Chapter 394 (1/2)
At the beginning of the new year, while the two acquisitions were finalized, westero system began to make efforts in the field of Internet.
After careful preparation, AOL launched the Internet free trial program on January 1, 1991.
As long as the users of bell Pacific, Bell Atlantic and Nynex on the East and west coasts of the United States can install and access the world wide web platform for free by appointment, and get a free trial time of three hours a day for one month.
As of December 31, 1990, the number of end users of AOL has been fixed at 820000, and the number of Internet users accessing the world wide web platform in North America has reached 1.16 million.
AOL team predicted the growth rate of World Wide Web users in the previous few months and launched the free trial plan. In the next three months, AOL will welcome at least one million free trial users per month on average.
According to the trial budget of $100 per user in terms of access equipment and web browsing, AOL will invest an average of $100 million per month, not counting the investment in human resources and infrastructure to support the number of users.
All in all, AOL will burn at least $400 million for a three-month free trial.
In comparison, AOL's annual revenue in 1990 was just over 100 million yuan.
Therefore, the key to this risky and radical business plan is actually the issue of capital.
Simon agreed to the IPO plans of AOL and Cisco last year. However, due to the outbreak of Gulf War in the second half of last year, the U.S. stock market continued to slump, and the IPO plans of both companies continued to delay. This free trial can be described as AOL's last fight before IPO.
Other minority shareholders, who hold 25% of AOL's shares, are reluctant to be diluted by Westeros again, and Simon is not reluctant. This time, the funds were obtained from Citibank in the form of loans through the relationship with Westeros.
After three months of free trial, AOL will officially launch IPO regardless of the implementation result and macroeconomic environment.
AOL's other shareholders and management are under great pressure, but Simon is full of confidence in the plan and the U.S. economic trend.
One million trial users in one month and three million in three months are actually very conservative.
You should know that in the past 1990, the total volume of personal computers shipped by mainstream PC manufacturers such as IBM, apple and commac exceeded 20 million, of which the volume of IBM series compatible computers alone reached 16.8 million. At the same time, the number of PC users in the world exceeded 100 million in 1990.
As the most developed economy in the world, the domestic market share of the United States is more than 50% in terms of PC shipment and ownership.
Although personal computers in this era are mainly used for office use, and office PCs account for a large part of the total number of personal computer users, and AOL's user areas are located in the most economically developed states on the East and west coasts of the United States. The number of 3 million trial users in three months is absolutely not much.
If 20% to 30% of the 3 million expected trial users can be converted into regular users, AOL's free trial program will be a success.
After the first quarter, as long as the growth of users meets the expectation, AOL can at least ensure the annual revenue of $500 million. With the growth of the number of users in the following three quarters, the actual revenue will definitely be higher. Compared with the performance growth of more than 500% last year, this growth rate is enough for AOL to obtain a very excellent IPO valuation.
After IPO, AOL can continue to raise funds from the open market more flexibly by issuing securities or issuing additional shares.
Igritte, on the other hand, is also starting to work in the field of content.
Just a week after the new year, Peter Butler officially joined igritte and went to the Middle East to host a comprehensive report on the Gulf War.
At the same time, igritte also launched an award-winning creative activity of ”everyone is a novelist” in the column blog section.
Online novel, a literary genre that later became familiar to people, actually appeared earlier than many people imagined. Just like online games, Kunteng online, the predecessor of AOL, operated the ”online novel Solitaire” service as early as the 1980s.
In the final analysis, there is no shortage of creativity.
However, the ”everyone is a novelist” campaign launched by igritte is still inclined to traditional literary creation, and the deadline is also three months.
The registered users of igrit portal can participate in the activity and create online after applying to the blog operation team. The theme is limited to fiction, but there is no limit to the type. Science fiction, horror, suspense and so on are all OK. The rule is to submit an update at least once a week, and the final winner will be selected by the Internet users through online voting.
In the end, one first prize with a prize of 500000 US dollars, 10 second prizes with a prize of 100000 US dollars, 100 third prizes with a prize of 10000 US dollars will be selected. At the same time, the works created by these users are expected to be published and adapted into films and TV series by danielis entertainment.With a total of 2.5 million US dollars in prize pool, as well as publishing and film adaptation opportunities, the event has just been announced and aroused the strong concern of igrit users.
After all, most ordinary people actually have some creative dreams, which are difficult to implement only because of various constraints.
Igrit's online activity not only provides a platform with low threshold, but also provides a huge bonus to stimulate users' enthusiasm.
For igritte, such an activity can not only realize Simon's goal of producing content, but also enhance the interactivity of igritte's social network. Moreover, through the name sponsorship of IBM and other enterprises, igrit has further developed its own advertising business, which can be said to be more than one stone.
For this event, the team of igritte specially developed a voting system, which is similar to the popular like function on the Internet. Only registered users of igritte portal can vote. Moreover, in order to avoid the phenomenon of multiple vest vote swipe, voting users also need to bind AOL's account, and can only cast one vote every day.
Hollywood successfully reached an agreement with MCA, and the first box office week after the new year passed quickly.
From January 4 to January 10, the third week of ”home by the kid” opened. Because it entered the working day, compared with the adverse decline of new year's day, the box office of this week fell by 34% and closed at $31.28 million.
The box office of a single week dropped from US $47.99 million to US $31.28 million. Although the decline is very deep, it is actually very rare. In this era, the box office of many blockbuster films in the first week may not exceed 30 million US dollars, which is enough to show the phenomenal box office characteristics of ”kid in charge”.
In three weeks, the total North American box office of ”kid in charge” has reached 111.9 million US dollars, easily making it into the top ten of the North American box office list in 1990.
However, such an excellent box office momentum has to face the shadow of the approaching war.
It is getting closer and closer to the 15 January ultimatum issued by the United Nations for Iraq, but there is no sign that Saddam Hussein's troops will withdraw from Kuwait. It is worth mentioning that the ”tough attitude” of the U.S. government also played a key role.
Several conditional withdrawal proposals put forward by the Iraqi side have all been rejected by the US government.