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30 years ago, a 64k international dedicated line was opened, and China achieved full-featured access to the international Internet and became the 77th member of the international Internet. Thirty years later, the Internet Society of China held the "China Internet 30th Anniversary Development Symposium - Seize the Opportunity and Start Again" in Beijing.
In addition to the attendance of officials from relevant government departments, the symposium also brought together many Internet industry leaders, such as Tencent Ma Huateng, Xiaomi Lei Jun, Sohu Zhang Chaoyang, 360 Zhou Hongyi and other Internet company leaders. At the symposium, Zhou Hongyi and Ma Huateng met and laughed away their grudges. Not only did they shake hands and talk happily, Zhou Hongyi also affectionately called Ma Huateng "old friend." Have the two really buried the hatchet?
Jianghu is not about fighting and killing, but about worldly relationships
Zhou Hongyi and Ma Huateng can be said to be old friends, but they are not purely good friends.
In 2010, the "3q war" broke out between the two because of the entanglement between the companies and interests behind them. The fuse of the war was the launch of 360 "KouKou Bodyguard" by 360. This software was directly aimed at QQ software and implemented a series of "cleaning" operations on it, including clearing out trash and removing ads. In just 72 hours after its release, the installed base exceeded 10 million.
This is undoubtedly a public challenge to Tencent. Subsequently, Tencent, which was afraid of losing its source of advertising revenue, issued the famous "Letter to QQ users nationwide" statement, threatening to "stop running QQ software on computers with 360 software installed" and issuing an ultimatum to hundreds of millions of QQ users. , causing a large number of users to delete only 360 software. Since both sides had fan bases, the war lasted for four years and became "the first anti-unfair competition case on the Internet."
However, all these knots seemed to be untied on the evening of April 20. On that day, Zhou Hongyi posted on his circle of friends and said, “I participated in the 30th anniversary symposium of China’s Internet organized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Internet Society, and met many senior leaders, as well as Many old friends from the same industry, Ma Huateng, Zhang Chaoyang and Lei Jun. ”
On Weibo, Zhou Hongyi posted a video with the text: “My old friend Ma Huateng praised me for my good short videos as an Internet celebrity.” In the video, Ma Huateng teased Zhou Hongyi: "Now that he has become an anchor, Zhou Hongyi's 'Hong' should be that of an Internet celebrity." The two people were talking and laughing, and the atmosphere at the scene was harmonious.
was on site that day, and other big guys also interacted frequently. Zhou Hongyi cueed Lei Jun and asked him if he wanted a Xiaomi Su7. Lei Jun responded generously: Xiaomi Su7 is not suitable for him, and he will recommend it to him when Xiaomi has an SUV version. Zhang Chaoyang gave Lei Jun two books "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class". Lei Jun posted on Weibo, "I always thought I was good at physics and planned to take a closer look, but I just knelt down and couldn't understand it at all."
This is like Jianghu. In the plot of the movie, the younger guys are tit for tat, but the big guys can sit down and drink together. Sure enough, Jianghu is not about fighting and killing, but about worldly relationships.
Tencent's key words this year are: "composite" master
The entanglement between major Internet companies cannot be justified by the word "profit". But on the Internet, there are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests.
Since this year, Tencent has been called the "master of composites". Not only did they settle their feud with Zhou Hongyi after 14 years of 3Q war, but earlier this year, Tencent also "shaked hands and made peace" with its arch-rival Bytedance. The largest confrontation in the Internet era ended with both parties "changing homes" with each other.
On January 25, game anchor Zhang Daxian launched the premiere of "Honor of Kings" on Douyin, which means that the two major companies Tencent and Byte have officially broken the ice after five years. ByteDance has almost shut down its gaming business. Tencent’s flagship mobile game “Honor of Kings” was opened to Douyin, and its PC-side flagship product “League of Legends” was subsequently launched on Douyin Live. "Win-win cooperation" has become the tacit goal of both parties.
Why did Tencent suddenly think about it this year? Behind the "reunion" is the increasing pressure in Ma Huateng's heart. In fact, at the beginning of 2024, Ma Huateng has already revealed his "sense of crisis." At Tencent's 2023 annual meeting, founder and CEO Ma Huateng rarely used the expression "no achievements" when commenting on the game business in the past year, expressing his inner anxiety.
In terms of game business, there is still no second Honor of Kings among Tencent’s game products. At the same time, the evaluation of "Glory of Kings" has become increasingly negative. The throne is still stable, but negative feedback from players about the poor game atmosphere, inaccurate player matching mechanism, and too strong flavor of krypton gold is not uncommon. In March this year, NetEase's Onmyoji mobile game official even "faced the King", pointing out that its skin was plagiarized.
Therefore, many people think it is reasonable for Tencent to become the master of "composite". In a highly competitive market environment, cooperation is beneficial to both parties. This is a rational business choice.
