In the first half of 1997, the acquisition of hotmail in the summer failed and instead founded its own lightning mailbox that month.

Because of the money-burning strategy of "free large space", hotmail quickly gathered millions of users.

Subsequently, through successively upgraded functions, the functions of Lightning Mailbox became more and more powerful, and the number of users attracted more and more. In the end, it successfully surpassed hotmail and became the most popular email service provider in the world.

In comparison, hotmail, which had been developed in the past, was overshadowed by the lightning mailbox. Without the previous glory, even its valuation has dropped significantly. The previous bid was at least 600 million US dollars, but now it has no more than 200 million US dollars.

Summer's successful counterattack won praise from the outside world and became a topic of relish.

The short-sightedness of the founder of Hotmail also ushered in a sarcasm. They initially called for $600 million, and they were just financing, not selling.

Now, hotmail's valuation has fallen by more than half. Even if they want to sell, no one will buy it. This is really a slap in the face.

However, some people believe that although Lightning Email is developing rapidly, it is also spending money quite quickly. In order to improve service quality, setting up servers around the world and purchasing loans consumed hundreds of billions of dollars.

Although you have money in summer and can afford such squandering, if Lightning Email is never profitable, how long can you last in summer?!

Some people also believe that Xia Tian founded Lightning Mailbox just to retaliate against Hotmail's refusal to reject his acquisition. But now Hotmail has been slapped hard by him in the face, will he still continue to invest in Lightning Mailbox?! These are all uncertain things.

Therefore, although Lightning Email accounts for a huge market share and the daily visits are also very high, the outside world is inconsistent with its future development.

...

Xia Tian really didn't consider the profitability of Lightning Email.

Because the purpose of establishing the Lightning Email was not to make money, nor to humiliate hotmail. He was not so suspicious, just to have a breath of leisure, and wasted more than one billion dollars. The price was too high.

The reason why he founded the Lightning Email was just to attract traffic.

Just like Google provides gmail, it is not for money, it is just to allow users to bind to Google services and then charge fees through other services.

After the development of Lightning Email, the number of registered users has reached 50 million, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the number of netizens in the world, which is already a very impressive share.

Moreover, the daily views exceed 10 million, which is also among the top in the world's Internet rankings. If you don't make good use of such a large number of passenger flows, it will indeed be a waste.

After consideration in summer, I decided to follow my previous life's practices and use email to carry out a series of services.

On the one hand, Lightning Email launched a fee expansion service. In fact, this service was already in progress from the beginning. After paying a certain monthly fee, the email space can be expanded from a free 10 megabyte to 20 megabyte, 50 megabyte, and 100 megabyte.

For ordinary users, 10 mega-space is generally enough. However, for corporate users, because there are too many emails to communicate, 10 mega-space is very small, so they need a larger space email. And they are the main force of paid mailboxes.

On the one hand, Lightning Email launched paid services, such as letter templates, super large attachment transmission, contact grouping, mailbox red lists, etc.

Ordinary users usually don’t need any templates to send emails, just type them directly. But for corporate users, the emails they send are often notifications, official letters, lawyer letters, etc., which require a certain format.

If you pay, Lightning Email can directly provide the letter template. Users can enter directly based on the template without having to set the format by themselves, which greatly improves office efficiency.

When ordinary users send emails, the attachments are usually not too large. But for corporate users, sending dozens of mega or hundreds of megabytes of files is common.

Such a large file is still very stressful to the Internet, so generally speaking, free email does not provide large file transfers. After paying the fee, the company can send large files, which facilitates the company's office work.

As for contact grouping, email red list, etc., it is mainly aimed at corporate users.

On the one hand, Lightning Email also launched an advertising business, but it is not as disturbing as spam. It only sends two emails to each user every day, and it is also clearly marked with "advertising".

Because Lightning Email has tens of millions of users, the click-through rate of advertising is quite high, which is quite attractive to advertisers.

Two ad emails a day are not too much for users. Moreover, advertisements are not necessarily bad. Job advertisements are also advertisements, but many people rely on job advertisements to find jobs. Rental advertisements are also advertisements, and many people rely on rent advertisements to find houses.

Coupons are also advertisements, but many people still collect them. The hard photos of models published in fashion magazines are actually advertisements, but some people still enjoy watching them.

So what people hate is not advertising, what they really hate is advertising without quality and no benefits.

The advertisements launched by Lightning Email are naturally selected and have certain quality and benefits. Such advertisements are not only unresisting, but also very welcome.

On the one hand, Lightning Email also cooperates with external companies to jointly launch paid services.

For example, we cooperate with the newspaper group to launch a news subscription service. The situation is like the news morning and evening newspapers you subscribed to on your mobile phone. They are sent to the user's email every day by email, providing users with fresh daily information.

Even if one percent of the users subscribe to it, it will be hundreds of thousands of subscriptions. For newspaper companies, it is already very impressive.

For example, cooperate with takeaway companies to launch an online meal ordering service. Users order meals through email, and takeaway companies deliver meals according to their address, and lightning mailbox charges some intermediary fees from it.

...

After a series of reforms, Lightning Mail's profits gradually improved, and many of the businesses launched were well received.

The most popular among merchants is advertising business. Because there are many users of Lightning Email, the advertising click rate is also high, and the customer conversion rate is also very high, many advertisers have obtained good feedback results.

For users, the most popular business is the news subscription service launched in the summer. You can see the latest reports at less than a dollar a day, which is much cheaper than buying newspapers before.
Chapter completed!