(In the previous chapter, Ding Ming's shares in Sogou Search have been changed to 20%, so Lao Wang is confused.)

By early April, Sohu's registered users had reached 380,000, while the total number of netizens in China was only about 2 million. If you ignore those repeated registrations, one of the five Chinese netizens is a registered member of Sohu.

Sohu.com’s daily visits have exceeded that of People’s Daily!

The comment function is the core selling point. Netizens can finally express their opinions and opinions at will when browsing articles. This is the only innovation in the world. Users' account upgrade system has also increased the website adhesion. Even Sifang Litong also activates the comment function. Sohu's old users are used to this and regard Sohu as their online home.

"Perhaps, we should revalue Sohu.com."

The person who speaks is a Chinese, a Chinese citizen holding a US green card.

This person is named Xiong Xiaoge, from Xiangtan. He used to be an English teacher. He graduated from the Graduate School of the Academy of Social Sciences and then received a full scholarship from Boston University. During his study abroad, he accidentally served as the Chinese translator of the chairman of IDG. A few years later, he obtained a green card and became the head of IDG Asia-Pacific region.

What does idg do?

It is the first international venture capital company to enter China.

In history, when Zhang Chaoyang was at the end of his life, Xiong Xiaoge helped him to invest, so that Sohu survived. When Xiao Ma was desperate, Xiong Xiaoge helped him to invest, so that Tencent survived.

This year, under the leadership of Xiong Xiaoge, IGG signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and is expected to invest US$1 billion in China's small and medium-sized high-tech industries within seven years.

Idg's venture capital is very distinctive and especially likes to invest in innovative projects. In the early stage, it invests in companies with simple shareholder structure, but the investment is relatively small. If you intervene in the medium term, they like to invest large investments and hold multiple shares; they value industry potential more, rather than considering profit models.

Sohu.com is very suitable for IDC's investment preferences, with only three natural person shareholders, and it is an innovative project (Internet).

For such companies, idg casts a wide net and does not invest much, but invests everywhere, such as in history, Sohu and Tencent.

Even if he only invested a little money, IGG was unwilling to do it alone. This time he fell in love with Sohu, and Xiong Xiaoge brought Intel, Dow Jones, Harrison and Hang Lung (Hong Kong-funded company) to pay together.

Before Zhang Chaoyang went to the United States, he contacted Intel, Dow Jones and Harrison in person, accepted investment inquiries, and explained the specific situation and development plan of Sohu.com.

Investigators from Intel dared not believe it: "How can the number of visits to this website increase by more than 500% in one month! I want to technically check their data!"

Zhang Chaoyang smiled and said, "Please. But before checking the data, I hope to introduce Sohu.com to you again. We are the first Internet site in the world to launch a comment function. Whether it is current news, celebrity gossip, or literary content, netizens can leave comments. We also have an account upgrade system. In order to get points to upgrade accounts, netizens even actively click on the ad link repeatedly because clicking on browsing ads can make them get points."

"Comment function? Why didn't you say it the last time you were questioned?" asked an investigator from Harrison.

"It just launched not long ago," Zhang Chaoyang brought everyone to the computer and clicked on a news just released by Sohu today. "Please see, the current click volume of this news is 327 and the number of comments is 79. Let's refresh the page again in three minutes... The click volume has become 865 and the number of comments is 258! The total number of netizens in China is less than 2 million. You should know what the growth rate of click volume and comments means!"

Investigators from Intel exclaimed: "This is a genius creation, and the web comment function can stick users."

"I think I'm going to contact the headquarters first," an investigator from Dow Jones said.

Zhang Chaoyang smiled and said, "Then let's talk about financing tomorrow."

When the foreigners were all gone, Xiong Xiaoge smiled and said, "Xiao Zhang, you're doing a pretty job."

Zhang Chaoyang said: "Always Xiong thinks how much should we value Sohu.com?"

"I think 8 million US dollars is suitable," said Xiong Xiaoge.

"Too few," Zhang Chaoyang shook his head, "We are the website with the largest traffic in China, bigger than People's Daily."

Xiong Xiaoge said: "But this is a Chinese website. China's network environment is far behind that of the United States. If Sohu.com is an American website, with your traffic and model, it will be worth at least 50 million US dollars."

Zhang Chaoyang said: "China's network environment is indeed backward, but it also has great potential."

"Potential is potential, the status quo is the status quo. What do you think?" Xiong Xiaoge said.

Zhang Chaoyang smiled and said, "Isn't your venture capital company investing in potential?"

Xiong Xiaoge also smiled and said, "You are very good at talking."

An investigator from Gangcheng Henglong Company has not left and suddenly said: "Other Chinese websites should follow the trend and launch a comment function, and then your advantages will be gone."

Zhang Chaoyang said: "Many American portals are similar to Yahoo, but Yahoo has always maintained an advantage. One step ahead, one step ahead."

Investigators from several companies contacted the headquarters and gathered to discuss, and then contacted their respective headquarters again.

After going back and forth, I finally sat together to negotiate with Zhang Chaoyang.

It took another week of tug-of-war, idg, Intel, Dow Jones, Harrison and Hang Lung, the latest valuation of Sohu.com has increased to $13 million, and they are reluctant to raise the price.

Zhang Chaoyang felt that he could no longer talk, so he could only call Song Weiyang to report: "Old Song, my expectation is 15 million US dollars, but when it comes to 13 million, I can't talk. Just stop when it's better. The 13 million US dollars are converted into RMB, and we won't suffer any losses!"

"Don't call me less than 20 million US dollars. You forgot that Sohu.com also owns 5% of Sogou Search's shares." Song Weiyang said.

"Search engines don't make money at all, and they don't have much weight," said Zhang Chaoyang.

Song Weiyang said: "Have you not been online recently? The traffic of Sogou search is close to one-twelve of Sohu.com."

"Is it rising so fast?" Zhang Chaoyang said in surprise.

Song Weiyang said: "You use Sogou and search for keywords for those commonly used products."

Zhang Chaoyang had to put down his phone and search for "shoes" casually. Suddenly, a bunch of news about fake and shoddy leather shoes in Wenzhou came out. He picked up the phone and said, "There is nothing except accurate search results."

Well, the main reason is that the manufacturers selling shoes have not yet built official websites and have not received advertisements. It is so embarrassing.

Song Weiyang had no choice but to say: "Search for high-tech products!"

Zhang Chaoyang searched for "computer" again and immediately found that the first display of the search results was: Lenovo Computer.

"Advertisement?" Zhang Chaoyang asked.

"Do you understand?" Song Weiyang said.

"I understand a little bit," Zhang Chaoyang said, "The more manufacturers there will be in the future, the more advertising fees you will find!"

Song Weiyang thought for a while and said, "This is how it is, share exchange. Sohu.com searches for 5% of the shares in Sogou and exchanges them for personal shares in proportion. It will be fine in the future for the two companies."

"Yes." Zhang Chaoyang said.

After the adjustment, Sogou searches: Song Weiyang (47.75%), Taurus Capital (30%), Ding Ming (20.275%), and Zhang Chaoyang (1.975%).
Chapter completed!