Discussions included the progress of negotiations between Igrette Company and the New York Times Group, responses to a series of recent lawsuits against the company, the IE browser's free plan, the transition of basic web tools from purchase to subscription, and the development status of key startups supported by the venture capital department.
Though Simon didn't go to San Francisco, he spent the entire Saturday in the villa's study discussing various matters with the team in Silicon Valley.
Simon had always tried to avoid becoming a micromanager, but as Igrette Company's scale grew, the number of decisions requiring his personal involvement also increased. This wasn't due to a lack of trust in the management but because the internet was an entirely new industry without precedents. A misstep during its early development could be difficult to correct.
For example, the cooperation with the New York Times Group.
Both Jeff Bezos and Carol Bartz, who was not in charge of the portal department, suggested rejecting the addition of New York Times Group's content to Igrette's already self-sufficient news content. They believed that doing so might dilute Igrette's media influence on the internet.
In many ways, they were correct.
Introducing New York Times Group's news content and directing traffic to their professional news site would inevitably lead many users away from Igrette Portal in search of more professional news. This superficially seemed detrimental to Igrette Portal's control over internet media trends.
However, if they refused to cooperate, could Igrette maintain its position long-term?
For instance, comparing the staff sizes of their news teams, Igrette Portal's news department had about 500 employees, not even one-third of the New York Times' 1,600.
The lag of print media in the internet field wasn't due to a lack of content creation capability but rather a need to protect their vested interests.
Once print media fully embraced digitalization, Igrette Portal couldn't compete with their deep-rooted content creation capabilities.
Though print media would likely not fully transition to digital for a long time unless facing a critical survival moment, even partial efforts could shift content resources to competitors if Igrette refused to cooperate, potentially allowing competitors to grow.
Most importantly, Simon had repeatedly emphasized since Igrette's inception that the portal website was not the company's core.
In the internet business, Igrette must protect three areas at all costs: search engines, social networks, and e-commerce.
Previously, executives might not have understood this, but as internet adoption grew and users became more proficient, the rapid growth of the search engine business became evident. Users increasingly bypassed portal recommendations to directly find their own interests.
As for social networks, once people are concentrated in one social circle, switching to another is nearly impossible, making it hard for newcomers to disrupt an established social network.
Mastering search engines and social networks means truly mastering internet content access.
At that point, through these two invisible nets, Igrette could control what users see. No matter how professional or rich your news content is, if it can't appear in search engines or social networks or is hidden in obscure corners, it's futile.
This is the real, unassailable authority!
By comparison, portal websites are much easier to replicate.
In the current crucial internet 1.0 era, pushing content resources to competitors could give them a chance to transform, allowing them to catch up or even surpass Igrette before its internet 2.0 foundation is solidified.
Conversely, accepting content resources could create a Matthew effect, strengthening the strong.
Moreover, traditional media's digital content might gain more influence through this process, but to get traffic from Igrette Portal, they would have to follow Igrette's rules.
Simply put, content favoring the Westeros system would naturally be recommended more, while articles attacking it would be suppressed. This potential influence would extend to traditional media platforms. Any newspaper cooperating with Igrette Portal would have to consider if publishing an anti-Westeros article might affect their internet collaboration.
Thus, bringing in New York Times Group's content and cooperating with other print media companies would not weaken Igrette's internet media influence but rather increase it.
Besides content cooperation, the New York Times Group also proposed acquiring a stake in the online radio site Broadcast, invested in by Igrette, and obtaining a patent license for online video streaming technology.
Simon agreed to all of this.
In memory, Broadcast was a prime example of an internet 1.0 failure, with Yahoo spending billions in stock for a site that ended up being a mess.
Having initiated a similar project, Simon didn't want to repeat history.
Therefore, in planning, Simon adopted more of a "Himalaya" model from memory. Besides traditional radio resources, the new Broadcast focused more on personal radio, audiobooks, online music, and educational courses.
Compared to the immediacy of traditional radio, Igrette's Broadcast would store large amounts of fixed audio resources.
Simon even considered using Broadcast as a content platform for iPlayer when it launched next year.
Negotiating with major record companies for online music resources wasn't realistic in the short term. However, Broadcast's diverse audiobooks, educational courses, and other audio resources could still promote iPlayer.
Given this improved version of Broadcast, sharing it with the New York Times Group felt a bit regrettable.
But considering their extensive print media content could be converted to audio resources, Simon agreed, but only for a maximum of 15% of the shares, priced at $30 million, valuing Broadcast at $200 million.
In comparison, when the project started last year, Igrette acquired 80% of Broadcast for just $10 million, though the added value of Igrette's advertising resources and traffic couldn't be understated.
Regarding the online video streaming technology, it was mainly because the recent London Girl livestream had made the public aware of the internet's potential to replace television.
Traditional print media had long wanted to enter television but were restricted by cross-media ownership bans. The New York Times Group saw the potential to leapfrog television into internet video, aiming to secure a spot early.
Aside from this demonstration livestream, Igrette had no immediate plans for a dedicated video or livestreaming site, only offering limited test services similar to movie trailers on the portal's movie section.
Most users currently lacked the bandwidth and hardware for smooth online video viewing, and video sites had prohibitive storage and bandwidth costs. Thus, starting a specialized site wouldn't provide the best user experience and would be costly. If the New York Times Group wanted it, they could take it.
Having personally approved the cooperation with the New York Times Group, Simon also finalized the IE browser free plan and the subscription transition for basic web tools during the day's discussions.
For the IE browser's free plan, after coordinating with pre-installation hardware manufacturers and telecom operators, IE would officially announce the free service by May.
The plan to transition the basic web tools software from purchase to subscription was proposed by Carol Bartz. Though discussed initially when the software was first developed, Simon had favored a one-time purchase due to the prevailing software sales environment, as exemplified by Microsoft's Windows and Oracle's database software.
Over the years, Carol Bartz revisited the topic, advocating for a subscription model for more stable, long-term revenue and to quickly promote the latest web technologies.
As the internet boomed, web technology was evolving rapidly.
Many users' purchased software versions could become outdated within a year, and timely updates required extra costly purchases. From Igrette's perspective, constantly pushing users to buy new versions maximized profits but was highly unpopular.
Consequently, there was already a trend of rampant pirated Ygritte series basic tools.
Many startups, after buying a genuine software set, secretly switched to pirated versions to avoid update costs. Even if Igrette pursued legal action, they could produce old genuine software as proof, causing significant losses for Igrette.
Thus, switching from purchase to subscription ensured users always had the latest software without one-time high costs. The current internet speeds could support online instant updates. For Igrette, this would initially lower software sales but provide more stable long-term revenue and curb piracy through user registration.
Around 5 PM, Janet entered the study to find Simon still discussing the upcoming launch of "Happy Farm" with the head of Igrette's online games department.
After a nod to Simon, Janet dismissed the secretary organizing thick stacks of documents nearby and picked up a lawsuit document, only to toss it aside. It was a suit from a site called 33list accusing Igrette's advertising alliance plan of monopoly.
Just from the name 33list, Janet couldn't help but scoff.
Clearly mimicking 58list.
She picked up another document, this one from a studio developing IE browser plugins, suing Igrette for blocking their homepage-changing plugin.
Tsk.
Changing the IE homepage.
Such an anti-user plugin, utterly outrageous!
Tossing it aside again, she found a relatively "legitimate" lawsuit: a New York lawyer accusing Igrette of privacy invasion with targeted ads, launching a class action with other users.
Choosing this one, Janet settled on the guest area sofa, engrossed in the document.
Simon continued his discussion for another ten minutes before finally ending the call and turning to review "Happy Farm" details on his computer screen.
The "Happy Farm" social game project started in mid-January. Remembering that the original version took only two weeks to develop, Simon generously allotted the development team a month.
However, after Simon outlined the basic plan, the team, moved to an Alabama farm for inspiration, seemed to get carried away.
Enthusiasm and creativity in the team were encouraged, and with the new proposals being very satisfying to Simon, he let them have free rein. The team size quietly doubled during development.
Simon did set a final deadline, requiring the game to be launched before Easter.
After two months, the new "Happy Farm" was finally completed.
Compared to the simple Flash game with just planting and stealing crops in memory, the EA team, used to more complex games, added a home upgrade system, beast attack mechanics, and pet rearing system, greatly enhancing player interaction.
Besides stealing crops and tending fields, players could now help friends fend off beasts, upgrade houses, and even explore and hunt on strangers' farms.
Simon offered suggestions for the home upgrade system, inspired by his experience with "Conquest 2" games, emphasizing that higher-level houses should be more beautiful. The team even asked for permission to use images of the Shell Villa at Dume Point as a template for the highest-level house.
Simon declined this request but the team found plenty of other beautiful designs.
The final game perfectly integrated all these elements into a comprehensive mini-ecosystem.
Crops sold could be used to buy seeds and exchange for building materials to upgrade homes and other structures.
Repelling beasts provided pet food.
Pets had simple attributes, with stronger pets better defending farms, and players could breed and trade pets with friends.
For stealing crops, the game added traps where thieves could be caught and needed to pay ransom to escape.
For house upgrades, without spending a cent, a player would need at least a year of continuous effort to reach the max level 12.
If someone spared no expense on fertilizer tools, the minimum time would be a week due to upgrade time limits, costing around $2 million, the price of a real-life villa.
All these features combined significantly increased the game's playability.
The revenue source remained the fertilizer tools.
Following the principle of giving to receive, the game offered a sign-in system where daily logins earned a bag of fertilizer, with extra rewards for continued logins.
However, the added complexity made the game larger.
Players needed to download a 15MB installation package, the same size as the IE software itself.
Fortunately, this process didn't have to be immediate. Clicking download within the game interface allowed it to complete unnoticed in 10 minutes on a basic 256K ADSL connection, requiring no special installation.
Ten minutes was not long.
A player finishing the initial tutorial and harvesting a crop or two would have the game installed without realizing.
To support the new Flash technology, Igrette's IE software team optimized Ygritte Flash Player for this game, planning a standalone Flash game support kernel if the game succeeded.
This plan, endorsed by Simon, aimed to strengthen IE's technical barriers with a dedicated gaming kernel.
Even if the federal government enforced antitrust actions, other software developers couldn't quickly match IE's features.
Simon's condition was that the gaming kernel must not slow down IE's overall performance, prioritizing user experience. This stance was unanimously supported by key executives like Bezos.
Finishing the "Happy Farm" materials, Simon emailed his new ideas to San Francisco before shutting down his computer.
Stretching, Simon noticed Janet on the sofa, reviewing documents. He walked over, cupped her face from behind, and kissed her, asking, "What are you reading?"
Janet leaned back, waving the lawsuit document before tossing it aside, snuggling her face into Simon's palm.
Feeling her reliance, Simon suggested, "How about you and Jennifer go stay in Australia for a while?"
"No, I want to stay here with you," Janet immediately refused, then added, "Or we can go together?"
Simon had to decline, "You know, I'm a bit busy right now."
"Mm," Janet said, pulling Simon's hand closer and looking into his eyes, "Are you scared, little boy?"
Simon kissed her lips again, saying, "Yes, I'm afraid I can't protect you all."
With that, they both fell silent.
Last week's incident had left an impression. Though Janet didn't react as sensitively as the assistant, she had completely stepped back from Cersei Capital to help Simon handle the Westeros family's current media pressure and other matters.
Clearly, she was deeply affected as well.
Simon knew Janet shared many similarities with him, including a lack of fear towards death.
But now, they both had attachments.
Even if they didn't care about themselves and were willing to make a grand exit, they wouldn't want their loved ones to be harmed because of it.
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