Not long after Ji Zhe and Chu Hai left.
In the conference room on the 19th floor of the Shunchang Building, a group of people sat around, looking at the large projection screen in front of them.
The massive screen displayed a somewhat cartoonish web interface. The screen featured several plots of farmland, flanked by a seed shop and a warehouse, along with a few adorable farmer and puppy characters.
At the top of the interface, the logo for Weibo Farm was prominently displayed.
This was the incubation project team for Wanlong Weibo.
Project manager Zhang Dalong was discussing with other members of the tech team about this gift the eldest miss had given them—a vegetable farming game.
Just as they were deeply engrossed in their conversation, Liu Yutong appeared at the door of the conference room. Seeing her, the people inside immediately stood up.
"Miss!"
"Boss!"
"..."
Liu Yutong walked over to the main seat and sat down, waving her hand at the crowd. "Have a seat, everyone."
Only then did everyone take their seats.
Liu Yutong asked, "How is it going? It looks like you've already embedded the farm into Weibo?"
Zhang Dalong nodded and said, "Yes, Miss. The closed beta data for our Weibo is out, and everything looks good. But are we really going to invest all our promotional resources into this little game?"
"Although the game you had someone make is indeed quite interesting and the gameplay is very simple—just virtual planting, harvesting, and stealing vegetables from friends—can this thing really bring in and retain users? I just feel that it doesn't offer much substantial help to the core value of Weibo. Users might find it novel for a couple of days and then lose interest."
"I think we should focus more on optimizing the news feed algorithm and perfecting the celebrity verification system, promoting and polishing the product from those angles."
Although the other core members of the project team in the conference room didn't speak, their eyes more or less revealed similar doubts to Zhang Dalong's.
They were all veterans who had followed Zhang Dalong from the very beginning. Over the course of about two months, they had witnessed Weibo being built from scratch and genuinely wanted to make this product a success.
The boss had previously said she would give them a gift once Weibo was set up, but what they hadn't expected was that the gift would turn out to be such a seemingly childish web mini-game.
They had playtested this mini-game and found it undeniably fun. But as to how much it could actually drive Weibo's development, no one was sure.
After patiently listening to Zhang Dalong's concerns, Liu Yutong didn't argue. Instead, she smiled and asked a question: "Engineer Zhang, do you usually browse our Weibo yourself? Aside from work, what do you use it for personally?"
Zhang Dalong froze for a moment, then answered honestly, "I do. I mainly follow the tech-related posts shared by colleagues in the group, and occasionally I'll check out some gossip and leave a few likes."
The Weibo closed beta had been pushed internally within the group. More than half of the Wanlong Group employees had registered for Weibo and would post things on it.
Of course, for the group employees, their actions were purely to support the group's new project. After all, the current version of Weibo had too little content and nothing particularly interesting.
"Then do you open it at specific times every day, multiple times a day, or with a sense of anticipation?" Liu Yutong continued to ask.
"I don't do that."
Zhang Dalong shook his head. "That's too hardcore. For me, Weibo is just a tool for gathering information."
Liu Yutong nodded, her gaze sweeping across everyone present, and said, "Engineer Zhang is right. In the eyes of many, especially us internet professionals, our Weibo is more like an information tool, a media platform. But I believe the essence of a social network isn't just the connection of information and media; it must also involve the connection of emotions and behaviors."
"Let's first review the core driving forces behind a user's use of a social product. For example, in the early stages, it's curiosity, getting information, or following friends or celebrities. But what happens after that? How can we turn users from occasional visitors into people who can't tear themselves away every single day? This requires stronger stickiness. And where does that stickiness come from?"
At this point, she stood up, picked up a marker, and wrote two phrases on the whiteboard.
Social Graph and Interaction Ritual.
"The social graph is something we are building through the follow mechanism. But having only follow-based interactions can be quite weak. Liking, commenting, and sharing—the threshold for these interactions still exists, and they lean heavily toward feedback after content consumption."
"Therefore, we need to create a lighter, more frequent, and emotionally colorful and fun daily interaction ritual. Ideally, this ritual should be embedded within the users' social relationships and be capable of organic growth."
"This is the role Weibo Farm is meant to play. In my view, it is not an independent game; it is the catalyst for Weibo's social graph."
"Think about it carefully, everyone. Wouldn't you want to know when your friend's crops are ripe? Wouldn't you feel a secret thrill from stealing someone else's vegetables? Wouldn't you be annoyed if your own crops were stolen? In fact, this kind of interaction naturally carries conversational value and viral potential."
"For example, 'Look, so-and-so's crops got stolen!' or 'Hurry, so-and-so's vegetables are ready to harvest!'"
"These things themselves are the driving forces that compel users to open Weibo and check their friends' updates."
"Moreover, over time, it's very easy for users to become emotionally invested. The farm that users spend time and effort managing will become their virtual asset and a place of emotional attachment. Dogs need to guard the door, land needs to be reclaimed, decorations need to be bought... In short, this emotional bond will firmly tie the users down."
"There's another key point. To expand the farm, you need more friends. To steal more vegetables, you also need more friends. This will strongly motivate users to proactively invite and add their real-life acquaintances to register on Weibo. The quality and efficiency of this are much higher than us pouring money into ads to invite user registrations."
"This is what the professional terminology calls viral fission."
Having said this, Liu Yutong looked again at Zhang Dalong and the others, who had fallen deep into thought. "So, our Weibo Farm is not just a game. It is a high-frequency interaction engine custom-built for Weibo to strengthen social relationships. Its primary goal is not profitability, but rapid user acquisition and boosting user engagement."
"When users open Weibo dozens of times a day just to steal crops or guard their own, what is the probability that they will casually scroll through the Weibo feed? What is the probability that they will see a topic of interest and join the discussion? What is the likelihood that they will become even more reluctant to leave this platform because of these social interactions?"
"All of these are feedback that we will be able to see intuitively through the data."
The conference room was completely silent.
All the previous doubts harbored by Zhang Dalong and the others were completely shattered in the face of Liu Yutong's analysis, which struck straight at the heart of human nature.
He realized he had fallen into a huge misconception. He had been looking at this feature from the perspective of a product manager, while the young miss, Liu Yutong, was viewing it from the perspective of a social ecosystem.
Different perspectives naturally lead to different insights.
"Miss, I understand now. This gift of yours is truly amazing! We will definitely make good use of it!"
Liu Yutong laughed. "Engineer Zhang, never underestimate the drive of ordinary users to seek simple pleasures in a virtual world, and never overestimate the so-called high-end users' immunity to childish things."
"When your colleagues, classmates, and friends are all playing it, all discussing who stole whose vegetables, that kind of peer pressure and environmental influence will make even those who were initially dismissive unable to resist clicking in to take a look. This is the network effect of social products, and Microblog Farm is the nuclear bomb we are dropping to detonate the internet."
"Alright, that is about all I have to say. Now, you all need to continue optimizing the product. Engineer Zhang, I will allocate an initial twenty million for your advertising and promotion. Yu Xin will also coordinate with you; if you need anything, just go to her."
"Yes, Miss!" Zhang Dalong replied.
Finally, Liu Yutong offered some words of encouragement to the team. "Keep up the hard work, everyone. At the year-end annual meeting, I hope to see every single one of you up on the podium, receiving the rewards you deserve!"
The crowd's spirits instantly soared, and they replied in unison, "Yes, Boss!"
