It was the launch of the Microsoft Windows operating system that greatly accelerated the pace of promotion of personal computers from professional technicians to ordinary people. Today's computer network browsing tools are just like the original dos system, which requires strong professional knowledge to operate. This is also the reason why personal computers have become popular but computer networks have not developed much. Chris can imagine that if Ai If Rick's idea can really be realized, it will definitely cause a revolution in computer networks.
Just the first thought gave Chris a bright feeling, and he couldn't wait to ask, "What about the second thought?"
Eric took a sip of coffee and said, "The second idea is an online email service."
"I already have this, I just learned it recently, but I don't think it's special, and it's not very convenient."
"I'm talking about 'online' e-mail service," Eric said, emphasizing the word 'online', "Most of the current e-mail transmissions are point-to-point transmissions using software. The computer is transmitted to another computer, and it is often used in a small local area network, so that if you leave the office, you can no longer watch the mail. What I want to do is a company that provides online email services, using ∏★ Websites and servers are used as e-mail carriers, so that as long as users apply for an account, no matter where they are, as long as they can connect to the Internet, they can check the e-mails sent by friends or colleagues from anywhere.”
Chris said: "I don't think too many people will spend money to apply for such an email account. Now the cost of calling is not too high, and public phones are everywhere. You can say anything on the phone .and. people don’t necessarily email every day.”
Hear what Chris said. Eric was even a little emotional. When he proposed this idea, Chris immediately thought of spending money to buy such a service instead of expecting it to be free. Eric didn't bother to complain, and quickly said: "I didn't plan to do it from the beginning. This will be a free online service. What we need to do in the first stage is to accumulate users. If the computer network can be popularized, then our e-mail service users will also expand to a very large scale. You can Imagine, if we have 100 million active email users, how much will those advertisers pay for us to send advertising emails to these users?"
Chris seemed to really calculate for a while, then showed a numb and admiring expression, and smiled: "Okay, what about the third one?"
"Portal web," Eric said, taking some water. Two words were spelled out on the table.
Although the Internet has just developed a rudimentary form, various websites have appeared on this primitive network. Taking movies as an example, imdb, the most famous movie information website in the previous life, was established as early as 1990. And it has already reached a considerable scale. Therefore, it is not too advanced to launch a portal website now. Even if it is really early, it will cost 1.8 million US dollars every month. Waiting for the golden age of the Internet to come, it will take a year. The expenditure is equivalent to a low-cost movie, which is not worth mentioning to Eric.
For the first two ideas, Chris can probably guess the meaning by listening to the name, but 'portal web' is definitely a very unfamiliar concept.
Eric didn't know how to translate the portal website in his previous life, he could only use the most superficial word 'portal (main entrance)': "Probably, it is to classify the messy websites on the Internet and create a web directory. You can easily find the consultation you want in this directory website.”
Chris nodded, expressing his understanding, but compared to the first two amazing ideas, Chris felt that Eric’s idea did not have much commercial value. Although a classified website is very practical, but, It seems that it is very easy to imitate, and it is estimated that it is difficult to achieve dominance.
Eric can also tell that Chris should have considered his last idea as a 'addition' to the first two projects, but he didn't rush to explain anything, let the facts surprise Chris, the previous life Yahoo's market value is dozens of times that of contemporary browser companies and online email service companies.
The two talked about late at night in this roadside cafe with great interest. Although it was already three or four o'clock in the morning according to the western time that Eric was more accustomed to, Eric did not feel tired. His young body and sufficient The exercise has kept Eric full of personal energy, and it will not be a problem to stay up for a few nights occasionally.
It wasn't until two o'clock in the morning Eastern time that Chris and Eric got up and left under the "ghost" eyes of the coffee shop waiter. The streets of Manhattan at night seemed even colder, but it didn't affect their mood at all.
"Take some time these few days to write out the plan. When the AOL business is settled, I will prepare these three companies as soon as possible. By the way, since you have already come up with these ideas, have you decided on a name yet?" Finally parted , Chris asked.
Eric showed a slightly wicked smile: "Of course, the three companies are called 'inter explorer (inter explorer), hotmail and yahoo (yahoo)."
…
In the next few days, Eric and Chris continued to wrestle with America Online's Steve Case over the terms of cooperation. During this period, the 64th Oscar was also held at the Los Angeles Music Center on March 30. .
As this year's 12 Oscar nominations, "Dances with Wolves" won seven awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor without any surprise. Because of the good news of Oscar, The box office of "Dances with Wolves" rebounded sharply again. In the fifteenth week of its release, it received more than 11 million US dollars in box office in less than 1,500 theaters, and the total box office also exceeded 150 million. The box office results of the feature films that are not very optimistic have surprised everyone.
Although only the theatrical distribution rights of the film. But according to the performance of "Dances with Wolves" in North America and overseas box office. The movie is expected to gross more than $500 million worldwide. According to the sharing agreement signed at the beginning, Fox will share a profit of nearly $100 million from this money. For Fox, this huge sum of money, which is equivalent to half of last year's film business profits, is similar to what it picked up. Even many insiders who know the inside story teased Murdoch for giving birth to a good daughter at some parties.
In addition, because Eric advanced "The Silence of the Lambs" by one year, without competition from Jodie Foster, Susan Sarandon also won the final prize with tg's "Thelma & Louise". At the same time, "Thelma & Louise" also won the Best Original Screenplay Award.
"Thelma & Louise" was a commercial and artistic success. It made more people pay attention to TG, a film company composed of three girls. Although they know that the supporters of TG behind the scenes are the two giants of Firefly and Fox, there are still many investors who frequently contact the three girls. Attempt to buy shares or invest.
Even if independent film companies occasionally achieve good results for a certain film, because the seven major distributors who monopolize the channels default on their share, these film companies have to raise external financing in order to shoot new films.
However, for TG, this problem does not exist at all. Whether TG's movies are distributed by Fox or Firefly. They can get their share on time, and. Even if there is still a lack of funds, both Eric and Murdoch are very happy to invest, so those investors who tried to participate in TG were all disappointed.
In New York, because the cooperation intentions of both parties are relatively urgent, Firefly Investment successfully reached a preliminary agreement with America Online. However, the specific investment amount will be negotiated in detail by Chris's team and Steve Case.
At the same time, Eric also confirmed the plan to invest 8,000 US dollars in Emily Brighton's investment company. This figure was negotiated by Eric, Chris and Emily.
A week later, Eric left Chris with three project proposals and rushed back to Los Angeles.
The preparations for Mr. and Mrs. Smith went very smoothly. Because it was his first film in Hollywood, Wu Baige seemed to attach great importance to it. He would personally participate in every detail. The scenography, scene design and selection of supporting roles for the film were all carried out in an orderly manner. It is expected that in late April, when the two protagonists, Nicole and Pierce Brosnan, have finished their firearms training in the "Secret School", the filming will start smoothly.
Because he didn't have to worry too much about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Eric put most of his energy into the preparation of "Jurassic Park". The most important part of "Jurassic Park" is the design of the dinosaur image . According to the restoration of dinosaur fossils by paleontologists, in fact, whether it is Tyrannosaurus rex or Velociraptor, the original image is very different from the image in memory.
Eric combined the memories in his mind and conducted many discussions with several paleontologists before he determined the images of the most important dinosaurs.
For the special effects of "Jurassic Park", although because of Eric's investment in technology research and development regardless of the cost, if "Jurassic Park" is completely produced with cg special effects, there is no major technical problem, but it will take a lot of time , after all, no one has used full cg to make very realistic dinosaur monsters before. Starting from scratch requires a lot of time and energy for technical exploration, and Stan Winston is an expert in model special effects After thinking about the pros and cons, Eric quickly decided to follow Spielberg's method in his previous life, using a combination of models and computer special effects to operate.
After this decision, in the huge studio located in Playa Vista, a large number of model special effects designers quickly invested in the production of dinosaur models. The dinosaur model that needs to be used cannot be solved by a simple empty shell. In addition to the realistic shape and skin, the interior of the dinosaur also needs to use complex mechanical transmissions. However, compared with computer special effects, this way The dinosaur model is still very cost-effective, and, in any case, the model is more realistic than the current computer special effects.
In the busy work, the days passed day by day. In the process of intense preparations for "Jurassic Park", in mid-April, "Mrs. and Mrs. Smith", a collaboration between Disney and Columbia, was officially launched in Los Angeles. At the same time, Firefly's summer file Another movie, "Ghost in Disguise", produced by TG and starring Jim Carrey and Claudia Schiffer, was also successfully completed, and the digital field soon took over the special effects production of "Ghost in Disguise".
The time is less than two months away from the summer file, and Firefly and Disney have also begun to conduct more intensive promotional work for the main film of the summer file. Of course, several other major film companies also joined in this marketing battle as a matter of course.
At the same time as Mr. and Mrs. Smith started, when Firefly cooperated with Columbia, another secret condition promised by the two helmsmen of Columbia also began to be implemented.
In fact, the operation of this matter is not too complicated. After several secret talks between Peter Guber and Eric, a specific plan was determined.
In April, in an inconspicuous Hollywood professional magazine, Columbia announced to the outside world that in order to reduce Colombia's operating costs, Columbia will lay off 2,000 employees within six months, and will also abolish some less important departments in Columbia. .
The outside world didn't have much reaction to Columbia's layoffs. After all, Columbia Pictures' performance in the past two years has been sluggish, and it has caused losses for more than two consecutive years. If the original promise was not to intervene in Colombian operations, layoffs may have been taken to reduce costs.
However, although most people do not know the truth, how could such a large-scale movement not attract the attention of Hollywood insiders? When the branch in the country was directly closed, many people realized something strange.
You must know that although Latin America is generally hostile to the United States' policy, although it is extremely close to the United States geographically, it is dozens of times more difficult for Hollywood movies to enter Latin America than to enter the European market.
But even so, it would be too much to completely abolish these branches. After all, although Latin America is closed, it is still a super market with a population of more than one billion, and its future potential is unlimited, just like Eastern Europe. After the upheaval, the Eastern European market, which was originally very resistant to Hollywood films, opened up in an instant. Film companies with a foundation in Eastern Europe can gain more advantages than other film companies, and the situation in Latin America is obviously the same. (To be continued..)