Chapter 88

On various forum websites, some netizens with "inside information" appeared, confidently declaring that a music listening website would officially launch at midnight tonight. They claimed to have the official recorded versions of two Simple Plan songs, and they would release the official version of "Li Bai" at midnight.

The netizens' response was surprisingly consistent: they didn't believe it.

Immediately after, those netizens with inside information revealed a bunch of photos that no one had ever seen before.

One of the photos showed the four members of Simple Plan holding a banner that read: "The official recorded version of Simple Plan's single 'Li Bai' will be officially launched on www.eting.com at midnight today. Stay tuned."

In addition, Zhang Kexuan and other band members also took several cool photos holding signs with the same message.

To prevent anyone from claiming the photos were doctored, the photographer cleverly integrated the signs with the environmental lighting, making it clear that the photos were genuine.

At this point, although the Eting website had not yet officially launched, visitors could still see a welcome page.

The welcome page featured a single, atmospheric image: a man with a guitar on his back, standing in the sunset, with the surrounding environment resembling a classical Nordic town, giving it a unique and distinctive charm.

Below the man's silhouette, there were three lines of text.

The first line: "At midnight tonight, embark on a new musical journey."

The second line: "Eting website will officially launch in X hours and XX minutes."

The third line: "The official recorded version of Simple Plan's hit single 'Li Bai' will be launched simultaneously."

With this, the netizens who came to check it out immediately believed it.

Ever since Zhao Kang's internet trolls started their campaign, Li Mu had instructed Kong Lingyu to monitor the website's traffic. In just half an hour, the number of unique IP visits reached 3,000.

At 9:00 PM, the number of unique IP visits reached 10,000.

At 9:10 PM, Simple Plan finally started performing on Nansu TV, and the live video of "Sunflower" was broadcast for the first time on television.

The TV broadcast version had much better sound quality than the versions recorded by the audience, and the charm of "Sunflower" began to shine through.

By 9:30 PM, the number of unique IP visits to Eting reached a peak, exceeding 20,000.

Kong Lingyu and the other technical staff were speechless; they had never seen a website attract such a large number of users before it even launched.

It was important to note that many websites today started from scratch, gradually accumulating users after going live. But where did these 20,000 users come from? Did Li Mu promote the website online?

Kong Lingyu didn't know that Li Mu had a team of internet trolls, possibly the earliest of their kind, who were promoting Eting online, using Simple Plan as a hook to attract a large number of users.

Li Mu always believed that Simple Plan would be Eting's trump card, as they were currently very popular, and only Eting had their music, both now and in the future.

For Eting, Simple Plan's task was to attract the first batch of users. The rest would depend on Eting's user-friendly and visually appealing interface to retain these users.

Additionally, Eting's cloud playlist feature was already developed. Each registered user's playlist would be uploaded to the cloud server and automatically loaded the next time they logged in.

Although this feature was common in the future, most websites at the time did not have it.

With Eting being so much stronger than other similar websites, there was no reason it wouldn't dominate.

After Nansu TV finished broadcasting all the semi-final videos, Zhao Kang's internet trolls changed their aliases and started another campaign.

This time, they didn't promote the website but instead sparked discussions about Simple Plan, praising "Sunflower" as inspiring and moving. Many fans who were in a dark period of their lives were inspired by the song, reigniting their passion, and sharing their personal stories online.

Although the second wave of promotion didn't explicitly mention Eting, the website still benefited greatly.

By 11:55 PM, the number of unique IP visits to Eting had reached 100,000. Li Mu knew that most of these users were from Nansu Province, and once Simple Plan performed "Old Boy" in the final round, the number of fans would surge.

The technical staff, including Kong Lingyu, were stunned. They had never seen a website attract such a large number of users before it even launched. They wondered if the server and bandwidth could handle it.

However, Li Mu was not concerned. He said calmly, "We are counting the number of visitors from 8 PM to now, which is four hours. Not all of these users will wait until midnight. The difference between daily visitors and peak concurrent users is significant."

At midnight, Eting officially launched.

When the homepage finally appeared before the netizens, almost everyone's first impression was that the website was incredibly beautiful.

No website had ever had such a beautiful and tech-savvy interface. Li Mu had used modern design aesthetics and the meticulous attention to color and imagery from the app development field. As a result, the first impression of users who flooded in was a visual feast.

However, they were not overly focused on the visuals, as they were there to listen to music.

The default first banner on the homepage was a poster for Simple Plan, with a play icon for "Li Bai." Users clicked to listen and were surprised to find that listening to songs on Eting did not redirect them to another page or pop up a new window. Instead, a beautiful playback floating window appeared at the bottom, complete with lyrics, which was truly impressive.

The official recorded version of "Li Bai" was finally released with Eting.

Data showed that at 12:02 AM, nearly 100,000 people were listening to "Li Bai" simultaneously.

By 12:10 AM, the number of plays for "Li Bai" had exceeded 200,000, and the number of downloads had just surpassed 5,000.

Given that personal computers and MP3 players were not yet widely available, the low download numbers were normal.

The peak traffic lasted until around 1:00 AM, but the peak did not set a new record. Li Mu was already very satisfied. Eting's opening performance was impressive.

Before leaving, Li Mu instructed Kong Lingyu to monitor the traffic data, set a traffic threshold, and immediately add servers and bandwidth once the threshold reached 80%, ensuring that the user experience for listening and downloading was not affected. He emphasized that they must not cut corners in this area.

The next day, Li Mu returned to Haizhou. While taking a taxi from the train station, he was surprised to hear "Li Bai" playing on the car radio.

At the time, radio stations, like music listening websites, had no concept of copyright and played songs based on the DJ's personal preferences.

The local traffic music station in Haizhou played songs for more than 30% of the day and had a song request hotline. Despite the large number of songs played daily, radio stations still had a significant audience and wide influence.

He vaguely remembered that music radio stations in Yanjing and Hushi even regularly released song popularity charts, which were quite authoritative.

Li Mu had a sudden idea and called Zhang Kexuan.

"Do you know anyone at the Jinling Music Radio?"

"I'm not sure, but I can find out. What's up?"

"Find someone to play 'Li Bai' during rush hour and get some people to call the song request hotline to request this song. Try to get it played twice a day on the radio. This will quickly reach people who don't know about the competition or haven't heard the song."

For radio stations, playing a song twice a day was not unusual. In the future, songs like "Rice Loves Rice" and "Two Butterflies," and even Phoenix Legend's brainwashing songs, were played six times a day and still felt insufficient.

Zhang Kexuan quickly understood the importance.

All taxis and buses played the radio, especially music stations. Many students listened to the radio secretly in their beds at night, and popular songs spread quickly on the radio.

"I'll get it done and try to have it played today!"

Li Mu reminded him, "Try to get the DJ to mention Eting and also say that 'Sunflower' will be available on Eting in five days."

"OK, I'll get it done!"

"I'll think of ways to do this in Haizhou. If you can find connections in other cities, try to get them involved. The cost will be low, but the effect will be significant."

---

The second update is here. Don't hide your recommendations, especially as it's almost 12:00 AM and a new week is starting. I need your recommendations for the new week!

[AD begins]

[AD ends]