Changing the World's Recommendation Algorithm

Hearing Qu Qiongying's words, the face of Bilibili's boss, Xu Yi, immediately turned pale.

This was because Qu Qiongying had directly hit upon one of the main reasons why Bilibili was willing to give Lin Feng 0.5% of its shares in exchange for his exclusive video live-streaming rights.

Besides recognizing Lin Feng's immense influence on Bilibili and wanting to prevent a repeat of nearly 30% of their audience being swayed away, Bilibili had another, more important reason. They wanted to leverage Lin Feng, a huge star on the internet, to advertise for Bilibili for free and attract a continuous stream of new users.

It was for this reason that they were willing to offer 0.5% of their shares to win Lin Feng over.

Consider that Director Ao, who had a significant impact on Bilibili's development and created many excellent videos, did not receive any shares back then. The reason was that Director Ao couldn't bring in new users to Bilibili continuously like Lin Feng could, which fueled Bilibili's rapid growth.

If Director Ao had had millions of fans at that time and could have brought millions, even tens of millions, of new users to Bilibili, then Bilibili would have unhesitatingly offered 0.5% of its shares to win him over.

"Then how much do you want?"

Xu Yi's expression turned a bit sour, as any increase meant cutting into his own flesh.

"That will be up to our boss to decide, but personally, I think anything less than 1% would be an insult to our boss."

"At least 1% of the shares?"

Xu Yi began to consider it with a twinge of pain, calculating whether he should offer 1% of the shares for Lin Feng's exclusive video live-streaming rights.

However, his expression, as seen by Qu Qiongying, effectively revealed his bottom line. It wasn't surprising that some people in his previous life said Xu Yi wasn't suited for business, only for Bilibili's operations. Such easily readable emotions would make it difficult for him to go far in the business world.

While they were talking, Lin Feng was also contemplating whether to join Bilibili. It was true that Bilibili was very powerful in his previous life, successfully becoming Daxia's YouTube. But the past was the past, and the present was the present. Current Bilibili was still a weak video website. In terms of user numbers and video counts, it couldn't compete with AcFun, let alone video websites and apps like Youku, Tudou, Tencent Video, iQIYI, and Kuaishou.

"0.7%."

After a moment of hesitation, Xu Yi decided to increase the share offer by 0.2%.

But at this moment, before Qu Qiongying could say anything further, Lin Feng, who had been silent, suddenly spoke. He slightly shook his head and said, "Whether it's 0.7% or even 1%, it still seems too petty."

"Huh?"

Everyone present was stunned by Lin Feng's words. Did Lin Feng want even more? Xu Yi, who already felt 1% was a bit too much, instantly looked displeased, even feeling so angry he wanted to leave.

But Lin Feng ignored Xu Yi's displeased expression and directly posed a question that made Xu Yi freeze: "Bilibili has been unable to turn a profit since its establishment in 2009. Do you want to achieve profitability?"

"Achieve profitability?"

Xu Yi raised an eyebrow. He hadn't expected the conversation to shift from Lin Feng's exclusive video live-streaming rights to how to make Bilibili profitable. Wasn't that too big a leap?

"That's right, achieve profitability!"

Lin Feng nodded and then confidently stated, "I have a complete set of profit development plans and a 20-year paid license for a recommendation algorithm that will perfectly solve your current predicament regarding Bilibili's profitability and self-sustaining operations. With these two things, Bilibili can absolutely turn a profit, and even contend with websites like Youku and Tencent Video within a year or two. Of course, if you want to obtain these, you will naturally have to pay a small price."

Lin Feng, from 2024, was intimately familiar with the rise and fall stories of major internet companies. As Bilibili suddenly approached him, Lin Feng realized an aspect he had always overlooked and saw a clear shortcut. This shortcut was the recommendation algorithm!

In "A Concise History of Internet Information Distribution," written by the renowned expert Teacher Jin, the internet information landscape was divided into four eras.

The first era was the classification index - portal era. During this period, the four major portal websites were the overlords of other internet companies. Because they controlled the internet traffic entry points, any company wanting to become popular had to pay them handsomely, which led to all four major portal websites going public.

The second era was the search engine - search era. As the internet developed, the amount of information began to explode infinitely. A single internet portal website could no longer satisfy users' information needs. Under these circumstances, people were forced to learn how to use search engines, leading to the rise of companies like Baidu and Google. They controlled the internet traffic entry points, and their market capitalization during their peak was astonishing.

The third era was the subscription and follow - fragmented era. The characteristic of this era was the advent of the mobile era, where each company had its own software, forming its own small circles. Information in this era was exclusive and closed. For example, a certain novel could only be read on a specific novel platform, and a certain TV series or movie could only be viewed on a particular platform. People were divided into countless information islands.

The fourth era was the recommendation algorithm - precise marketing era. The characteristic of this era was the use of big data recommendation algorithms to analyze every user behavior, understanding data such as users' hobbies, characteristics, preferences, and recent interests. The goal was to perfectly push advertisements for news, videos, novels, products, and everything else directly to users. From then on, you would find that all sorts of products, videos, novels, and news were things you liked or were interested in, allowing you to scroll for extended periods.

The recommendation algorithm was undoubtedly the key to all of this. The stronger a company's recommendation algorithm, the more user retention it could achieve. The two short video apps, Douyin and Kuaishou, served as examples. Kuaishou had developed for several years earlier and accumulated a massive user base, so why was it ultimately surpassed and crushed by Douyin?

The reason is that Kuaishou's recommendation algorithm tends to protect the big UP hosts, meaning the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker. The cost to become a big UP host is very high.

On the other hand, Douyin's recommendation algorithm is relatively brutal. Within Douyin's recommendation algorithm, all traffic is controlled by the recommendation algorithm.

Here, while millions and tens of millions of big UP hosts naturally gain many advantages, if your video performs poorly, the cruel Douyin algorithm won't show you any special treatment.

For small and medium-sized UP hosts, or even individual users, if their video quality is excellent or has a viral element, they have the potential to become popular overnight and gain tens or hundreds of millions of fans at any time.

Under these circumstances, many small and medium-sized UP hosts and even individual users naturally prefer to publish videos on Douyin first.

As a result, Douyin has more and more excellent videos, coupled with the precise push of the recommendation algorithm…

Good video quality combined with precise pushes of videos that interest users—with these two big moves, it would be truly odd if Douyin couldn't become popular and defeat Kuaishou.

Requesting recommendation tickets and monthly tickets.