mchenry-crisis.org Chapter 111 Local Life Network Launches Quietly
Chapter 111 Local Life Network Launches Quietly
MP3 production has entered a critical period, and Lin Feng has assigned Wu Wenjie and Lin Xiaowen to be in charge of MP3 production.
He returned to his office in the science park alone to continue overseeing the development of the "Local Life Network." He planned to start in Shenzhen, create a model, and then expand the business to Chengdu and other cities.
Since the website's beta version went live, Zhou Bin and the technology development department have been working hard to get the website officially launched to the public.
The technical team is fixing known bugs, optimizing page loading speed, and refining the batch operation functionality in the backend.
The Human Resources Department arranged for someone to take over Lin Xiaowen's work and to accurately enter each of the handwritten "Housing Information Collection and Registration Forms" into the system.
Lin Xiaoqiang and his team worked tirelessly, using the "service for authorization" model to gradually increase the number of valid housing listings from over 170 to over 200.
This information was categorized using different colored tags: good location, good price, urgent rental, furnished... like rows of soldiers waiting for inspection, though few in number, the formation was already neat.
That afternoon, Lin Feng called a meeting with everyone, and the meeting room was packed.
The Technology Development Department, Information Collection Team, Human Resources Department, and Administration Department were all present.
Lin Feng first thanked the team for their hard work: "Thank you all for your hard work over the past month. We've built a framework from scratch and accumulated some resources."
He gestured to Zhou Bin.
Zhou Bin opened his browser and entered the website's domain name. A simple, yellow-toned webpage appeared on the projection screen.
"Shenzhen Local Life Network".
At the top of the homepage is a search box, below which are several clear, large icons: Rent, Used Housing, Jobs, Part-time Jobs, Second-hand Goods, Housekeeping Services...
Clicking into the "Rentals" section brings up a list page with rows of listings arranged in reverse chronological order by posting time, accompanied by simple icons to distinguish between one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments.
The information entries include address, apartment type, area, and rent, and the format is uniform and easy to read.
After clicking through, you can see photos of the house and the landlord's contact information.
"This is the first official version we're preparing to release to the public, V1.0," Zhou Bin said with pride.
"All functions are working, and the backend is running stably. There are currently 320 verified and valid housing listings, mainly covering Baishizhou, Dachong, and Chaguang."
He operated the backend and demonstrated the process of information publishing, review, and removal.
"Currently, all information releases require manual review and approval from our back-end staff to ensure their authenticity."
Someone below muttered quietly, "Isn't the interface... a bit too simple?"
These words resonated with many people. Compared to the portal websites they occasionally saw in internet cafes, this page did indeed appear simple and even somewhat rudimentary.
Several new employees looked somewhat doubtful.
After Zhou Bin finished his demonstration, Lin Feng addressed the crowd.
"Simple and clear. No fancy decorations, no complicated interactions, and there might even be bugs we haven't discovered yet. Some people might be wondering, 'Will anyone use this? Won't people laugh at us?'"
The office was quiet.
"Let me ask everyone to think about this," Lin Feng slowed his speech, "What is the person who has just arrived in Shenzhen looking for a job and a place to live most concerned about? Is it whether the website buttons are round enough or the colors are flashy enough?"
No. What he cared about was whether there were any apartments he could afford here, whether the address was real, whether anyone would answer the phone, and whether the price was a scam.
He pointed to the list of properties on the screen: "All of our more than 300 listings have verified phone numbers, and we guarantee their authenticity. This is the only, and biggest, highlight of our V1.0 version: authenticity."
"First, solve the problem of whether it exists or not, then talk about whether it's good or bad. Real users only care about whether the information is useful or not," Lin Feng finally concluded.
"Don't be afraid of simplicity and limited information. The website will officially open to the public at 8 PM tonight. Everyone, just focus on your tasks."
The technical department ensured server stability. The information gathering team continued to dig deeper, simultaneously expanding the categories of information, including secondhand homes, job postings, part-time jobs, used goods, and domestic services. We need more, and more authentic information.
On the other hand, the human resources department needs to continue recruiting, the number of personnel in the information collection team needs to be increased, and they need to be grouped according to business type.
Set up one group for real estate information, one group for part-time job postings, and one group for domestic services. Additionally, an operations department will be established after the website launches.
"Yes." Lin Feng gave the order, and everyone immediately sprang into action.
No champagne, no ribbon-cutting ceremony.
At 8 PM, Zhou Bin clicked the "Remove Access Restrictions" button in the backend. The domain name was then redirected to the rented server.
This historic moment was unusually calm.
In the office, everyone subconsciously refreshed the homepage. The visitor statistics slowly jumped from 0 to 1, then to several dozen—all clicks from their own colleagues.
"Alright, stop scrolling, everyone." Lin Feng said, both amused and exasperated. "Go do what you were doing."
The real test came in the dead of night when no one was watching.
At 2 a.m., Zhou Bin was awakened by the piercing ringtone of his cell phone. It was an alarm message from the server monitoring system.
He jumped up with a start, remotely logged into the server backend using his laptop, and his heart sank!
The website is inaccessible.
He immediately called the server provider. The customer service representative replied: "Sir, we detected that your website has received fewer valid access requests than the threshold in the past six hours, triggering the idle resource hibernation policy."
This is for energy saving and optimized resource allocation. You can now manually wake the service in the console; recovery is expected to take five to ten minutes.
Zhou Bin almost cursed out loud.
The number of visits was so low that the server judged it as an "idle resource" and automatically "went to sleep"!
The atmosphere within the team was somewhat subdued in the morning. Lin Feng convened a short meeting.
"It's nothing serious." His first sentence defined the situation. "It indicates two things: first, our users are still far away; second, our server provider is unreliable. Zhou Bin, can you resolve this today?"
"Yes." Zhou Bin, with dark circles under his eyes, said, "I'll write a script for scheduled access, run it on another machine, and have it automatically access our homepage every few minutes to simulate user access and prevent the server from going to sleep again."
Additionally, I will contact the service provider to disable this "energy-saving" policy, or we can upgrade to a plan that doesn't include this policy.
"Okay. This is a technical problem, and we'll solve it technically." Lin Feng nodded, then turned to everyone. "But the fundamental problem is that nobody knows about us. Even the best wine needs advertising. From today onward, website promotion and information gathering will be our top priorities."
Lin Feng's words rekindled the team's focus, which had been somewhat downcast.
"Promotion cannot rely on brute force, nor can we expect the entire company to abandon their regular jobs to hand out flyers," Lin Feng emphasized. "We need a professional promotion team to use smart methods and limited funds to get the name 'Tongcheng Life Network' to the people who really need it."
He looked at Zhou Zhongcheng, the HR manager: "Manager Zhou, we're adjusting the recruitment priorities. For the next week, we'll focus all our efforts on finding two people: one for operations and marketing, and the other for online marketing."
He detailed the requirements:
"For the operations and marketing manager, I need someone who understands the local market in Shenzhen, preferably someone with experience in marketing, sales, and field promotion, who is quick-witted, and knows how to achieve the most with the least amount of money. A higher salary is acceptable, but it must be linked to results."
"The online marketing manager needs to be familiar with the internet, spend all day on forums and QQ, and know how to 'speak' online without being annoying. Being able to write is a plus."
Zhou Zhongcheng quickly took notes of the key points.
"Before we recruit anyone, let's get started." Lin Feng began assigning specific tasks.
"First, offline, we will continue to explore the 'service for authorization' model."
He looked at Lin Xiaoqiang: "Xiaoqiang, on the flyers you put up, besides the property information, add a line of large text at the bottom: 'Post your information for free on Tongcheng Life Network,' and make the website address even more eye-catching."
Additionally, approach real estate agencies on the street. Tell them that our website is in its trial operation phase and is free of charge; they are welcome to list their properties on our site for free.
Lin Xiaoqiang asked doubtfully, "If real estate agents can post property listings on our website for free, and we don't charge them, wouldn't we be doing all the work for free, benefiting others?"
Lin Feng smiled and said, "Our website has just started operating, so it's impossible to make a profit in the short term. We need to build up the website's reputation first, and once we've established customer loyalty, then we can start charging. This is internet thinking, and everyone needs to understand that."
Everyone nodded. They were still unfamiliar with what internet thinking was, but they trusted their boss's judgment.
"Secondly, online, by infiltrating through forums and QQ groups." Lin Feng looked at a young programmer in the technical department who had just graduated and liked to browse forums.
"Xiao Liu, you'll temporarily take on online promotion. Here's your task: find the five most popular local forums in Shenzhen, as well as QQ groups for renting apartments, finding jobs, and trading secondhand goods."
Don't type GG directly, or you'll get kicked.
Just pretend to be a regular user. When you see someone looking to rent, buy, or find a job, post the corresponding information from our website to help them out. Finally, mention that "you can check out the local life website for more information."
Remember, only offer assistance, no blatant advertising. Before leaving get off work each day, briefly jot down how many posts you've made and what feedback you've received.
Xiao Liu had never done this before and was a little nervous, but his execution was still good: "Okay, Mr. Lin! I often browse 'Under the Eaves of Shenzhen' and 'Town of Pengcheng,' their rental sections are quite popular. I'll try it out there."
"Third, search engines. Mr. Zhou, please look into this. See how we can make our website rank higher on Baidu when people search for 'Shenzhen rentals' or 'Shenzhen job hunting'."
You don't necessarily have to pay for rankings; look for free methods.
Lin Feng knew that in 2004, Baidu was the primary portal for most netizens to find information.
Zhou Bin adjusted his glasses: "Okay, I'll look into keyword and page optimization."
"Finally, get ready to welcome our first real user." Lin Feng's tone became solemn. "Whether they come to post information or look for information, visitors who are not generated by our team are all very important."
Especially for the first user who posts genuine information and completes the transaction, we need to surprise them, make them remember us, and even encourage them to speak up for us.
He thought for a moment and said, "We can give him one of our MP3 players as a token of our gratitude and as a memento."
The suggestion caused a small stir in the meeting room; this "gift" was clearly beyond expectations.
"Our message is: We value every user, especially those who were among the first to trust us."
Lin Feng summarized, "Promotion is not something that can be achieved overnight; it's a gradual process, built up through word of mouth. What is our advantage? It's the authenticity of our information. So, we'll use every means possible to implant the word 'authenticity' into the minds of potential users."
After the meeting, everyone received their tasks and dispersed.