Chapter 62: Empowering the Era of Active Social Engagement

That night, Zhang Xiaolong didn’t go home. He sat in his workshop, spending the entire day tossing virtual message bottles in OO, marveling over and over, “This is incredible.”

Later, when Zhang Xiaolong recalled this period and reflected on the events that followed, he told a reporter:

“The emergence of O0 and 0O message bottles marked the dawn of a new era for social software—a time I call the ‘facilitated proactive socializing era.’ Previously, whether it was the foreign OICQ or China’s QQ, social software seemed cutting-edge, moving social interaction from real life to the online realm. Yet the essence of socializing remained unchanged: it was still an age of individual initiative.

Online and offline socializing are fundamentally similar. They both require someone to take the initiative, to reach out and invite another to converse. One side is proactive, the other reactive. On the surface, this mode of interaction appears unproblematic—after all, it’s how our ancestors socialized. But this perspective overlooks the nature of many people.

Human beings differ in constitution and temperament. For those who are naturally outgoing and open, taking the initiative poses no issue; it suits them. Yet in this world, there are plenty of people who simply can’t initiate social contact, who can’t even utter a word to someone else, let alone send an invitation. And such people are not few.

Let’s consider the simplest scenario: if you ask a hundred people on the street to strike up a conversation with a stranger, how many would actually have the nerve? Perhaps not even ten. Online socializing, by virtue of being non-face-to-face, lowers the threshold, but all it does is raise the number from ten to twenty. The remaining eighty people still cannot take the initiative. This is a chronic problem with social interaction, a limitation rooted in human nature. I once believed this barrier insurmountable—until I discovered OO and its facilitated proactive socializing.

What does this mean? Let’s return to those eighty who can’t initiate contact. How many of them are truly terrified of socializing, utterly unable to communicate with others? Really, not many—perhaps twenty at most. The remaining sixty are in an in-between state. They don’t lack the desire to socialize; they’re simply too shy to speak up, unsure how to start, how to type, how to talk.

At the same time, they constantly worry: What if I’m rejected? What if people dislike me? What if I say something and the other person doesn’t reply, and my dignity is badly wounded?

Indeed, many people have been hurt in social situations. Some have developed a fear of socializing, yet paradoxically, they also long for it. What they need is a nudge—a little help to push them into social interaction, while greatly reducing the risk of being hurt. In other words, something that ensures they won’t be rejected, that allows them to chat for a while without fear. This is the essence of facilitated proactive socializing.

To put it plainly, these people are like donkeys that won’t move on their own; they need someone behind them to prod them forward. The OO message bottle is just such a tool.

It brings significant improvements and advantages. It eliminates the difficulty of taking the first step in conversation—the so-called ‘initiation anxiety.’ It’s always hardest to say the first word, to launch the opening line, because the initiator fears rejection or, worse, being ignored altogether, which can be deeply hurtful.

But what if both parties initiate the conversation simultaneously? Then the problem disappears. OO’s message bottle matching system automatically pairs two users who both wish to chat, both eager to start a conversation. In this way, initiation anxiety is fundamentally resolved.

Beyond that, there’s the incentive-based chat. In the past, chat software merely provided a platform; it didn’t actively promote conversation. OO’s message bottle is different. After a successful match, it requires a minimum of twenty messages to be exchanged, with word and time constraints in place to ensure that the conversation is both enjoyable and sustained.

It’s like telling those who fear socializing: ‘Come chat here. You won’t be rejected. You’ll definitely be able to talk to a girl for at least twenty messages.’ As a reward, after twenty messages, you earn a bit of charm value. This incentive may seem trivial, but for many female users, it’s irresistible—especially when competition arises in their circles over charm points, drawing large numbers of women to showcase their allure on OO.

In summary, the advent of the OO message bottle represents a tremendous breakthrough and innovation in the social system. It is also a key reason why OO has reached its current heights.”

The preceding remarks were Zhang Xiaolong’s reflections years later—a perspective somewhat colored by hindsight.

At present, Zhang Xiaolong didn’t see things so clearly. He simply thought the OO message bottle was nothing short of amazing—so much so that the most introverted programmer in his company, someone who had never chatted online before, was now up all night talking to people online, swearing he wouldn’t sleep until he found a girl whose soul resonated perfectly with his own programmer’s spirit.

Of course, many might say he was simply enjoying the thrill of chatting for the first time. But there was no denying it—Zhang Xiaolong truly believed the OO message bottle was a stroke of genius!

Still, he worried. What if this was only his own opinion? Or merely the view of male programmers?

So, Zhang Xiaolong decided to conduct some field research, and there was no better place for that than an internet café.

With that, Zhang Xiaolong set off alone to an internet café to observe the situation. As expected, most people were gaming, but some were chatting as well. Most were still on QQ; only a few were using OO or the message bottle feature.

“Could I be wrong? Maybe the OO message bottle isn’t all that attractive to regular users?” Zhang Xiaolong hesitated, doubtful. He decided to run an experiment.

He found the café owner, had a quick word, and slipped him five hundred-yuan notes. Soon, the café’s loudspeaker crackled: “Attention: For the next ten minutes, anyone who completes a session with the OO message bottle and has it confirmed by staff can claim a bottle of ice-cold Pepsi from the desk. This is a limited-time offer—don’t miss out!”

Hearing the announcement, Zhang Xiaolong nodded with satisfaction. He logged in at a terminal, played games for two hours, and then strolled through the café. Now, nearly half the patrons were using the OO message bottle; those who had been on QQ had virtually disappeared.

The promotion had started and ended two hours earlier. Its pull was gone, yet two hours later, so many people—many of them women—were still chatting on the OO message bottle. When Zhang Xiaolong stepped out of the café, his expression was a kaleidoscope of emotions.

“Hello, Chairman, this is Zhang Xiaolong! I recommend acquiring a software called OO! Actually, the name doesn’t matter—the key is its operator. This is a super genius, someone ten thousand times more talented than I am!” Zhang Xiaolong dialed a number. On the other end was the controller of Boda Corporation, the investor behind his Foxmail venture, and the head of Yahoo, Zhu Yue.

[PS: I couldn’t find concrete information on Boda Network’s background. Given its American roots, let’s have Jerry Yang fill in for now. If any experts know more, please share in the comments so I can update this later!]