Chapter 549: Algorithm 20

Today’s film and television works always skip the key and attractive parts as if the audience can’t afford that bit of data.

For instance, the wedding night scene just shows them lying down and then it’s morning, or it goes straight from the man undoing the woman’s outer garment to them tidying up their clothes.

To see the common people’s favorite parts, you still need to look for various license plates.

Thus, the classic masterpieces that Nanako watches can definitely be considered the extra seasoning in a romance film.

Like in “Those Years”, after the male lead kisses the groom, it should be the home intrusion scene next, right? But it just teases and then ends.

And after the male lead kisses the groom, the other side characters all rushed forward. It should have been a home intrusion scene, right? But that ended too.

It really treats the audience like outsiders.

But their everyday life is very real, filming the parts domestic movies skip, including various series.

“Was I only watching an edited version of the movies?”

Lu Feiyu finds it hard to accept:”I paid for it, Sister Nai, where can I watch the full version?”

Su Nai glances at Jiang Qin:”Boss, lend me your phone for a sec.”

Jiang Qin immediately gets angry:”I don’t have that kind of stuff on my phone!”

“Who said anything about that? I just want to download the Toutiao 2.0 beta for you!”

“Oh.”

Jiang Qin pulls out a Samsung SkyWing 3G that came as a free gift with a phone plan and hands it to Su Nai.

The big data team in Shanghai has now reached fifteen people. They have plenty of capacity for developing recommendation algorithms, so updates are speeding up and accuracy is improving.

The initial version of Tonight’s Headlines had a simple algorithm. It just matched tags added by creators to the tags selected by users.

This matching actually had a lot of discrepancies.

Because sometimes creators don’t know what they’re even writing, and users aren’t clear on what they like.

But after six months of development and adjustments, Tonight’s Headlines version 2.0 now recommends content based on user’s browsing history, refining users’ data continually.

In terms of commercial application of algorithms, Tonight’s Headlines has truly moved ahead in the industry.

Three minutes later, Su Nai returns the phone to Jiang Qin to have him try it.

Then Jiang Qin starts swiping non-stop, and soon, all the posts on screen are about beautiful feet, stockings and street snaps of beautiful women.

“Damn, this algorithm really gets me!”

Looking at his retrained Tonight’s Headlines, Jiang Qin feels quite amazed.

Lu Feiyu, also trying the beta, looks up,”Boss, this algorithm is really useful. It seems to understand me.”

“Your recommendations are settled too?”

Jiang Qin goes over to look,”All recent news, quite different from mine.”

“Boss, what kind of content does the algorithm recommend to you?”

“Well, efficient learning techniques, must-read literary works, how to be a boss who earns the employees’ trust and some very refined poetry and songs.”

Su Nai frowns slightly after hearing this,”That doesn’t sound right. Is there something wrong with the algorithm program? Let me see.”

Jiang Qin quickly pockets his phone and casually speaks,”What do you know? I like poetry and songs, the algorithm is spot on, hit right where my heart is!”

“?????”

Su Nai takes three minutes to realize, and then understands. The shrewd boss is just putting on airs. His Tonight’s Headlines is probably now trained to look like a large foot massage chain or a stockings store.

But Jiang Qin doesn’t feel guilty at all, sitting on his chair and continuing his studies seriously.

2011 was a year of booming development for the smartphone market, especially among college students; barely anyone used feature phones anymore.

Brands like Oppo, Nokia, and Motorola, old cell phone manufacturers, all transitioned to the smartphone market, cutting most of their feature phone lines, pushing the market’s renewal.

Xiaomi, through hunger marketing and appealing to smartphone enthusiasts, successfully gathered a group of loyal fans, accelerating the development of mobile devices.

Tonight’s Headlines, through pre-installed irremovable apps, successfully tied itself to many mainstream mobile brands, continuously expanding its user base.

If not for this strategy, Group-Buy might have lost the public opinion battle last time.

Why is that?

Because main channels such as Xinlang Weibo and Tencent News are controlled by large corporations.

They spread rumors about Group-Buy’s broken capital chain to block Group-Buy, forcing Jiang Qin to accept them as partners; of course, they would not give Group-Buy a chance to defend itself.

If not for Tonight’s Headlines creating a buzz, Jiang Qin’s expired coupon refund tactics, no matter how clever, couldn’t have made such waves.

No matter how handsome he is, he couldn’t sway consumers so completely with just an ad; nor could he get the news out about no one showing up for Dianping’s signing event.

With plenty of evidence but no voice, he would have ended up like Dou E.

That’s why, as many corporates grow, they start to own news channels; you must hold some power over public opinion to avoid being entangled by rumors.

Now, Alibaba has bought UC Web, Tencent quickly deployed Tencent Weibo, and Tencent News for mobile, Baidu also overloaded its originally clean homepage with news push.

Soon, as the mobile market develops even faster, obtaining information will become easier, and public opinion battles may become a standard commercial warfare tactic.

Because this kind of war costs nothing.

Especially when the self-media era reaches its peak, destroying a company with a rumor isn’t considered tough.

Online courts and web judges will also become more prevalent.

Seeing companies’ stock prices tumble due to rumors will also be more common.

Some might even use rumors to maliciously short the stock market or target large industries, which isn’t strange at all.

Small businesses? They don’t matter much because they’re too small, and big capital wouldn’t bother targeting them, plus they lack the power to control public opinion.

But for large businesses, especially ones like Jiang Qin, who eat off the internet and seek to build their own ecosystems, getting their voice is a crucial step.

For this reason, Jiang Qin decided to accelerate the incubation of Tonight’s Headlines.

By three in the afternoon, Jiang Qin, with tired eyes, briefly held a meeting with a few managers from Tonight’s Headlines business group, deciding to promote Tonight’s Headlines through Group-Buy channels.

Not limited to online websites, entertainment names, and offline ads.

Thus, after the 2.0 version update, Tonight’s Headlines’ audience expanded again.

Additionally, due to strategic cooperation channels between Zhihu and WeChat, Tonight’s Headlines updated to include a one-click share to Moments feature, starting to leverage fans’ spontaneous sharing to split off more users.

And this batch of updates indeed brought an unprecedented surprise to everyone.

“Damn, I feel like this app installed a camera in my house…”

“How does it know I like this?”

“The homepage push seems different for everyone.”

“Is this… a personalized news client?!”

“Mine is all about games and anime. What’s on your homepage?”

“Uh… nothing. My page doesn’t have anything.”

“?”

Tonight’s Headlines’ update swiftly made people feel the power of the algorithm, greatly reducing the time users spend finding ‘content they love’, significantly lowering the reading threshold.

That very night, several guys were stuck in the bathroom till their legs numbed and nearly forgot to wipe before daring to look again.

On a tranquil Tuesday morning at the beginning of the month, Linchuan University conducted a winter fire drill. A large group rushed out noisily and then gathered in the gym to listen to a firefighter explain fire safety knowledge.

As some started feeling sleepy, many couldn’t help but take out their phones to swipe through headlines.

Jiang Qin observed from the side, unable to stop clicking his tongue.

The app interface of Cao Guangyu opened to a bunch of luxury cars and high-end watches, utterly vulgar.

Ren Ziqiang’s opened to posts all about naming his kid—Zihan, Zihan, Zihan, Xinyu, Xinyu, Xinyu…

Chao’s headlines were all about finding a girlfriend or how to avoid being targeted by gays.

Next to him, Zhuang Chen’s news feed was all about how to get over a breakup or how to start a business and beat Group-Buy.

It must be said, big data really knows people well!

“I think this app should know I’m a second-generation rich kid.”

As Cao Guangyu kept scrolling, he became more moved, even feeling like crying.

After all his efforts, the first to believe he’s a rich second generation was an app. Otherwise, why would it keep pushing methods to identify genuine Rolexes and how to choose luxury cars to him?

Jiang Qin squatting nearby chuckled,”No, it just recommends things you like to browse, understands your preferences, and sends you related info.”

“?”

Cao Guangyu’s face darkened:”And yours? What’s pushed on your app?”

Jiang Qin reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone:”Learning stuff, what else.”

“Nonsense!”

“Don’t believe it? Just look.”

Cao Guangyu took Jiang Qin’s phone and scrolled through, finding all sorts of efficient learning methods and loads of poetry and songs, all oozing with an air of refinement.

“Your phone’s broken, right?”

“Get lost, this is big data getting to know me!”

Jiang Qin snatched his phone back, arrogantly unstoppable.

He had spent the previous night persistently reading posts on efficient learning and poetry, nearly breaking his brain to finally change big data’s stereotype of him, straightening his spine.