17: Chapter 17 The Initial Popularity of Micro-Watching

On this day, the download page on the app store had been displaying a countdown for reservations for a week, and at exactly midnight, it automatically switched to a download button.

Pop-ups on the Tencent Messaging App appeared simultaneously across the entire network, and the homepage recommendation slot on Tencent Video was replaced with a huge banner.

"Weikan, record your wonderful moments."

"The Short Video era has truly arrived."

In less than half an hour, Weikan's download count surpassed five million.

This number was overwhelming on all app store charts, and Douyin, which had originally been ranked first, was pushed to second place.

Not to mention, this was software launched at midnight; the time for its full explosion the next day hadn't even arrived yet.

Under Tencent's terrifying offensive, the buzz around Weikan instantly swept across the entire internet of the Great Xia Kingdom like a juggernaut.

Furthermore, at the very first opportunity, a large number of creators who breached their contracts with Douyin also immediately uploaded the videos they had long since filmed to Weikan.

Among these videos, many had even been uploaded to Douyin and then deleted.

Moreover, at the same time as its launch, Weikan directly enabled advertising features, not giving users even a moment of buffer time.

Under such a massive promotional wave from Tencent, when the time reached noon the next day, Weikan's download count had already reached ten million.

...

Shenzhen University, male dormitory.

On a weekend noon, the curtains were drawn tight, and the dormitory was filled with a mixed smell of instant noodles and smelly socks.

The dormitory head, Liu Yang, was shaken awake by his phone.

As a college student, sleeping until noon on weekends was a custom!

He squinted and fished his phone out from under his pillow; a push notification from the Tencent Messaging App popped up on the screen.

"The software 'Weikan' you reserved has officially launched. Click to download and receive Q-coin rewards. Sign in for seven consecutive days to get an extra dota limited skin lottery ticket."

Liu Yang sat up with a start, not even bothering to pick up the quilt that slid off his body.

He clicked to download while shouting at the opposite bed.

"Old Zhang, Old Zhang, Weikan is available for download!"

A thin guy wearing an eye mask on the opposite bed turned over, cursed "None of my business" incoherently, and went back to sleep.

Another roommate playing games nearby chimed in.

"Weikan? Is that the thing Tencent made by copying Douyin?"

"Copying or not, as long as there are Q-coins to collect, it's fine."

Liu Yang stared at the download progress bar, and as soon as the installation complete icon popped up, he impatiently clicked into it.

"Besides, how bad can something released by Tencent be? They are a big company; can Douyin, a small company with only a few dozen people, compare?"

Old Zhang poked his head out from the upper bunk, his hair as messy as a bird's nest.

"You didn't say that when you used Douyin last time; you scrolled until 3 AM and couldn't bear to sleep. I asked you when to turn off the lights, and you didn't even hear me."

"That was in the past; now Weikan is definitely better to use."

Liu Yang held his phone screen up righteously.

Weikan's interface was almost indistinguishable from Douyin; upon opening, it immediately played full-screen videos automatically.

Liu Yang swiped down.

The first video.

A middle-aged man wearing a white lab coat stood in front of the camera, holding a bottle of some unknown brand of insecticide, and said earnestly to the camera: "Can't kill all the cockroaches in your house? Try this; one spray and they die."

Liu Yang frowned and swiped down again.

The second video.

Two people were squatting on the ground fighting crickets; the footage was shaking violently, and the audio was all wind noise.

He patiently waited for five seconds, but the crickets were still just fighting crickets, with no interesting points at all.

The third video.

The scene cut, and an advertisement popped up.

A pair of hands wearing white gloves was putting a diamond ring on a ring finger, with a cloyingly sweet love song duet playing in the background.

The bottom right corner of the ad was labeled "A certain jewelry brand, Weikan launch special offer."

Liu Yang looked down at his basketball jersey that he hadn't washed for a week, then looked at the sparkling diamond ring on the screen, and fell silent for two seconds.

"Damn it."

He threw his phone onto the bed.

"Is Weikan mocking me for being a single dog?"

You see, a few days ago he had confessed to a girl in the same department, but was rejected when she said: "You are a good guy."

That was why he was so angry when he saw this Weikan ad.

The roommate playing games asked without turning his head.

"What did it push to you?"

"A ring! A diamond ring!"

Liu Yang jumped off the bed, his bare feet stepping into his slippers.

"Pushing a diamond ring ad to a person who has been single for twenty years? Does it think I'm too idle or too rich?"

"Maybe it thinks you should find a partner." The roommate laughed.

"Bullshit."

Liu Yang picked up his phone, swiped away Weikan, and casually clicked on another icon on the side.

He didn't even have the interest to scroll through Weikan for a certain amount of time to get the skin anymore.

As Douyin opened, the scene cut, and the first video was a girl wearing a sports tank top running on the playground, her ponytail swinging back and forth in the sunlight.

Liu Yang stared at the screen for five seconds, his mouth curling up unconsciously.

"Douyin still understands me best."

He swiped down, and a video of a kitten poking its head out of a cardboard box appeared, but it wasn't an ordinary kitten; it was a cat-girl.

He swiped again.

A girl in a dormitory was playing and singing with a washbasin as a guitar, singing so off-key it was beyond reach, but her expression was as invested as if she were holding a concert.

The key was that she was very pretty.

Liu Yang scrolled through these videos, lay back on the bed, and his mouth couldn't help but curve upwards.

The next video was a sneaker review. The blogger in the video was doing an unboxing of that limited-edition basketball shoe he had been longing for for several months, filming everything clearly from the packaging paper of the shoe box to the texture of the soles.

Liu Yang watched it twice and clicked into the comment section to see others' evaluations.

Unknowingly, Liu Yang had already been scrolling through videos for half an hour, even forgetting to go eat.

When the forty-seventh video was swiped past, an advertisement popped up.

It was a basketball jersey. The same style as his favorite NBA star, originally priced over six hundred, discounted to just over two hundred.

Liu Yang sat up from the bed, stared at the price for a good while, flipped through the reviews in the comment section, and then clicked buy without hesitation.

The roommate playing games finally finished a round, turned his head, saw Liu Yang hugging his phone and grinning foolishly, and couldn't help but ask.

"Is Weikan that interesting?"

"Weikan is no good; I scrolled for a long time and everything was stuff I'm not interested in. I'm still scrolling Douyin."

"I'll just open the phone at night and leave it running for a while for Tencent's rewards."

Liu Yang didn't even look up.

"Douyin is still more interesting; before I knew it, an hour had passed while scrolling."

Old Zhang poked his head out from the upper bunk, yawning and saying.

"I told you long ago, Weikan can copy the interface but not the brains. You can't stop scrolling Douyin, but you just want to close Weikan."

"You're just slapping your own face."

Liu Yang pretended not to hear, finally put down his phone, because his stomach was already growling.

"Hey guys,"

"Is no one going to mention eating?"

...

Liu Yang's situation was not an isolated case.

At this moment, it was being repeated on mobile screens all over the Great Xia Kingdom.

In another dormitory in another city, a girl who had just downloaded Weikan exited after scrolling to the fourth video.

After opening Douyin, she scrolled to a tutorial teaching beginners how to draw eyeliner. After watching it, she continued to scroll through a dozen more beauty videos, each one hitting exactly on the problems she had been struggling with recently.

In a rented apartment thousands of miles away, an office worker who had worked overtime until late at night originally wanted to scroll through Weikan for a few minutes to relax.

As a result, he was pushed three consecutive promotional videos for corporate management training courses, which angered him so much that he directly uninstalled Weikan and turned to open Douyin instead.

The first video was a Shiba Inu tilting its head at the camera; after laughing out loud, he scrolled for another forty minutes before going to sleep.

Many people who were attracted to download Weikan by Tencent's pop-ups and Q-coin rewards felt bored after less than ten minutes of scrolling, and then either turned off their phones or opened the Douyin next to it.

Weikan's download count was skyrocketing every day, but the number of people who actually stayed and spent time on Weikan was very small.

However, because it had just launched, these data points were temporarily covered up by the massive download volume.

Inside Tencent, they were still immersed in the carnival of ten million downloads on the first day; no one noticed that as the number of users increased, the average usage time per person on Weikan was constantly decreasing.

Three days. Passed quickly in such noise.