Chapter 35: The Collapse of Potato Video Website

  PS: Someone who doesn't take the usual path is rarely recommended, and their collection grows very slowly, which is a huge blow to one's confidence!

  When a large public website designed to handle 15 million visits at the same time suddenly appears with several times more visits than the server load, the website collapses.

  On June 28, 2006 at 3:00 pm, Wang Wei, the founder of Tudou.com, a video sharing website located in Xuhui District, Shanghai, was excitedly telling his team that the site's click-through rate had increased by 30% that day. He looked around at his team members and proudly clenched his fist, saying: "Everyone, just one small street video can increase our registered users by 3%. As of 2:50 pm today, our website traffic has reached an all-time high. This is a historic moment for our site, which shows that video sharing websites have great prospects."

  "Clap, clap, clap..." The applause suddenly erupted, and everyone in the conference room felt a sense of accomplishment and excitement. Last year, the website had just gone online, and now, within just one morning, it had already reached hundreds of millions of clicks. Isn't this the best reward and proof of one's vision and hard work?

  "I just want to say one thing, regardless of whether the surge in clicks this morning is an accidental phenomenon or not, we must work together to find reasons why more people like our potato video website, we must proactively seek solutions, strive to reach the milestone of 10 million registered users as soon as possible, and ultimately achieve the long-term goal of listing on NASDAQ." Wang Wei clapped his hands in a very powerful and convincing arrangement.

  Seeing the nods of approval from everyone, Wang Wei continued: "Also, contact all major media outlets and portal websites to announce that we have set a new record for the highest number of clicks today. We need to let everyone who likes surfing the internet and may become our users know about this news. We must let others know what our website is really about."

  Having said that, Wang Wei stood up and asked as usual: "That's all I have to say. Does anyone else want to add anything?"

  "Director Wang, I think we can hold an original video selection activity..." A young man sitting opposite Wang Wei stood up and said: "From the video that sparked heated debate today, it can be seen that everyone is still quite curious about original videos. Moreover, many people now own DVs, so personally, I think it's completely possible to use this method to get more people involved."

  "Hmm, what does everyone think of this approach?" Wang Wei nodded in satisfaction and asked for the opinions of other high-level officials.

  "I think this method is feasible."

  "I also think it's worth a try, after all, at most it's just spending some advertising fees."

  "Actually, our video website is called a video sharing site, but only a few people, or rather, only we ourselves have uploaded some old TV shows and pirated movies. This is clearly not conducive to the growth of the site, and there's too little content, which can't form a scale. Mobilizing the vast number of netizens is actually not a bad idea."

  "Yes, as long as this trend of instant and real-time photography takes shape, our website's content will never be lacking again. With more people taking photos, they will naturally introduce their friends and family to come and click to support, which is also very positive."

  ……

  Everyone suddenly expressed their opinions, and the meeting that was once a solo performance became a venue for everyone to express their views. Wang Wei watched all this with great pleasure. The video website is an emerging industry, currently only generating thin advertising revenue, which can barely cover employee salaries, let alone irregularly adding servers. To change this predicament as soon as possible, it's necessary for everyone to brainstorm and find a solution. Therefore, he didn't mind the occurrence of this "brainstorming" at all, but instead listened carefully and analyzed it in order to find some solutions that could change the company's difficult situation.

  Just as everyone was chatting lively, Wang Wei's phone rang. He made a gesture to continue and picked up the phone, but found that it was Zhang Xuesi, the leader of the company's server maintenance department, who called him. He curiously answered the phone: "Old Zhang, what...? The server has crashed?"

  Wang Wei suddenly straightened his body, his face turned serious, and he asked in a low voice: "Is it a hacker attack? No? What's the reason?"

  The high-level executives in the office suddenly fell silent, everyone looked at Wang Wei with some tension, holding the phone and trembling slightly, as if there was a stone hanging over their heads, and they didn't know how big this loss would be.

  "Great, this is wonderful! You first think of a way to stabilize the situation, I'll immediately think of a way to rent 10 more servers." Suddenly, Wang Wei burst out laughing, he slammed his hand on the table, hung up the phone lightly, and looked at the high-level executives who were staring at him in tension and surprise with eyes full of joy. The corner of his mouth curled up and said: "Everyone put away this expression! Haha, just now I received a call from Old Zhang, you definitely won't believe it..."

  Wang Wei suddenly burst out laughing, because he really should laugh, if he didn't laugh hard enough, he wouldn't feel comfortable. Even though the server had already crashed, compared to this news, it was nothing. Because of a video, the entire website suddenly increased by tens of millions of visits in just a few seconds, isn't that defying the heavens? Which website in the world can withstand such a sudden burst of data flood?

  "Now, a piece of great news has come from our website." Wang Wei didn't dare to delay, he immediately put on a smile and calmly arranged the emergency measures: "Li Feng, go find IBM's Shanghai office, think of a way to rent 10 servers right away, such a large quantity, I think they won't want to miss it either; Zhao Gang, you immediately contact the major print media, portal websites, and websites with many users, our potato video sharing website has important news to tell all network users nationwide; and Zhang Xiangfei, you immediately contact the venue, we will start the press conference at 6 o'clock tonight, everyone hurry up."

  Although the old general Wang Wei did not explicitly tell everyone what had happened to make him so flustered, people could clearly see from his face that it was definitely a very good thing. So, despite being named and arranged by high-level officials who were somewhat puzzled, they didn't ask any questions and quickly left in a hurry.

  "Alright, now that the specific arrangements are being carried out by someone, let me tell you in detail what just happened!" Wang Wei stopped teasing and raised a finger excitedly, suppressing his excitement: "You absolutely won't believe it, just two minutes ago, our server cluster that can hold up to 15 million people online all crashed at once (everyone gasped), I thought like everyone else that we were hacked, but Old Zhang told me it wasn't."

  Wang Wei slowly took a deep breath and continued: "The reason is that within those two minutes, our website received collective visits from at least 35 million computers across the country, to the point where even our standby servers were immediately activated, but still couldn't keep up."

  "My god, the peak value suddenly changed from tens of millions to over 300 million, which is unbearable." Everyone was an insider, their company had just been established for a little over a year, plus economic problems, and the server itself was not prepared very generously, only two groups were reserved, and at most they could handle 1 million visits, let alone double that amount.

  "Haha, although we're not entirely sure what's causing everyone to flock to our website, it's clearly a good thing! Wang Wei's mouth was stretched into a wide smile. With this big news, he'll have an easier time negotiating investments with venture capitalists. So many people suddenly knowing about our website - isn't that an advantage, a prospect, and a lucrative opportunity?"

  "Indeed, let's investigate the reason immediately!" The high-level technical personnel decided to launch an investigation one after another, and they must figure out what was the reason that made the website appear with good news twice in one day.

  "The video of the imitation emperor today doesn't need to be investigated, the reason is very simple. First, the uploader himself advertised it, letting at least several hundred people continuously increase the click-through rate in a short period of time, so that it climbed onto the homepage. Later, our staff also topped it, plus the content of the video was indeed relatively new and the title was very powerful, so it quickly attracted a large number of viewers." Wang Wei explained simply.

  "King Wang, do you think it's necessary for us to set up a special column for this 'Imitation Emperor'?" said Zhang Guangchao, the head of the development department with eyes: "I watched that video three times and also took a look at a large number of comments. Simply put, everyone thinks it's great, and many people have left messages saying they hope to see more videos of that singer. So I think we can fully meet everyone's requirements and put all his performance videos in one column from now on."

  "Hmm, this idea is not bad, but we still need to see the follow-up impact." Wang Wei nodded and said: "How about this? You have a good friend who is studying for a master's degree at Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Call him and ask him to pay attention to this young singer. If he meets him, contact him. We are willing to take down his performance video and put it on our website, and set up a special column for him. I believe he will not refuse and will be happy to cooperate."

  "The boss is great." Everyone who heard it immediately started flattering him, this approach not only guarantees the source of the video is clean and avoids legal disputes, but also allows for the latest and best videos to be obtained, which can better attract netizens and audiences. It's indeed a good method!