Chapter 394

At the beginning of the new year, while the two acquisitions were finalized, westero system began to make efforts in the field of Internet.

After careful preparation, AOL launched the Internet free trial program on January 1, 1991.

As long as the users of bell Pacific, Bell Atlantic and Nynex on the East and west coasts of the United States can install and access the world wide web platform for free by appointment, and get a free trial time of three hours a day for one month.

As of December 31, 1990, the number of end users of AOL has been fixed at 820000, and the number of Internet users accessing the world wide web platform in North America has reached 1.16 million.

AOL team predicted the growth rate of World Wide Web users in the previous few months and launched the free trial plan. In the next three months, AOL will welcome at least one million free trial users per month on average.

According to the trial budget of $100 per user in terms of access equipment and web browsing, AOL will invest an average of $100 million per month, not counting the investment in human resources and infrastructure to support the number of users.

All in all, AOL will burn at least $400 million for a three-month free trial.

In comparison, AOL's annual revenue in 1990 was just over 100 million yuan.

Therefore, the key to this risky and radical business plan is actually the issue of capital.

Simon agreed to the IPO plans of AOL and Cisco last year. However, due to the outbreak of Gulf War in the second half of last year, the U.S. stock market continued to slump, and the IPO plans of both companies continued to delay. This free trial can be described as AOL's last fight before IPO.

Other minority shareholders, who hold 25% of AOL's shares, are reluctant to be diluted by Westeros again, and Simon is not reluctant. This time, the funds were obtained from Citibank in the form of loans through the relationship with Westeros.

After three months of free trial, AOL will officially launch IPO regardless of the implementation result and macroeconomic environment.

AOL's other shareholders and management are under great pressure, but Simon is full of confidence in the plan and the U.S. economic trend.

One million trial users in one month and three million in three months are actually very conservative.

You should know that in the past 1990, the total volume of personal computers shipped by mainstream PC manufacturers such as IBM, apple and commac exceeded 20 million, of which the volume of IBM series compatible computers alone reached 16.8 million. At the same time, the number of PC users in the world exceeded 100 million in 1990.

As the most developed economy in the world, the domestic market share of the United States is more than 50% in terms of PC shipment and ownership.

Although personal computers in this era are mainly used for office use, and office PCs account for a large part of the total number of personal computer users, and AOL's user areas are located in the most economically developed states on the East and west coasts of the United States. The number of 3 million trial users in three months is absolutely not much.

If 20% to 30% of the 3 million expected trial users can be converted into regular users, AOL's free trial program will be a success.

After the first quarter, as long as the growth of users meets the expectation, AOL can at least ensure the annual revenue of $500 million. With the growth of the number of users in the following three quarters, the actual revenue will definitely be higher. Compared with the performance growth of more than 500% last year, this growth rate is enough for AOL to obtain a very excellent IPO valuation.

After IPO, AOL can continue to raise funds from the open market more flexibly by issuing securities or issuing additional shares.

Igritte, on the other hand, is also starting to work in the field of content.

Just a week after the new year, Peter Butler officially joined igritte and went to the Middle East to host a comprehensive report on the Gulf War.

At the same time, igritte also launched an award-winning creative activity of "everyone is a novelist" in the column blog section.

Online novel, a literary genre that later became familiar to people, actually appeared earlier than many people imagined. Just like online games, Kunteng online, the predecessor of AOL, operated the "online novel Solitaire" service as early as the 1980s.

In the final analysis, there is no shortage of creativity.

However, the "everyone is a novelist" campaign launched by igritte is still inclined to traditional literary creation, and the deadline is also three months.

The registered users of igrit portal can participate in the activity and create online after applying to the blog operation team. The theme is limited to fiction, but there is no limit to the type. Science fiction, horror, suspense and so on are all OK. The rule is to submit an update at least once a week, and the final winner will be selected by the Internet users through online voting.

In the end, one first prize with a prize of 500000 US dollars, 10 second prizes with a prize of 100000 US dollars, 100 third prizes with a prize of 10000 US dollars will be selected. At the same time, the works created by these users are expected to be published and adapted into films and TV series by danielis entertainment.With a total of 2.5 million US dollars in prize pool, as well as publishing and film adaptation opportunities, the event has just been announced and aroused the strong concern of igrit users.

After all, most ordinary people actually have some creative dreams, which are difficult to implement only because of various constraints.

Igrit's online activity not only provides a platform with low threshold, but also provides a huge bonus to stimulate users' enthusiasm.

For igritte, such an activity can not only realize Simon's goal of producing content, but also enhance the interactivity of igritte's social network. Moreover, through the name sponsorship of IBM and other enterprises, igrit has further developed its own advertising business, which can be said to be more than one stone.

For this event, the team of igritte specially developed a voting system, which is similar to the popular like function on the Internet. Only registered users of igritte portal can vote. Moreover, in order to avoid the phenomenon of multiple vest vote swipe, voting users also need to bind AOL's account, and can only cast one vote every day.

Hollywood successfully reached an agreement with MCA, and the first box office week after the new year passed quickly.

From January 4 to January 10, the third week of "home by the kid" opened. Because it entered the working day, compared with the adverse decline of new year's day, the box office of this week fell by 34% and closed at $31.28 million.

The box office of a single week dropped from US $47.99 million to US $31.28 million. Although the decline is very deep, it is actually very rare. In this era, the box office of many blockbuster films in the first week may not exceed 30 million US dollars, which is enough to show the phenomenal box office characteristics of "kid in charge".

In three weeks, the total North American box office of "kid in charge" has reached 111.9 million US dollars, easily making it into the top ten of the North American box office list in 1990.

However, such an excellent box office momentum has to face the shadow of the approaching war.

It is getting closer and closer to the 15 January ultimatum issued by the United Nations for Iraq, but there is no sign that Saddam Hussein's troops will withdraw from Kuwait. It is worth mentioning that the "tough attitude" of the U.S. government also played a key role.

Several conditional withdrawal proposals put forward by the Iraqi side have all been rejected by the US government.

On January 12, the U.S. Senate officially approved the "authorization of the use of military forces against Iraq act.".

Black clouds are pressing down on the city.

At the same time, in the month before the war, under the shadow of the war, the U.S. stock market continued to fall by 6%, and the Dow Jones index once fell back to within 300 points, even worse than before the 1987 stock disaster.

After completing the settlement at the end of 1990, cersei capital quickly raised $3 billion of hedge funds, which will remain the same size in the future.

Simon's total cash transferred back to China was more than US $8 billion, but with the continuous accumulated gains in the second half of last year, Simon's capital in cersei fund management company's account still reached US $700 million, and the Johnston family also retained US $500 million in hedge funds.

Before the outbreak of the war, when most investors generally looked down on the prospect of the Gulf War, cersei fund management's team began to bet again on the crude oil futures market and the North American stock index futures market.

Crude oil futures market experienced the impact of last year's Kuwait war, so far it has not recovered, so it can only barely establish a few positions.

The main target of this bet is S & P 500 futures.

In Simon's memory, the S & P 500 index rose by more than 20% in a month after the Gulf War, when the US led multinational force collapsed.

Moreover, most speculators tend to be short in the S & P 500 index futures market with active trading due to the poor outlook on the war, which makes the team of cersei fund management company very easy to establish a long position with a total value of more than 10 billion US dollars in just a few weeks.

Although we don't expect cersei's hedge funds to send too much money to the westrow system in the next few years. However, this time, because Simon's prediction of the war situation is different from that of most people, cersei capital will still be able to make very rich gains in the next few months as long as everything follows the historical track.

Throughout 1991, cersei fund management company was able to easily get rid of the same type of hedge funds on Wall Street in terms of profits.

It is Simon's performance requirement for cersei capital to enter the normal operation state, not to create a miracle, but to surpass its peers. It's not easy for other Wall Street fund companies, but for cersei capital, it's not difficult to achieve this by relying on Simon's advantages and his excellent operation team.

Time will not stop for the repressed atmosphere of war.

On January 15, the final deadline, Saddam Hussein still failed to implement the UN withdrawal agreement. The US led multinational force began to authorize the military for war, and millions of Iraqi troops were ready to respond.

At 2:00 a.m. local time on January 17, countless warplanes took off from US aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and military airports in Saudi Arabia, swarming like bees to the key military targets in Iraq that had been locked in advance.Many people thought that the Iraqi air force would fight back, but the multinational force showed an overwhelming advantage that made the Iraqi army completely unable to resist.

Iraq's air defense system has little room for us high-tech stealth bombers. The backward Scud missiles are also vulnerable to the latest US precision guided missiles. The Iraqi air force has not made much response, and has been firmly suppressed by the Multinational Force fighters.

In less than one day's intensive air strikes, the strategic objectives of the first phase of the multinational force were quickly achieved, and the air bases and air defense facilities in Iraq were completely destroyed by the dumping of guided missiles, cluster bombs and air bombs.

The destruction of the war shocked the whole world.

International crude oil market.

With the constant feedback of the war news, the international crude oil price, which continued to soar on the eve of the war, began to plummet only two hours after the outbreak of the war.

On January 16, the day before the outbreak of the war, the international crude oil price was as high as 26 US dollars a barrel. A few hours after the outbreak of the war, the international crude oil price had dropped to the low of 20 US dollars, basically reaching the level before the outbreak of the Kuwait war last year.

Affected by the haze of the war, the North American film market showed a significant decline in the week before the outbreak of the war.

After a 34% drop in the third week, the box office of "kid in charge" fell again by 29% in the fourth week from January 11 to January 17, further dropping to $22.21 million. The total box office in four weeks was 142.11 million US dollars.

Because the war situation is beyond most people's expectation, although many people are still attracted by the smoke of gunpowder in the Gulf region, the North American film market has not further turned cold, but began to rebound in the new week.

Before the outbreak of the war, the organizers of the Golden Globe Awards for American film and television were still hesitating whether to cancel the new award ceremony originally scheduled for January 19. With the final clarity of the war situation, the organizers of the Golden Globe Awards will soon announce that the award ceremony will be held at the Hilton Beverly Hills Hotel as scheduled.

This year's Golden Globe Awards were only nominated for best picture of plot and comedy, while Denise entertainment accounted for three. They were "dancing with the wolf" and "crossing point of life" nominated for best picture of plot, and "human ghost" nominated for best picture of musical comedy.

In fact, in the original time and space, "pretty girl" and "kid at home" also won the nomination for best picture in the Music Comedy category.

However, if the danelis entertainment family accounts for half of the Golden Globe's 10 best picture nominations, it would be a bit too dazzling. After weighing, danielis entertainment only applied for best picture nominations for three films including dance with the wolf.

Among them, dancing with wolves is the most important. In the other two films, the attitude of the organizers of the Golden Globe Awards, whether they give it or not, is not much affected.

It turned out that all three films were nominated.

Fortunately, the three films are well deserved, so they have not caused much controversy. However, some media people have raised objections to the failure of danielis Entertainment's "kid in charge" and "pretty girl" to win the best picture nomination in the music and comedy category.

After several busy months, two acquisitions were finalized, but Simon was not able to spare time.

After the savage growth in 1990, the westero system unconsciously accumulated too many problems. In order to avoid the accumulation, Simmons did not dare to slack off.

In addition, while putting down more power to the management of each company, Simon's financial supervision of each company is becoming more and more strict. This period at the beginning of the year, according to the Convention, is the period of financial audit for each company.

Despite heavy work every day, Simon showed up on the red carpet outside the Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills in the evening on January 19 with her well-dressed Janet.

After all, it's not just "dancing with Wolves" and other three films that have been nominated for best picture. Danielle Reese Entertainment's "pretty girl", "kid in charge" and "ten days in danger" have also won a lot of nominations in other awards.

Besides the film awards, Denise Entertainment's reality shows and TV series have also won a large number of nominations in various types of TV awards, and all of them have very strong award potential.

Therefore, before the award ceremony, danielis entertainment had already prepared a grand celebration party in danielis studios, Malibu.