Image source: @VisualChina
Text | E-commerce Online, author|Shen Songnan, editor|Siwen
It is common for a website to suddenly not go up. Server downtime, or a sudden influx of traffic, can cause the system to crash. Founded in 1999, Tianya Community (hereinafter referred to as "Tianya") has experienced too many outages in the 24 years of its operation.
In the past, the downtime was like a "headache and brain fever", a minor illness, and it was over after a few days. The outage, which began in early April, has lasted for almost two months. According to several Tianya executives and former employees, Tianya did not die, but was "paralyzed."
Looking back at this "old broken station", it presents two fragmented memories. First, it once had an incomparably huge influence -
In 1999, the founder of Tianya, Xing Ming, speculated in stocks and earned more than 20 million from hundreds of thousands of initial funds. He used the money to start Tianya. "I just like to talk to people about stocks online, and we're in the same group."
In the PC Internet era, Tianya is the most "media temperament" content platform. It is divided into a number of columns such as miscellaneous talks, people's livelihood, literature, finance and economics, sports, emotions, etc., and dozens of sections of all sizes are divided. And more than a dozen content forms from photo albums and post offices to games and quizzes - at that time, it was a matter of pride to be a "Banzhu" (moderator) in the end of the world. It means that you have sufficient network and sufficient knowledge and cognition.
Looking at it from the perspective of current Internet products, Tianya is rich and diversified in content, but the products are also bloated and there is a threshold for creation. This is a very classical medium, more precisely called "BBS forum".
In 2007, Tianya registered users exceeded 20 million, and it is considered to be the "world's largest Chinese Internet community".
In August 2013, the number of registered users reached 85 million. At that time, the size of Chinese Internet users was about 600 million, which means that one in every seven Chinese Internet users registered Tianya. There are also many people, who do not register and do not log in, but are in the "Water" forum every day. At its peak, Tianya had hundreds of millions of users and incubated phenomenal IPs such as "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty", "Ghost Blowing Lights" and "20 Years of Underworld".
In 2009, Tianya celebrated its 10th anniversary
On the other hand, the moment Tianya fell from the altar, it came extremely fiercely. When the tide of mobile Internet surged in, Tianya was photographed on the beach. Weibo, WeChat public account, tiger pounce, Douban... Many more segmented or massive content platforms have infiltrated public life, forcing Tianya and its users to grow old.
"If we talk about key nodes, the emergence of Weibo and mobile Internet is the core reason why Tianya has lagged behind." Former Tianya executive editor Song Zheng (Tianya ID: Xiaohei) said that in the areas that Tianya is good at, such as social livelihood events and gossip incidents, Weibo was more direct and faster than Tianya at that time.
"Around 2012, I suggested that '968' (Tianya ID of the founder of Tianya) split the section of Tianya and use the special (valuable) section to make an independent APP. If that were to be done, I think there would be a chance in the end of the world. At least through this matrix, you make more than a dozen vertical APP, there may be three or four can come alive, and you will also gain in the future. ”
No longer delving into the missed transformation opportunities in the past, today, Tianya is still based on labels such as "Tianya God Post" and "Tianya Internet Celebrity", if interspersed with the lives of modern people, like a good man talking about the heroism of the past, but inevitably revealing the regret of being in the twilight. At this moment, when people talk about the end of the world, it is more of a sentiment of remembrance.
In the past year, the news about Tianya on the Internet has unanimously pointed to "disappearing". At the end of 2022, some netizens found that Tianya turned off the posting function, and even logging in became difficult. Earlier, the old user "Postman" of Tianya tried to log in to Tianya, but the verification code was always filled incorrectly. "Captcha is always expired, never right, you know? This is telling me never to log in. ”
In 2006, "Postman" and several netizens started a blog called "Tianya Music Review" in Tianya, mainly publishing music review posts. It is also because of the fame and connections accumulated in the end of the world that he embarked on the road of music.
On April 1, Tianya's official Weibo announced that it will carry out technical upgrades and data reconstruction in the near future, during which the platform will not be accessible, "please be patient."
Tianya Community Announcement
The immediate factors that paralyzed Tianya were its servers being shut down and its domain name frozen. Tianya executives explained that they could not afford to pay for the telecom's computer room and network expenses of about 10 million yuan.
An old Tianya user said that this is the first time he realized that maintaining such an outdated and huge website costs a lot of money. If the company runs out of money, the familiar page will "disappear".
At this point, a bottom-up rescue began.
Guests invited by "Restart the World"
"It is said that Tianya Station has not given up, and is still trying to find a means of self-help, hoping for a day when Nirvana will be reborn." On April 29, 2023, Song Zheng released such a circle of friends. On May 15, in an interview with The Paper, he announced that he had obtained the official authorization of Tianya and would carry out the "Seven Days and Seven Nights, Restart Tianya" live broadcast charity sale, hoping to raise 3 million yuan to help Tianya restart.
"I don't want Tianya to disappear quietly, this is a salvation of our youth by these old netizens of Tianya." Song Zheng said that even if it is a farewell, it should be decent, so that old users can download their posts and revisit their friends.
"E-commerce Online" interviewed Song Zheng and Lin Yining, a former Tianya employee in charge of the live broadcast event, trying to understand from these old "Tianya people" how they want to rescue this "old broken station".
3 million and 7×24 hours live
Song Zheng's life changed course because of the end of the world. He and Xing Ming met in Tianya, received Xing Ming's invitation, and changed from a state-owned enterprise to become the first full-time employee of Tianya (the moderators and administrators of the early forums were netizens, not regular employees), and later the general manager of Tianya in terms of content.
"They all thought it was up to me to take the lead." Song Zheng is familiar with Tianya's early employees and core moderators. From the point of view of connections, resources, and influence, he is considered the most suitable person.
"We will give the proceeds from the charity sale to Tianya in the form of 'donations' to pay for telecommunications services and restart the website." He admitted that 3 million yuan is powerless to make Tianya "new", which is not something he should consider as a former employee. Their behavior is closer to a "rescue", allowing Tianya to breathe a sigh of relief. "Xing Ming told me that 3 million can temporarily restart Tianya's servers, so our goal is 3 million."
Song Zheng introduced the live broadcast charity sale with 4 "Ws"
I didn't think too much about the problems of fundraising failure and unsatisfactory live broadcast results. "Try it before you talk about it, and the closer we get to the start date, the more confident we are, because we find that both media and users still have a lot of memories of this platform, and we drive a lot of popularity."
In the Internet era, heat is traffic, and traffic may be converted into money. Therefore, live streaming may be the most effective way to monetize the value of "influence" and "feelings" accumulated by Tianya in the past.
The first thing that Song Zheng thought of was to hold a live broadcast with goods, and it was "24 hours × 7" uninterrupted. The event is expected to start on May 28.
A middle-aged man from the classical forum era rarely tries to take short videos of himself, and lacks experience in facing the camera. But he was ready to break into a field he had never set foot in before.
"I initially wanted to do a big gimmick, anyway, at least let the society know that we were doing it." Song Zheng did not hide his intention to "broaden his eyeballs", "I am not much of a wrist, an 'outdated' person, not so many choices." I expected that it would probably take two or three days for the popularity of the live broadcast to pick up, so I had to keep broadcasting. ”
He also thought that if he still couldn't raise enough 3 million yuan after seven days, but if he could see the opportunity, he would continue to broadcast until the money was enough. "I try my best, I use the 'super long standby' method of fighting for life to attract attention, and I don't die."
Who sells and what?
It is understood that the core team of "Restart Tianya" has nearly 30 people, mainly composed of former employees and core users of Tianya. Some people are responsible for publicity and planning, and some people are responsible for building e-commerce supply chains and live broadcasts.
As the initiator, Song Zheng mainly chatted with netizens as a "anchor" and told old stories about Tianya.
"There will be a professional anchor in charge of selling goods, I mainly tell stories in late night stalls, and when I used to work in Tianya, I was a night owl." It's not that he didn't think about what to do in the dead of night, when the live broadcast room is deserted. "If there are only a few people watching, I will continue to talk, I believe there will always be people who will come to see."
This is the atmosphere of Tianya in the past, as the "online home of global Chinese", Tianya has no shortage of visitors from all over the world, and at every point in time, you can find people chatting inside.
The anchor is not only Song Zheng. Just these days, the team is still recruiting all the "Tianya people" who are willing to participate in the live broadcast and tell the story of themselves and Tianya.
There are also a number of Internet celebrities who became famous in Tianya. Tianya first generation Internet celebrity Li Qianmo (Tianya ID: Xiaochu) will serve as the anchor of this live broadcast charity sale. She also found musician Yang Lide for the team to stand for this live broadcast. The latter has packaged singers and groups such as the Little Tigers, Su Rui, and Cai Qin.
"I haven't logged in to Tianya for more than 10 years, but despite this, Tianya is my hometown and spiritual home in the online society." Li Qianmo said.
Kong Ergou, who started from Tianya, posted on Weibo: "I want to go to Tianya charity sale to raise funds, all because I spent all my leisure time every day more than ten years ago, and (it) is the place where I started." For the sake of feelings and feelings, I can not only take off my long shirt, but I am really anxious, and I can take off my pants. ”
Kong Er Dog
The author of "Ghost Blowing Lights", who became famous in the end of the world, will come to the live broadcast room with his signed works. Lin Yining, who is in charge of e-commerce related matters, told "E-commerce Online" that the works of Tianya writers and peripheral T-shirts are only some of the goods.
"We will have a total of about 300 products, 80% of which are competitive in the market, including some agricultural products from Hainan (where Tianya headquarters is located), as well as some beauty and skin care products, sunscreens, and household products that meet the needs of young people."
He explained that emotional goods are only a part, and more goods that meet the needs of the mass market can be established by bringing goods to the business logic. "Wouldn't it be cutting leeks?"
Of course, the consumers targeted by the selection are mainly male groups over 40 years old who are more in line with the characteristics of Tianya users. "Most of the products come from our 'internal', and some former employees and old users of Tianya are working as e-commerce companies themselves, and they have goods and anchor resources on hand."
Do not do e-commerce offline stores, participate in it in your own way
Li Qianmo now runs her own beauty brand, and in addition to volunteering as an anchor, she also took out 150,000 yuan worth of goods to sell, and all the proceeds will be donated to Tianya.
Moreover, a large part of the anchors, venues, and equipment of this live broadcast are also contributed by old users of Tianya. "They directly transferred the e-commerce team in their own company to help us do these things, and they paid them and people used them for us."
At present, there are both thousands of yuan of customized peripherals in the goods pool, and there will be many affordable products of tens of yuan. At the anchor level, there are professional anchors with goods, and there are also "fledgling" Lao Tianya users, which can be understood that this is a charity sale activity driven by commercial logic that does not consider commercial elements such as commissions and pit fees, but only the 3 million yuan is a "donation", and the rest are pure "business".
With a few days to go before the live broadcast, it is difficult to predict exactly what this live broadcast will look like to the Internet. "Our live broadcast script is actually changing every day." Lin Yining does not deny that 7-day, 24-hour uninterrupted live broadcast is a huge challenge for any e-commerce team: the interspersed rhythm of content and products, the turnover of anchors, and the response to emergencies are all unpredictable factors.
But through interviews with Song Zheng and Lin Yining, we found that their state is essentially relaxed. "What if no one watches the stream? Then I will also get up in the middle of the night to connect with Mr. Blackie, and I believe everyone in the team is willing to do this. We have worked hard, and people have such a chance to 'rescue' youth in middle age, and we have no regrets. ”
The team also contacted the Douyin platform to try to obtain traffic support, build a community, and warm-up with scholars and writers with tens of millions of fans, who are gathering all the resources that can be circulated, and cheering for this live broadcast, hoping to provide more certainty for the results of the charity sale.
Bring 3 million in goods, and then what?
Tianya, in fact, has been trapped in the word "make money".
In 2005, Tianya received investment from IDG and Qingke. A year later, Google, Lenovo (with an investment of $2.5 million), and Jiang Nanchun also "brought capital into the group".
When the money bag was full, Tianya made its own main website APP, Q&A, Weibo, and social products. It doesn't want to be just a forum, but a platform. Rely on traffic to participate in the future mobile Internet market. However, according to Datayes, since the launch of its main app, monthly active users have been falling all the way after hitting a peak of 3 million, and as of May 2022, it has fallen to less than 600,000.
In 2015, Tianya was listed on the New Third Board with an issue price of 13.33 yuan per share, and the valuation exceeded 2 billion yuan at its peak. However, due to the delay in releasing the financial data for 2015, Tianya was suspended from trading and transferring in just 6 days.
Going public has exposed Tianya's bad financial data to the market. From 2013 to 2016, Tianya continued to lose money, losing 100 million yuan in 4 years. According to the founder's previous statement, Tianya also made a profit for a short time, but it can be said that it is insignificant compared to the magnitude of the loss.
Selling advertising, doing e-commerce, pushing games, Tianya tried all possible monetization methods in the early years. In recent years, it has also done virtual currency and meta-universe, but judging from the results, they have all failed without exception - not only failed to reap commercial results, but also squeezed out the traffic of Tianya and the feelings of users.
It is also constantly selling its secondary catalog. "Because Tianya Forum is an established well-known BBS community, its weight in Baidu is very high, so many of the content posted in Tianya has a good ranking in Baidu search results. Many people will rent some high-authority website secondary directories to achieve the purpose of searching for the screen. "There are industry insiders engaged in search optimization.
Xing Ming (left) and Kai-Fu Lee, 2007
Former Tianya executives revealed that in 2012, Chen Tianqiao offered 1 billion yuan to wholly acquire Tianya, promising to let Xing Ming continue to be the CEO after the acquisition, and all teams continued to be retained, "but no more messy advertisements."
These rather barbaric and short-term monetization methods are almost the epitome of Tianya's self-struggle after fruitless commercial exploration.
And now, the best result of this live broadcast of "Restart Tianya" is only to continue the breath of aging Tianya. However, from a more optimistic point of view, as Tianya, which was once regarded as the "best Chinese community", gathering a group of elderly people in the field of literature and art, is not unthinkable, a content-based attempt in the field of e-commerce live broadcasting.
Since the success of the "Oriental Selection" content-driven live broadcast model, the industry has been trying to explore various new directions.
"If it is really successful, it can indeed provide some commercial references for President Xing." Today, Tianya still has dozens of employees, and there is a duty-free and characteristic supply chain of agricultural products based in Hainan. As a brand, Tianya still has a certain social appeal - "Tianya Community" is in jeopardy, but Baidu has "Tianya Bar", Douban has "Tianya Tourism Group", Weibo has "Tianya Forum", it still frequently appears in social media in the form of brand symbols.
In the past few days, Xing Ming is planning to launch the "Tianya Rebooter Medal" to be awarded to the "Tianya people" who helped Tianya restart this time. He also estimated that no more than 200 million yuan can make Tianya reborn and return to the forefront of the Internet industry. It's just that for the current Tianya, the visions of "rebirth" and "returning to the forefront of the Internet" may be slightly grand. In the immediate future, Xing Ming should pay more attention to the results of this live broadcast. Because in a way, it is a "quantified" display of the surplus value of Tianya.