The Instagram launch ceremony is very simple.
After confirming that the website was open, everyone opened a few bottles of champagne in the Instagram team's office building and had a lively atmosphere. The employees began to work hard on the first day of opening the website, and the waist and legs also stayed to take care of some companies with Girl D. affairs, Simon left with Girl A, Girl C and others who attended the launch ceremony.
As for the senior executives of Yigrit and other companies, none of them were invited.
It's not that there is no such face, but it is not necessary.
Regarding Instagram, Simon does not intend to encourage its growth, so during this period, D girl is basically working with several 'angel investors' to make preparations in all aspects. Deborah is responsible for communicating with Yigrit in order to obtain technology and traffic. With support from various parties, Ms. Waist and Legs used her connections in the entertainment and fashion circles to win over a group of celebrities to open Instagram accounts immediately.
In the short term this is enough.
Simon told D Girl that the website should not consider any profit-making for three to five years and focus on developing users. Funding is not a problem for Instagram at all.
However, Simon obviously still ignored the connections of the women around him.
In other words, it is still an extension of his own personal influence.
Others may not give face to ABCD or waist, fine legs and fine legs, but it is impossible not to give face to Simon Westeros.
Although Simon did not come forward, the website was founded by several women around him, which already shows the problem. Even if the website is just a toy given by Westeros to its lovers, everyone will definitely support it.
As a result, as soon as the website was launched, many fashion and entertainment celebrities who had already joined Facebook recommended Instagram on their social homepages. An article introducing this website also appeared on the Yigrit portal information homepage, although the location was not It’s eye-catching, but it’s enough to get millions of reads. The website navigation page of the Yigrit portal also included Instagram for the first time, and also provided special recommendations with a red display for free.
In order to protect its own interests, Igret has various explicit or implicit restrictions on users on its own platform recommending other websites.
Now, Instagram, which has no equity relationship with Yigrit, has just been launched, but it has received the kind of biological daughter-like treatment that the company directly invests in the website.
On the other side, Simon left the Instagram headquarters and came to Tinker Bayer Company with Girl C.
For the Instagram website to develop, the popularity of personal computers and digital cameras is the most basic condition.
However, both of these aspects are no longer a problem.
In the first half of 1994, global PC shipments reached 26.3 million units in the first six months of this year. In comparison, there were only 20 million units in the whole of 1990. Although the rise of the Internet in the world has led to an increasing share of overseas PC shipments, North American PC shipments still account for 41% of global shipments at this stage, reaching 10.9 million units.
It is estimated that in 1994, global PC shipments will be around 55 million units, of which North America will not be less than 22 million units.
The number of PCs owned worldwide has exceeded 230 million units.
In terms of digital cameras, in the first half of 1994, Tinker Bayer's digital camera shipments reached 3.27 million units, still successfully holding more than half of the global consumer digital camera market, with a market share of 53%. It is expected that the entire Annual shipments are expected to reach 8 million units.
At the same time, global shipments of consumer digital camera products in 1994 are expected to be around 16 million units.
As the world's largest consumer electronics market, the popularity of digital cameras in North America is as fast as the growth of video recorders in recent years, far exceeding overseas. There are 16 million digital cameras, of which more than 70% are in North America, reaching 11 million units.
Not to mention the accumulation in the past few years, and not to consider overseas users for the time being, the 11 million digital camera user increase in North America in 1994 is enough to ensure that Instagram has a broad user base.
What's more, as long as Instagram can be popularized and in turn stimulate user demand, the shipment volume of digital cameras will only increase further next year, and the two will complement each other.
When Simon arrived at the headquarters of Tinker Bayer Company, he was first taken by Girl C to view the digital camera prototype that Tinker Bayer Company had completed.
We have applied for a full series of trademarks in advance, still starting with 'i', which means 'Record'. Tinker Bayer's digital camera series will be named iRec.
Simple and easy to remember.
"We tried storage media such as CD, flash memory, and tape. In the end, as the boss said, the only storage solution suitable for us at this stage is a micro hard drive. However, although the prototype has been completed, there are still many problems that need to be solved. , and we also need to wait for hard disk manufacturers to develop micro hard drives with larger storage, so iRec will be released as early as next fall. By then we will be able to launch iRec with 250M storage capacity, and the cost can be controlled within a reasonable range."
In Tinkerber's laboratory, Girl C watched Simon playing with the obviously crude digital camera prototype while introducing it.
Simon took a video with the iRec prototype in his hand. When he played it back directly on the iRec small screen, he clearly felt stuck. This was probably one of the problems mentioned by Girl C.
Claire asked someone to bring in a latest IBM laptop, connected the iRec to the USB port of the laptop, and started transferring the video files Simon had just shot.
This iRec uses 240P video resolution, which is enough to meet current user needs.
The 1-minute video just shot is only 2.2M in size according to the 240P resolution standard.
A 2.2M video in MP4 format will definitely pass by in a blink of an eye when used for USB transmission more than ten or twenty years later. However, this time, Simon also discovered a problem again. Last year, the popular USB1.0 standard began to be promoted, and the transmission speed is only about 90K per second.
At this stage, it takes about 25 seconds to transmit a 1-minute 240P video.
Calculating this, if one hour of video is transmitted, it may take half an hour, which greatly affects the user experience.
Claire, who was beside Simon, was obviously satisfied with this. She noticed the change in the man's expression and said: "The USB1.0 standard 1.5Mbps transmission speed can already meet the needs of current users. The theoretical transmission speed is equivalent to 180K per second. , however, due to hardware reasons, we can only achieve half the transmission speed for the time being, and we can achieve further optimization when the product is launched next year."
Simon nodded.
Indeed, the road must be walked step by step.
To be able to achieve the current level, compared to the memory that the USB standard was initially formed in 1995, it was already very advanced at this time.
I have read the statistics in advance. With the vigorous promotion of the Westeros system, the USB interface began to be promoted at the end of last year. In the first half of the year, Tinco Bayer released the USB flash drive as a turning point. Now, the latest PC manufacturers have shipped The proportion of personal computers with USB interfaces has exceeded 20%, and next year this proportion will exceed 50%.
Not only that, including current home users who do not have personal computers with USB interfaces, they do not need to replace expensive PC equipment if they want to use USB functions. They only need to purchase an adapter interface worth dozens of dollars.
Ever since USB began to be promoted at the end of last year, companies such as Igret, Microsoft, and Intel have set up venture funds specifically to invest in USB peripheral products to support start-up companies in developing mice, keyboards and other hardware products that use USB interfaces.
At Tinco Bayer Company, with the popularity of USB interfaces, the digital cameras, digital music players, digital camcorders and other products planned to be released next year will all use micro hard drives plus USB transmission format.
However, the current floppy disk digital cameras will still be upgraded next year. In addition to the micro hard disk version of iCam-50, a floppy disk version of iCam-40s will be released next year as a transition.
After seeing the iRec prototype, Claire took Simon to browse some other products under development one by one.
This includes the iBook, which has not yet been leaked.
This is a concept that Simon gave very early on, and iBook was also one of the earliest trademarks accumulated by Tinker Bayer.
Apple released its first Newton tablet computer last year, which is the predecessor of Apple's tablet computer iPad, using a very advanced touch screen design.
Unfortunately, Apple did not identify the positioning of this product and only used it as a personal digital assistant. Moreover, because of the expensive price of this product of US$900, there are very few users.
Speaking of which, even for e-book readers, there are actually similar products on the market at this stage. However, due to various limitations such as storage capacity and content resources, there is basically no good development.
The iBook, which was quietly developed by Tinker Bayer, has no plans to launch a finished product in the short term, mainly because the price of small LCD screens is too expensive at this stage, and it is temporarily unable to be as exquisite and compact as a book.
The plan is to wait until at least 1996 for the actual launch of this product.
Simon also hopes that this product will be integrated to a certain extent, compatible with a digital music player, and even go one step further, adding digital camera functions and adopting a touch screen design.
By then, it will almost be the prototype of the later tablet computer.
In the laboratory, after listening to Simon's idea, Claire said: "If this is the case, our product may be more expensive than Apple's Newton Tablet, and not many people can afford it."
The reason why electronic products in the past were able to reach the thousand-yuan level was mainly because the development of the entire electronics industry system caused the overall cost to drop significantly.
At this stage, it is far from reaching this level.
For example, flash memory.
In the first half of the year, Tinker Bayer launched U disks using flash memory chips, with capacities of 8M and 16M respectively, breaking through the 1.44M capacity limit of floppy disks. However, compared with the price of less than two US dollars per floppy disk, the 8M USB flash drive is priced at US$39.99, and the 16M USB flash drive is priced at US$99.99.
The key reason why the next generation iCam does not consider more stable flash memory storage is cost.
However, as demand rapidly increased, it was expected that a reasonably priced flash storage version of the iCam-60 would be available in 1996.
The cost of micro hard drives in the implementation stage is not low, but compared to flash memory, micro hard drives have a capacity advantage. The micro hard drive version of the digital camera planned to be launched next year has a capacity of 150M. Compared with the current image size, it is expected to be able to store With up to 3,000 photos, users will basically no longer have to worry about running out of space.
Simon put down the iBook prototype that had no touch function and could only be operated by pressing buttons, and said to Claire: "If you think about it carefully, this is actually an inevitable trend, isn't it? Tinker Bayer Company does not need to be too advanced, but since Once you have the upper hand, you should ensure that you are always one step ahead of other manufacturers.”
Claire knew that her boss would not say this to others casually, so she nodded solemnly to take note of it.
I stayed at Tinker Bayer Company until after 11 o'clock.
I had lunch with John Chambers at noon, and in the afternoon I went to see the construction of the Eagle Park in Mountain View and participated in a conference call with AOL.
At around five o'clock in the afternoon, Simon got on the plane back to Los Angeles.
Inside the Boeing 767 cabin.
Girl A came to the study room in the front cabin of the plane holding a thick stack of documents. While handing the documents to Simon, she said: "D just called. As of five o'clock in the afternoon, the number of registered users on Instagram has reached 370,000. It is expected that this It will exceed 1 million on the weekend.”
Although Simon didn't personally intervene too much, he just listened to Alison's words and roughly understood what happened.
Shaking his head and smiling, Simon picked up a document handed over by Girl A and said, "D is a little impatient."
In just three days, the number of users exceeded one million. Even if Instagram has strong support from the Westeros system behind the scenes, the various problems that are coming are enough to make this small company that was only established for three months scrambled. If this affects the user experience , then the gain outweighs the gain.
However, on the other hand, the number of users has exceeded one million, which means that this company is already very valuable to the current booming new technology industry.
After this weekend, if Girl D and the others want to cash out, they will directly ask for $20 million, and there will definitely be a bunch of people rushing to get it.
In comparison, the girls only invested more than one million US dollars in the early stage, and the return was dozens of times in a few months.
After hearing what Simon said, Alison added: "D just said on the phone that she wanted to get more support from Ygritte by transferring some of her shares."
Simon smiled and asked: "How much?"
Girl A said: "20%."
Simon nodded and said: "You can talk to Jeff about this yourself, I don't care."
From a pure profit perspective, it is of course best for Instagram to sell its shares directly to the Westeros Company. After all, the current Igret Company is no longer 100% owned by the Westeros system. Transferring the shares to Weiss Tello Company, Simon can also let Ygritte give Instagram enough support.
However, actually doing so is somewhat breaking the rules.
Bundling of interests is the most solid foundation for cooperation.
Simon also prefers to talk business.
Although Instagram gained widespread attention right after its launch because of Simon, transferring part of its equity to Ygritte actually did not suffer at all.
Nowadays, countless small companies in Silicon Valley want to cooperate with Yigret, but often they are unable to do so.
After saying this, Alison saw Simon opening the box office report for the past week, and said: "There is one more thing, about the video game "Warcraft: Humans and Orcs" owned by EA."
Simon didn't look up, just hummed.
Alison continued: "Preliminary statistics show that the sales volume of this real-time strategy game in the first week was approximately 76,000 units, with sales reaching US$3.8 million. EA has directly recovered the cost, and it is expected that this game will be sold throughout the entire sales cycle. The shipment volume can reach about 1.5 million units, breaking the total sales volume of the first generation of "Dune" of the same type, which was 1.1 million units."
The price of "Warcraft: Humans and Orcs" is $49.99, which is the common price for video games in this era.
Total sales of 1.5 million units are expected, which means revenue of approximately US$75 million.
In comparison, the development cost of this game is only about 2 million US dollars. It is a huge profit, more profitable than drug trafficking, and it is legal.
The first generation of "Warcraft" in Simon's memory was successful, but the total sales volume was actually only about 300,000 units.
However, just this has made the newly renamed Blizzard gain widespread attention in the industry. The most important point is that the success of the first generation of "Warcraft" also gave Blizzard more sufficient funds to develop sequels. The second generation of "Warcraft" As a result, "Conflict for Hegemony" has reached a phenomenal sales volume of 2.5 million units.
This time, the sales volume of the first-generation "Warcraft" is expected to exceed one million. It can be said that it is the result of Silicon and Synapse Studios' support from EA to upgrade the game's production and distribution specifications.
The game industry is the same as Hollywood. For the same movie, if the seven major studios and the second- and third-tier independent film companies operate separately, the box office will definitely not be at the same level.
In the original prospectus, Daenerys Entertainment regarded the gaming business as the next important growth point of the group.
Over the past six months, while maintaining its vigorous development in console games, EA has also launched the phenomenal online game "Farm". Now, another PC game "Warcraft: Humans and Orcs" has become a huge success, which is undoubtedly another good news for Daenerys Entertainment's stock price.
Console games, PC stand-alone games and online games are advancing in parallel. As the electronic game market continues to expand, as long as it can maintain its current market position, in the future only the electronic game business is expected to support Daenerys Entertainment's hundreds of billions of dollars. level of market capitalization.
The market capitalization of the Disney Group at its peak in memory only just touched the US$200 billion threshold.
For Simon, this is definitely not the ceiling.
Although Daenerys Entertainment's current market value of more than 100 billion US dollars is considered by many to be extremely exaggerated, in Simon's view, it is not difficult for Daenerys Entertainment to break through the scale of Disney in the past. In the future, TV and games , music, streaming media and other fields, as long as we achieve the ultimate, each of them is expected to reach the level of 100 billion US dollars.