Chapter 82: Admitting Fault Online

The timing of the launch is still uncertain. Next week, we are up for the Triple River recommendation; by long-standing custom, that means the product should go live the week after next. So please be patient and wait a little longer.

Also, the promise of twenty extra chapters is only the minimum. Let me make that clear: it is a floor, not a ceiling. There will be at least twenty extra chapters on launch day, and because there will also be promotional events, it is highly likely that there will be thirty. But thirty is the absolute limit; anything unfinished will be added gradually afterward. At the same time, the baseline update speed after launch will increase as well, rising from at least four thousand words a day to at least six thousand. As for whether there will be even more daily updates, that depends on the subscriptions. Old readers know this well: I am the man who once kept up sixteen thousand words a day for an entire month and a half.

“Are you really the chief executive officer of Jiangnan Computer?” In the astonishment of the whole nation, the interview officially began, and the reporter came out swinging with the very question every viewer most wanted answered: was this little girl really the CEO of a company?

“After the interview, you can verify it yourselves. All our documents and data are open to you here. Ask anyone anything you like. If you discover that I am not the CEO of this company, then you can cut this entire interview from the broadcast.” With a bright smile, Leng Zhimeng pointed to her own forehead and added, “Or, when the program airs, you can even put some post-production text right here that says I am a fraud!”

“Hahaha!” The reporter was amused by Leng Zhimeng’s words, and sure enough, a special effects caption appeared on the screen: “Confirmed by reporters: Leng Zhimeng is indeed the chief executive officer of Jiangnan Computer Services Company.”

“Then are you a student? Why are you wearing a school uniform?” the reporter asked curiously.

“I just graduated from high school this year, and I didn’t get into university, so I’m not really a student anymore. As for the uniform, first, because I genuinely like wearing school uniforms, and second, because you all were coming and I wanted to leave the audience with a memorable impression. So I decided to wear it after all, which would make you ask me why I was wearing a school uniform!” Once again, Leng Zhimeng’s words made the reporters laugh, and the viewers in front of their televisions were charmed by this quick-witted girl. They also marveled at how clever she was, and how good she was with words.

This was 2001, and this was a JDFT interview. To answer with such playful wit was truly remarkable. It had to be said that, with just these two answers, Leng Zhimeng had already left an extraordinarily deep impression on the minds of people across the country.

And an excellent impression at that. A smart, lovely, cheeky, and rich girl was simply impossible not to like. Even the executives in the Tengda conference room could not resist it; at least a dozen of them were practically drooling over her.

After all, there were so few professional women in the industry these days, and even fewer who were young, beautiful, and as spiritedly adorable as Leng Zhimeng. To say one was completely unmoved would be impossible. Even our Young Master Ma could not help the corners of his mouth rising slightly, and only after he noticed his expression had become inappropriate did he force himself back into seriousness.

“Well then, I think you must already know about the news that has caused such an uproar in society recently. May I ask whether you think this is an isolated incident, or something very common?” the reporter finally asked a proper question.

“Well, how should I put it? Men fighting with men is certainly an isolated incident. But cases like falsifying or concealing one’s gender, or other personal information, are definitely very common,” Leng Zhimeng said.

“Do you mean common?” the reporter emphasized, asking in surprise.

“Yes, I mean common!” Leng Zhimeng emphasized right back.

“Do you have any specific data?” the reporter asked again.

“We don’t, because we don’t know whether the person behind any given account is male or female. But before we created OO, we conducted a market survey and found that about fifteen percent of accounts had some kind of gender concealment,” Leng Zhimeng said.

“You’re saying you already knew about this before creating OO?” the reporter asked in astonishment.

“Of course. Since we wanted to make an instant-messaging software like OO, we naturally had to conduct a thorough survey of the entire market. Only then could our product grow better in the market. That was something we had to do!” Leng Zhimeng said with a smile.

“This woman really does have bad intentions. Isn’t she slandering us?” In the Tengda conference room, Zeng Qing immediately lashed out. Although Leng Zhimeng had not mentioned Tengda by name at all, when she spoke of data collected before OO was created, wasn’t she obviously talking about QQ’s data?

Wasn’t she saying that fifteen percent of QQ accounts were “cross-dressing” accounts?

“It’s normal for her to say it that way. We can only say she prepared better for this interview than we did!” Young Master Ma said calmly, though the smile had already vanished from his face.

“Since your company already knew about this before operating, did you prepare any countermeasures? Can your product now prevent such things from happening?” the reporter asked in the interview.

“To prevent it entirely, under current technical conditions, is absolutely impossible,” Leng Zhimeng said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to lie to you or the audience and give some bland, safe answer. Given the nature of online chatting, it is impossible to guarantee one hundred percent accurate information. Even in the real world, such a guarantee is impossible to make!”

“Then surely you must have some way of dealing with it!”

“Yes, we did come up with a kind of solution that is not really a solution,” Leng Zhimeng said with a smile. “Since profiles can be fabricated, we simply decided not to ask our users to provide them. So our registration process is very simple: you only need to fill in your name, gender, and birthday. We do not require any other information!”

“Won’t that affect the chatting experience?”

“Actually, it won’t. Because chatting is about two interesting souls talking to each other, not about staring at the other person’s interests, background, or education before speaking. If that were the case, then it would no longer be a pure collision of souls. That is not the product we are pursuing. Our product has always been about bringing two interesting souls together!”

“I see,” the reporter nodded. “But you just said your product still requires gender to be filled in. And online chatting inevitably attracts people who come looking for romance, for a boyfriend or girlfriend. In that case, wouldn’t users still be deceived?”

“That is true, and it is also where we have not yet done enough,” Leng Zhimeng said, nodding. Then she stood up, bowed to the camera on her own initiative, and said, “Here, I want to apologize to all OO users. We truly did not handle this issue well, and as a result some of our users may have had a very poor experience. That is our mistake, and we sincerely apologize.”

“She actually admitted fault!” In the Tengda conference room, the bread in Li Dan’s hand fell straight onto the table. When he had been interviewed before, the reporter had asked the same question, and he had spent ages circling around it, exhausting every trick he had just to get through the interview, shifting all the blame onto the internet and the users.

And yet Leng Zhimeng had admitted fault so simply???

“Leng Zhimeng is too stupid. She actually admitted fault on her own. She’s done for if she’s that stupid!” Zeng Qing snorted without hesitation.

“Yes, she actually admitted fault. Then she’s definitely finished!” This was what everyone in Tengda was thinking. In fact, the people at all large companies thought the same way: being criticized was acceptable, but admitting fault absolutely was not.

Otherwise, think about it: in Tengda’s next twenty years, when had they ever admitted fault?

Yet when it came to why OO would be doomed after admitting fault, the Tengda people could not make sense of it at all. They had no idea what consequences admitting fault would bring.

“You admit this is your company’s mistake?” On the other side, the reporter was equally surprised and pressed her further.

“Of course. This is an imperfection in the product’s functional design. It is our mistake,” Leng Zhimeng admitted again.

“In that case, do you have a way to solve this problem?” the reporter asked curiously.

“How should I put it? Since that incident more than a week ago, our entire development team has not gone home for over a week. We have been staying at the company, and we finally came up with a provisional solution,” Leng Zhimeng said.

“What solution?” the reporter asked.

“Sound!” Leng Zhimeng said word by word. “Information and text can be fabricated, but sound cannot. As long as we hear a person’s voice, we can tell whether they are male or female!”

“What do you mean by that? Could you explain it a little more specifically?” The reporter was startled as well, and asked in a tone tinged with confusion.

“Tomorrow, we will release the latest OO 2001 version. In this brand-new version, we will make a breakthrough debut of the OO Voice feature. All you need to do is plug a microphone into your computer, then connect headphones or speakers. No matter how far apart two people are, they can chat directly by voice through our OO!” Leng Zhimeng said in her crisp, melodious high school girl’s voice.