Chapter 1025: The Last Train

The cost of text messages is negligible, but a text message costs 10 cents.

People across the country can send hundreds of millions of text messages a day.

This is a super big cake.

For private enterprises, even if they only eat some cake scraps and leftovers, they can still make a lot of money, and the way they use is SP business.

In the past April, Ziweixing's SP business revenue exceeded 68 million yuan, ranking first in China and leading Penguin by 5 million yuan.

However, with the changes of the times, the SP industry is already a sunset industry.

First of all, there are various monthly subscription policies, and the cost of SMS has dropped.

Secondly, there are more and more mobile phones that can access the Internet through wap.

The most important point is that the 3G strategy has been launched in China.

With the improvement of infrastructure, China will soon enter the era of mobile Internet.

The vitality of the SP industry is only 2-3 years left.

Various signals are already evident.

If you want to make more money in this industry, you have to hurry up and enter the market, otherwise you will miss the last train.

Cheng Zhenping, president of the SP business, has reported this before.

It is said that Weibo has done a good job, which is very similar to Twitter in the United States, and can develop SMS services.

What was the earliest positioning of Twitter?

In fact, it is aimed at mobile phone text messages and is based on the SP service of US operators.

For example, 10,000 users followed Internet celebrity Paris Hilton on Twitter and opened a text message service. So when Paris Hilton tweets, the operator sends the tweet to those 10,000 subscribers as a text message.

This is also the reason for the 280 character, 140 character limit.

Because the capacity of a text message is only so large.

If you send too much content, it will not fit in one text message.

Operators receive SMS fees from these 10,000 users, and then share with Twitter.

After the wave of mobile Internet sweeps the world and the SMS mode dies, the 140-character limit will be lifted, and there will be no limit to the length of content posted on Twitter.

In the early days of the website, it was not convenient to add advertisements, so the SMS service became Twitter’s source of income.

The current Weibo also has no advertisements.

You can also cooperate with the operator to do the SMS service of the SP.

Cheng Zhenping's doubt is whether Weibo is reliable or not?

The current microblog is not too big, with only 15 million registered users, and the celebrity strategy is also advancing in an orderly manner.

The cost of opening a new SP business is not low.

To have a team of 12-15 people, the wages, benefits, five insurances and one housing fund, income tax, and infrastructure expenses for these people will cost at least 300,000 yuan per month.

The SP business is shared 50-50 with the operator.

If Ziweixing wants to pay back its capital, Weibo's SMS business needs to earn 600,000 yuan a month.

This is not a small amount.

Can a new website with little reputation have such a big influence?

Zhou Buqi immediately made a decision, "It should be done!"

Take the last train of this SP business!

Of course Weibo is very reliable!

It doesn't matter if you are not famous now, but you will soon become famous. With the power of Ziweixing, it is easy to launch a creative and attractive website.

Helo's smart assistant Rokid, in a sense, will be more interesting than Weibo.

Shen Xiangyang was surprised by this idea, "You mean, it's not enough to let Rokid send text messages to gamers, but also to push Rokid to the SP market?"

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Don't you think Rokid and SP business have a natural consistency?"

"Um……"

Shen Xiangyang fell into deep thought.

Zhou Buqi said: "Rokid is a smart assistant, and this market is still blank in China. Even if Rokid's current technology is not mature enough to deal with too complicated problems that require several detours, it can always solve some simple problems. Can you handle it? For example, if I send a text message to Rokid asking 'Which country is the Strait of Malacca', can I always answer it?"

Shen Xiangyang nodded, "Of course it is possible. The back of Rokid can connect with Weidian, just search directly with Weidian."

"For another example, I saw an English word, but I didn't know what it meant. If I asked Rokid directly, wouldn't there be an answer? Then there is no need to look up the English-Chinese dictionary. A text message of 10 cents is not high for a single user. "

"This is training. In the field of scientific research, asking questions is more important than solving them."

"What?"

Zhou Buqi was taken aback.

Shen Xiangyang said with a smile: "If you want to solve a problem, you must first raise the problem. There is a cause and there is an effect. Now the domestic ability to solve problems is improving, but the problems are all raised by foreigners. For example, Chen Jingrun solved part of Goldbach's conjecture .”

Zhou Buqi frowned, "Don't be clouded by mist."

Shen Xiangyang explained: "The research direction of this kind of intelligent assistant is mainly three steps. The first step, replication, is natural language processing technology, which is the easiest, which is to store the preset questions and answers in the database In , someone asks a question, just call it directly. The second step is to imitate. This is the deep learning framework I am working on, so that the computer can imitate the way of human communication according to its own thinking, instead of just copying it. The third step is to go beyond , this is the knowledge base project that Wang Xiaochuan is working on..."

"Yes, I remember that there is a knowledge base. The left side puts the knowledge into it, and the right side gives the result. It is a big topic of artificial intelligence surpassing the human brain. This proposition is too big."

"Well, at this stage Rokid can only do a small part of the first step through natural language processing, and a small part of the second step through simple computer learning."

"So you want to train?"

"That's right, the process of training Rokid is actually asking questions and solving them. Then the questions and answers are stored in the database for easy recall at any time in the future."

Zhou Buqi suddenly realized, and his eyes lit up, "So, Rokid opened the SP business, which is good for training Rokid, and can make our smart assistant more powerful?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "In this process, it is more important to ask questions. Therefore, more users need to keep asking Rokid questions, so that Rokid can learn and grow through one question and one answer. At the same time, we also need a group of customer service personnel. Pick out some popular questions, then come up with amazing and interesting answers, and store them in the database. When users ask similar questions in the future, Rokid will stop making jokes and give accurate and amazing answers.”

Zhou Buqi nodded, expressing his understanding.

Such as Apple's Siri.

Ask Siri a question, and there may be 5 possible answers in his database.

Ask this question 5 times in a row.

Siri can give different answers every time.

When asked for the sixth time, Siri revealed his secrets, and the answers given began to fall into a repetitive cycle, that is, the reserves in the database were not enough.

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "We are going to build a customer service center in Chuncheng, and we can prepare 100 customer service staff for Rokid. If we encounter some complicated problems, we will directly contact them manually."

Shen Xiangyang said in a deep voice, "This fee is not small."

Zhou Buqi said: "So we need to activate the SP service. If the customer service and users communicate on the Helo side, it will not generate any value. If the communication is via SMS, it will generate profits."

Shen Xiangyang laughed and said: "So I prepared it here!"

Zhou Buqi said: "On the one hand, after users log in to Helo, how many people will idle chat with Rokid? They all go to chat with friends. Only on mobile phones, users do not have data to surf the Internet, will they be more interested in sending messages to Rokid Text messaging. Either ask some questions, or tease an intelligent robot.”

"Actually, behind this robot is a human being."

"How good this is. It not only trains the artificial intelligence, but also cultivates the interest of users. More importantly, it has raised the popularity of Rokid. This will be the first and most famous artificial intelligence in China. There will be a big strategy in the future! "

"The investment is not small." Shen Xiangyang paused, feeling a little distressed, "The SP business costs 500,000 yuan per month. To raise 100 customer service staff, it costs 500,000 yuan per month. Rokid's R\u0026D team requires advanced technical personnel. The cost is even higher, 1.5 million per month."

In fact, it is the research and development link that costs the most money.

The technical content of artificial intelligence is too high, and a monthly salary of 20,000 is considered low. There are about 30 people in the Hangzhou branch of Ziweixing Research Institute, of which 25 are R\u0026D personnel, with an average salary of 30k.

After spending so much money to raise a group of experts, there is no return for many years, and ordinary companies really dare not do it.

In later generations, there was a wave of artificial intelligence fever in China, and the state gave a lot of money to support the development of the industry.

How do colleagues do it?

Except for a few big companies that are doing serious research, more companies doing artificial intelligence are not recruiting artificial intelligence technical experts, but are recruiting creative customer service personnel.

What's the meaning?

It is the robot made by this company, and there is no artificial intelligence behind it at all, it is connected to the customer service personnel behind it through the Internet.

In the foreground is a robot acting, and behind it is a real person answering fluently.

It's like singing a double reed.

After training, the customer service staff can make witty remarks, keep shaking their wits, and laugh and laugh to make laymen go round and round.

With fame, a lot of money is also in hand.

Those companies that really invest huge sums of money in artificial intelligence research and development, because the artificial intelligence produced is much worse than those customer service "artificial intelligence", will instead be criticized by the society for lack of technical content. The money was not earned, and he was stigmatized.

Of course, Zhou Buqi must really engage in research and development, and must be one step ahead of others to promote the development of the domestic artificial intelligence industry.

However, this also reminded him.

The level of early artificial intelligence was too poor, and even ten years later, the level is still very poor.

Can walk on two legs.

One leg, silent research and development, huge investment and hard work. It is thankless, not fighting for the day and only looking at the future.

One leg, recruit customer service.

Use real customer service to make up for the lack of artificial intelligence, bring users an amazing and refreshing feeling, and start Rokid's reputation, which is both famous and beneficial.

Research and development is not enough. To promote Rokid to enter the SP business and catch the last train is to recover blood.

It is a fortune to make a fortune.

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "Artificial intelligence is a strategy. Through Helo and SP business, Rokid's brand is more important than anything else. Don't worry, 100 customer service personnel are counted on Helo. The cost of SP business is also related to the research institute. It's irrelevant. I won't restrict the scientific research funding of you, the dean."

Shen Xiangyang laughed, "That's okay!"