My last article: The Undisclosed Secret (1): The amazing profits of American consoles have received a lot of hits after Chinaz was released, but very few people expressed understanding and support. This title, The Undisclosed Secret, seems to be the right one. Even though the truth and pictures of some things were made public, most people expressed disbelief and said I was talking nonsense. I really felt speechless. I later thought, do most people in the world live a mediocre life for this reason? Why does success always belong to only a few people? That's because some people don't dare to face and explore the things in front of them. They only question instead of pursuing or learning.
But the article I wrote today is old news. Many old webmasters participated in it, but over the years no one involved has ever recalled this incident in detail. Many Internet giants chose In order to avoid it, I will recall this matter today as a grassroots webmaster. Because I have been busy recently, I wrote it relatively simply. I hope everyone can correct me. The following is the text:
In the history of the development of China's Internet, there are a few iconic events that can be said to be magnificent. The rise of SP business and the related craziness of SMS alliances should definitely be counted as one of them. At that time, basically all major domestic Internet companies were involved, and China's Internet also moved from the edge of bubble burst to renewed prosperity and became more vibrant.
China's individual webmasters, as the lowest end of the interest chain of the SMS Alliance, also play a 100% important role in the important historical process of China's Internet. When I think back to those years, I still feel turbulent. I feel extremely heroic, because I have been ups and downs with so many Internet tycoons in this trend!
1. The rise of SMS alliance
In 2000, the millennium, the end of the world was originally implied in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. The Internet bubble came to the world, and the Internet was like a dream. Now, the dream has awakened. That year, Sina's share price fell to US$1.06, Sohu's dropped to 60 cents, and NetEase fell below the issue price on the day it went public. It was only 53 cents at one time. What was even worse was that NetEase was almost delisted.
In confusion and helplessness, China's Internet elites are exploring an Internet path that suits China's national conditions. At this time, text messages and ringtones began to become a new profit point, which American investors did not expect. In 2001, 163 and Tom took the lead in opening an alliance for text message ringtones and pictures. This can be said to be the originator of the SMS alliance, but At that time, it only cost 10 cents to send a picture or ringtone, so webmasters had no money to make. Later, it was different. Monthly text message subscriptions came out, which made webmasters feel a little bit sweeter. Individual webmasters also started to do text message alliances from adult product alliances and Asian dating centers.
By 2002, there were already more than a dozen SMS alliances in China, and basically all major Internet companies were involved. In 2003, there were hundreds of companies, and TOM, NetEase, Sohu, 21cn, 18dx, and Sina were the giants among them. Some small SP companies, and even some companies without SP channels, also used other people's channels to get involved. , the SMS alliance business is booming in China and is in full swing.
2. The madness of SMS alliance
In fact, before the SMS alliance, the business model of website alliance was already somewhat popular on the Internet. At that time, Haoye in China opened the alliance to individual webmasters, but not many people joined because there was basically no money to be made. At that time, there were many scammer alliances, some based on click sharing, and some based on sales. Among them, the largest alliance was selling adult products, but few of them could actually get money, and most of them were small companies with no credibility. The most reputable ones are Americans. Even though they are far away, Americans still send checks to some webmasters in China seriously.
I personally started to build a personal website at the end of 2001. I used free space at the beginning, but I was able to earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month from some American companies. The website is up. In 2002, I saw several friends’ websites posting text message picture ads, so I started to join the SMS alliance. At that time, I already had many spam sites, and one site ranked 4th in the world. Around a thousand.
When I first started the SMS alliance, I posted pictures and ringtone text messages of TOM and 163, earning an income of hundreds of yuan a day. When monthly SMS subscription came out, although NetEase and TOM’s monthly SMS SMS pictures were not very good at the beginning. Reserved and hazy, but my income doubled. It became even more popular later on, because from time to time some alliance leaders launched relatively hot text message subscriptions, such as passionate dating between men and women, savage girlfriends and the like. This time, the webmasters’ income immediately doubled several times.
At that time, the popularity of the SMS Alliance attracted the participation of almost all individual webmasters and Internet giants. Major portals with SP qualifications joined the war one after another, and the share of the webmasters was further increased. Chinese Internet stocks in the US stock market also continued to rise. , in the face of huge profits, basically everyone is red-eyed, taking advantage of some loopholes and irregularities in the SP system, many companies and webmasters are walking on the edge of morality and law.
In early 2003, 21cn’s SMS alliance had a particularly profound impact on me, because their SMS subscription pictures were hot enough, and their SMS subscriptions were tied to their movie channels, which led to a skyrocketing subscription volume, and 21cn was really right. The personal webmaster's service is also very good. I often receive calls of condolences from them, and I also enjoy the benefits of car refrigerators and Mid-Autumn moon cakes from them. Of course, there are better services. At that time, there was a Shenzhen company called Caixiu, which was doing very well in the MMS business. I helped them promote MMS picture downloads, and because they were doing well, they sent me to Saipan. Travel opportunities. A guy who was in charge of the SMS Alliance at SOHU kept asking questions on QQ every day. Later, he became jealous and decided to leave his job to join the SMS Alliance. Unfortunately, this guy resigned at the wrong time, and what happened next is unknown.
Chen Yizhou’s 18dx can be said to have joined the SMS alliance relatively late, but they are also the most powerful. TOM’s monthly SMS subscription can only get a commission of five or six yuan, while 18dx’s commission can reach 10 to 15 yuan, and many SMS subscription content titles They are all quite exciting. Thanks to the crazy promotion of the alliance leader and individual webmaster, everyone is making so much money. In June and July of 2003, my daily income from numerous garbage stations reached three to four thousand, but I don’t know how many other webmasters had the same income.
3. The End of the SMS Alliance
What goes up must come down, and the closure of the SMS Alliance became one of the major events of that year, just like SARS that year.
In July 2003, China Mobile adopted a one-size-fits-all approach to stop SP charging. On the one hand, the end of the SMS Alliance can be said to be self-reinforcing, because it is true that too many individual webmasters have done too much in a mess. Another reason is that Fang Xingdong and others took the opportunity to maliciously hype.
The SMS monthly subscription product, the main product in the SMS Alliance, is originally a worthless junk product that makes people spend money to buy junk SMS. How many mobile phone users would actually subscribe to those boring things? Then it has become a common phenomenon for webmasters to carry out binding promotions in order to obtain commissions. Later, it even became a way for various websites to collect fees. For example, to watch passionate movies, you must subscribe to text messages. Some alliance owners There is even a jump program designed for this purpose to facilitate webmasters to collect fees on their behalf. As a result, various subscription traps abound on the Internet, and many mobile phone users fall into the trap inexplicably.
What makes netizens even more uncomfortable is that these monthly SMS messages are like flies that cannot be driven away, and many of them cannot be unsubscribed. The mobile complaint center has seen a surge in complaints about SMS subscriptions, and Mobile is very annoyed by this. Later, I met a friend who was an SP, and he told me an even more shocking inside story. Some SPs target some high-end mobile phone users and force them to secretly deduct fees every month without the users knowing it, because these customers are already spending money. They teach a lot, so they don’t even know what’s going on when their fees are deducted.
Another important reason for the tragedy of the SMS Alliance is the malicious hype of some so-called IT celebrities. They bundled the SMS Alliance with pornographic and harmful information to criticize, thereby achieving the purpose of maximizing the vilification of the SMS Alliance. This purely economic event of the SMS Alliance was elevated to the level of a political event, causing a huge response from the country and the government. Because the fight against pornography and illegal activities in China has always been about fighting against pornography, and harmonizing bad speech is the real thing. Every harmonious control of China’s Internet is in the name of combating pornography.
After the crazy hype, CCTV and other media basically paid close attention to this issue, so the purpose of these IT names was finally achieved, and the SMS alliance opportunity was cut off. Chinese Internet companies once again plummeted in the U.S. stock market, and they had no choice but to Don’t look for new profit points again. But TOM.COM, which was a dazzling star back then, completely fell and never shined again.
So was it really true that the Chinese Internet was full of pornographic websites back then? Absolutely not. It can be said that China’s pornographic websites have always been a drop in the ocean and not worth mentioning. Except for a few silly boys with no culture and laws and some turtles hiding outside, there are really not many people who dare to create pornographic websites in China. Even now. A very obvious example is that in 2003, when the country was campaigning against pornographic websites, the number of pornographic website cases investigated by the public security organs was very rare. In some cases, even the founders were not caught, and only a few scapegoats such as Buzhu were arrested.
So what is the real situation of the pornographic websites that Fang Xingdong and others are shouting about? In fact, most of them are just some sideline pictures of sexy beauties, some deceptive websites that pretend to be passionate movies but actually have nothing to do with them, and some of course will provide some A low-quality movie, but the standard is no more than a Korean movie like Se is Sora. Smart people know that defrauding someone of a few dollars of mobile phone commission is not a crime at all in China, but if you really show a Japanese AV movie and it is clicked thousands of times, the crime is very scary. Dead man, your verdict will definitely contain these words: "up to several thousand people", and then be sentenced to several years to ten years. Therefore, no smart webmaster would do such a thing. Of course, there are always fools and idiots. This is why some people were caught.
4. Reflection on the SMS Alliance
However, in any case, the era of SMS alliance is over. My dream of buying a BMW at that time was shattered. One of my friends later asked me if I hated Fang Xingdong and others. To be honest, I really hated Fang Xingdong at that time. , but later I felt it didn’t matter anymore, because I thought he was just an ordinary person. He was not a national hero or a defender. Like all of us who participated in the SMS Alliance, he was a profit-seeking businessman. He himself waves the flag with his blog China. And he created a good banner and a good slogan, so he succeeded, and his blog China received venture capital.
Some time after I joined the SMS Alliance, I also worked in the Shenzhen caishow alliance and the 263 email alliance. Although I also had a monthly income record of tens of thousands, it was already in decline and getting worse. Thinking about it now, I made a major mistake by continuing on my garbage dump path for quite a long time without transforming. Until today, I didn’t understand how important it is to focus on doing one thing consistently. This is my own profound experience and lesson, and I hope some new webmaster friends can understand it.
5. My public cover letter
I am currently working on a local website, Xianning Kaixin Network ( www.xnkaixin.com/ ). It has not been in business for a long time, but I have done it very seriously and professionally, because I think e-commerce and websites in local dialects are new development trends. Everyone is welcome to apply for friendly links. Please believe in our strength and you will not suffer any loss by exchanging links with us.
But I now have a very good idea, such as Sean Parker said in the social network, the idea is worth billions of dollars, so I hope to work for a big Internet company. Tencent, Baidu, and Sohu are the three companies where my dreams lie. I hope that Brother Ma, Brother Li, and Charles can give me a chance. With this idea and my joining, your company will definitely reach new heights! I hope that Brother Ma, Brother Li, and Charles will give me a chance to have a meeting after reading this article, or please ask someone who knows them to forward my request. Don't think that I am crazy. I am already thirty years old and have long passed the age of fantasy. Every thought and action I have is planned and can be implemented.
To contact me, please write to: [email protected]
Copyright statement: This article is my original work. Thank you friends for reprinting it. However, please be sure to keep my website address and final cover letter when reprinting, otherwise you will be held responsible for infringement!