Chapter 102: Requirement Planning

When Zhao Zejun first mentioned "building a website," Song Yun had his doubts about his capacity. After all, Zhao Zejun was not even twenty years old; how much money could he possibly have?

Building a website was not difficult, nor was it particularly expensive. However, operating a website and developing one were entirely different concepts; maintenance fees, server rentals, and site upgrades all required recurring expenditures.

But upon arriving at the new office location of Zejian Company—a two-story office building—and seeing the two monster-like heavy-duty trucks parked at the entrance and the steady stream of employees moving in and out, Song Yun was completely convinced. High operating costs were a concern for the average working-class person, but for someone like Zhao Zejun, who owned a company of this scale, running a literature website would be more than manageable.

"Mr. Zhao..."

Song Yun, being a perceptive person, shifted his form of address without a trace. "Currently, the largest literature website in China is Huanjian. How about we use Huanjian’s model as a template and develop improvements based on that?"

There was a newly purchased computer in Zhao Zejun’s office with internet access. He opened the Huanjian Book Alliance website, took one look, shook his head, and then, relying on the URL from his memory, typed in Qidian.

At this time, Qidian was still a newborn, having launched in May 2002. It had been less than three months, and it was lacking in authors, readers, and library size. Its predecessor was the Fantasy Literature Alliance, which lacked a powerful background or staggering capital. If they were to compete purely on strength, it was not necessarily stronger than Zejian Company.

Song Yun could not quite understand why they would pass up an established industry giant to learn from this small, unknown website with an uncertain future.

"Look at Qidian's layout; it is far superior to Huanjian's. We can use Qidian as a reference—and, of course, we must surpass it." Zhao Zejun pointed to the interface. "A literature website is not a chat forum. On every page, the most important thing is to highlight the novels. Readers come here to read. While reader interaction is important, it must not overshadow the primary purpose."

The Qidian layout before him still seemed quite outdated to Zhao Zejun. In his past life, Qidian had undergone several major revisions, constantly perfecting itself. This first version could only be said to have taken the first step on the right path.

"The secondary pages must have clear categories. For now, we can define a few major ones: Wuxia, Cultivation, Supernatural, and Urban. Vertically, we can use a 'tag' system to classify them. For example, an urban novel might contain several tags like romance, martial arts, etc., to make it easier for readers to search."

As Zhao Zejun explained his ideas, Song Yun sat by his side, taking notes with pen and paper. As a college student specializing in software development, he found himself surprisingly unable to keep up with Zhao Zejun’s endless stream of ideas.

After roughly outlining the page layout he required, Zhao Zejun turned off the computer.

"Song Yun, the page layouts we just discussed are actually superficial. This website has several core principles, and when you develop it, everything must revolve around them."

"Please go ahead, Mr. Zhao, I’m recording," Song Yun said.

"First, the website must strengthen interaction with readers to increase stickiness. This interaction doesn't just mean reader comments and discussions; more importantly, it should give readers a sense of 'being in charge.' Every registered reader should have recommendation votes, or the ability to rate and vote for the novels they like. Similarly, to increase stickiness and give them a sense of accomplishment, we can implement a reader ranking system. Once a reader levels up, they gain greater privileges. For example, a newly registered Level 1 account gets one recommendation vote per day, a Level 2 account gains the ability to change their nickname and avatar, and a high-level account might even earn certain badges... In short, we must make readers feel that they aren't just reading books here; they can influence a book's success and even have an 'identity' similar to the real world, which they can continuously improve through effort, or rather, through increased frequency of visits."

"Like playing a game? You can level up and get better equipment?" Song Yun's eyes lit up.

"Exactly. That's the idea. When the reader base is large enough, I will consider developing a few small games corresponding to the books. Be sure to leave interfaces for that during development. It’s not an immediate priority, though."

Zhao Zejun nodded and continued, "Second, the site needs an objective and standardized rating system. A book's quality should be determined by objective data, which must be reflected in the rankings and based on a public formula. For example, views, registered member clicks, recommendation votes, and collections will all have corresponding scores. The final comprehensive score will determine the rankings, which is the most intuitive reflection of a book's performance."

In his past life, many of Qidian’s lists often became breeding grounds for 'click-farmers,' but one thing was certain: when the reader base was large enough, truly good books could still emerge from among the farmers. Furthermore, once a book reached its middle or late stages, the farmers could only shift rankings locally and could not affect the overall situation. Besides, a high volume of 'farmed' data looked good and actually helped significantly with a novel's future commercial value.

"The last point: when building the site, remember the hierarchy of recommendation slots. Prime slots should be distinct and eye-catching but limited in number, forming an orderly 'recommendation pyramid'."

The most successful model of Qidian in his past life was the pyramidal competitive recommendation system. After signing, books received small recommendations first; those with excellent results were given better ones. By letting the data speak for itself, the best works were selected layer by layer from the many signed books, receiving the most support through rational resource allocation. This system was ruthless and had loopholes, but overall, it was the fairest and most effective competitive selection model.

Qidian had constantly revised itself, introducing many new recommendation slots through trial and error—some successful, some failures. Zhao Zejun didn't have that problem; he would simply avoid any slots that had been proven meaningless and merely cluttered the page.

"Should we reserve space for advertisements?" At the end, Song Yun finally offered a critical suggestion.

A website's profit model relies on traffic, and traffic is ultimately meant to serve advertising.

"No ad space. At least for the next few years, we must absolutely not let ads affect the reading experience," Zhao Zejun waved his hand.

Speaking of user experience, Zhao Zejun chatted with Song Yun for a long while about background colors, fonts, and even the page-turning experience. One afternoon wasn't enough; Song Yun simply stayed for a work meal at Zejian and didn't finish the discussion until after nine in the evening. He had filled a thick stack of notes.

When it came to costs, Zhao Zejun asked Song Yun to provide a rough estimate.

Zhao Zejun was not a computer science graduate, but after the year 2000, every project seemed to involve computers. His previous company had once made an internal website, so he had a general idea of how much a simple forum should cost. The reason he pretended not to know and let Song Yun quote the price was to test the young man.

Song Yun calculated silently for a moment before giving a figure. A development and debugging team of five, plus one year of server rental and maintenance, would cost about thirty thousand yuan. This was mainly because Zhao Zejun’s requirements were quite extensive, significantly increasing the technical complexity.

"Thirty thousand?" Zhao Zejun frowned.

"Mr. Zhao, I can go without pay, and I can try to squeeze the others; this thirty thousand is calculated at the highest estimate because I'm worried about unexpected issues," Song Yun hurriedly explained.

"How about this: I'll give you fifty thousand." Zhao Zejun held up a hand.

"Huh?!" Song Yun was at a loss for words.

Zhao Zejun smiled. "Two things. First, you are the project lead; you should not only get paid, but you should also earn more than the others. Distribution according to labor. Second, the website construction and server rental must be high-standard. At the very least, ensure that if one hundred thousand readers are on the site simultaneously, the server won't be overloaded and page performance won't noticeably slow down."

"One hundred thousand concurrent readers?" Song Yun was stunned. This meant the number of registered users would surely exceed one million! This scale was larger than Huanjian. This 'Boss Zhao' was truly ambitious.

"Since you all call me 'Boss Zhao,' I can't let it be for nothing," Zhao Zejun laughed. "If we're going to do it, let's aim to be the industry leader!"

What was one million registered users? In its most glorious period, Qidian consistently ranked in the top 30 of all websites in the country—even compared to the major portals, it was not inferior. And Qidian’s readership was highly concentrated in terms of age and interests. A large, homogenous user base was the true value of the site. How much could you really make selling words for a penny per thousand?

It took Qidian thirteen years from its inception in 2002 to its acquisition by Shanda for several million in 2005, and then its rumored two-billion-yuan acquisition by Tencent in 2015. Zhao Zejun had the confidence and ambition to cover the same ground in three to four years, or perhaps even less.