American Fortune Life

One fact that is well known in the Internet industry is that the field of instant messaging applications is a "winner takes all" market, because such applications have a strong social network effect, that is, users will invite friends and family members to use an application together .

Therefore, in all fairness, in such an unpredictable market as instant messaging, companies that adopt conservative development strategies are generally very risky, and WhatsApp is not without criticism. Some people criticize it for being too simple, lacking innovation, and not paying attention to popular trends. What.

After all, with the popularity of smartphones, almost all software can receive and send messages and e-mails, but in Wattsup and Andy's view, the real challenge is how to do it without making the product more complicated Under the premise of realizing more functions.

Some users have also asked Wattsup to launch a desktop version and user name login system, but the software engineers from Andy to Wattsup have always insisted on focusing on the practicality, ease of use and service of the application quality.

And every time WhatsApp launches a new feature, it must be discussed intensely internally and simplified to the greatest extent. And this situation is also formally done intentionally by Andy. According to Polk's theorem, only in the debate can the best idea and the best decision be born.

"I'm not really sure what the real value of untweeting and disappearing is. Yes, teens might appreciate it, but I don't really care. I'm 42, and I'm not looking for it on these services*** , instead I would text my wife 'I love you' in an instant message and she would send me pictures of our kids because those are memories.

I can also understand the withdrawal of the message. I am worried that it can be saved if it is sent by mistake. When I don’t know whether the behavior of burning after reading can bring users an intimate relationship, perhaps this is a very popular trend. However, we also have romantic stories like people who have gone through the test of long-distance relationship and finally entered the palace of marriage, and the whole process of the story is recorded, which is impossible to do after reading it. It should be pointed out that people like to relive the chat history, because it is a permanent witness of the relationship between the two parties! "

In the conference room, Acton, the chief software architecture engineer, frowned and looked around the conference room. Then his eyes stayed on the face of the big boss who proposed new functions, and put forward his own opinions and doubts.

"The permanent witness you mentioned is also the reason why intelligence agencies are very interested in these chat records of our users, and this is precisely the main reason why the US government asks us to provide server access!"

CEO Brian smiled, looked at Acton sharply, and said in a rather helpless tone.

"Damn it, let them go to hell!" Acton cursed a little angrily when he heard it. The protection of user privacy data is undoubtedly very important to them, because everyone knows that once they cooperate with intelligence agencies If it is exposed, it will undoubtedly be a devastating blow to the enterprise.

"Let them die, never agree to give them server access, it will ruin everything for us!"

"That's right, absolutely not!"

The executives in the conference room were immediately enraged. It seems that on this issue, everyone's views reached an astonishing consensus. However, everyone in the room also knew that the reason why they dared to make such a clamor was undoubtedly because of the endorsement of their own bosses. Well, if the government really wants it, small arms and legs won't be able to twist the power of the US government.

"Hehe, why are you all looking at me?" Andy looked at all the subordinates looking at him with a smile on his face, couldn't help but stop the rolling pen on his finger, asked with a smile, then turned to look at CEO Bu Ryan said: "I know you're struggling with this, and my attitude is that you're only going to hand over data to them if you're legally required to do so.

We do not actively share any personal information with our government intelligence partners.

U.S. government departments are not allowed to directly access our servers, or use post-MEN to enter our data centers. Everything is subject to the law! "

"Okay boss, I know how to restore them." CEO Brian also heaved a sigh of relief. To be honest, he was really worried that his boss would force the intelligence department. It is inevitable to wear small shoes, not to mention that Wattsup is a new company, even Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, "Facebook" YouTube, and Apple, the servers of these nine companies are open to those people to collect information .

Naturally, Andy would not be foolish enough to fight against the US government. After all, this kind of thing is almost an open secret in the IT industry. Most of the big IT companies will choose to cooperate with them. In return, the leaders of these companies will be able to get Information from the intelligence department to understand the current focus of the intelligence department.

In other cases, partner companies are given rapid warnings of information security threats that could be detrimental to business performance, giving them early insight into serious Internet attacks and who is behind them.

The most typical example that Andy learned was that Google was once hacked. Sergey Brin obtained highly confidential information from the US intelligence agency, thus knowing the source of the attack. At that time, Brin was granted a temporary classified intelligence authorization and was able to understand the relevant situation.

"Look, so it is still very useful to burn after reading." Andy said to everyone in the conference room with a relaxed tone and a smile.

"hehe."

"Don't be kidding me boss, it will still be saved in the background data, unless we really use the data self-destruct technology."

"Yeah, I also think that the disappearance after reading is just a gimmick to bluff people, but the information can be withdrawn, but it can be added after the next version update. Sometimes it is really scary to send the wrong information..."

"Ha ha..."

Everyone burst into laughter. It seemed that everyone present had a similar experience. Andy also shook his head and laughed, thinking quickly. He was a little psychologically prepared for everyone's opposition to the function of burning after reading. After all, although this function is very Okay, but it may not be suitable for Wattsup who wants to make instant messaging software with a high penetration rate. This function is more popular with young people, that's for sure.

However, Andy didn't want to make Wattsup into an artifact of dating. If it didn't work out, he would use this idea to start a new business and set up a new company, which would be used to raise money for fun. . .

"In this case, let's withdraw the one-minute information as the main function service of the next version upgrade, and put it on hold after reading it, but keep it secret." The smile on Andy's face disappeared, and he said with a serious expression. Although, Everyone has signed a non-disclosure agreement, but he still wants to reiterate it to let everyone pay attention. He doesn't want this idea to leak out. Even if this technology has been registered as a patent, after all, there are too many smart people in the world. Will use this to invent new technologies such as flash pictures and flash photos.

"By the way, is there any new development in video calling technology?"

"Slow progress, boss, Internet video calling is the most restrictive and most demanding Internet video application among various Internet video applications, and it is also an Internet video application that is difficult to implement.

Since the video calls are concentrated on the mobile terminal, this requires the computational complexity of the system to be as low as possible, which is a little easier to solve.

However, video calling is a highly real-time application, which determines that video data is generally transmitted unreliably, which requires video transmission to have certain anti-crash, anti-crash, that is, Robust, such as anti-packet loss characteristics. In addition, because there is no buffer mechanism, the video sending bit rate should be as stable as possible. This point cannot be solved by ourselves alone, and an upgrade of external hardware is also required.

In addition, users are required to use the 3G mobile network, and people are more sensitive to traffic, so the video call bandwidth usage should be as low as possible.

In addition, for example, the user's network conditions and device performance vary greatly, so WeChat video calls must adapt to different networks and devices. There is a certain cycle of user version updates, and the compatibility of new technologies with old versions needs to be considered. In addition, massive concurrent The bandwidth cost pressure caused by users on the server must also be considered.

To sum up, it is the difficulty and dilemma that the video call function is facing now, that is, in a short period of one or two years, the video call function can be implemented, but the effect will not be very good! "

Hearing these questions, Andy felt a little helpless, but he was not too disappointed. After all, it was not that his subordinates were incompetent, but that the conditions did not allow it!