in Shenzhen immediately backed up the data of the entire community, including all posts, comments, user information, etc.
At that time, "Ghost Blowing Lights", "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty", "Chengdu, Please Forget Me Tonight", "Once Upon a Time in the Northeast: 20 Years of the Underworld" and other well-known bestsellers were all serialized and first published in the Tianya community. Nowadays, on the Internet, from society, humanities, to finance, history, the collection of various Tianya God posts is still in the hands of many netizens.
"This backup, for me, is a tribute to the Tianya community and a nostalgia for that golden age of the Internet. More importantly, it's a record of China's internet history. I think this data will be a valuable resource for future researchers. "Dugu Shuqing" said.
"I should have backed it up, but at the moment we know from Tianya, they haven't developed this mature tool, and they still have to rely on themselves." But if you can't back it up quickly, it's actually very troublesome for some old netizens who have written thousands of articles or tens of thousands of articles," Huazi said, "We also hope that a third party can make some gadgets in the later stage, so that everyone can quickly back up." ”
Upstream News reporters suddenly thought of a word: digital heritage. Hanako said, "The word is more accurate, but it is not a pure legacy, it also has practical significance. For example, the artificial intelligence of the current fire is actually very much in need of such data for training. The massive amount of data contributed by these hundreds of millions of netizens may be very helpful for training artificial intelligence to imitate human behavior and imitate people's writing methods. ”
"At present, the cost of maintaining the daily operation of Tianya server is about 100,000 to 300,000 yuan per month, since this massive amount of data can play a role, we also hope that some other platforms and large companies that do artificial intelligence and cloud services can pay attention to this and provide a long-term free service to help Tianya continue to operate for a longer time." Hanako said.
Upstream news reporter Tang Hao Image source/Weibo screenshot, photo provided by interviewee
Editor: Zhu Liang
Responsible editor: Li Yang Wang Rong
Reviewed: Feng Fei