The bean sprouts in grimm's fairy tale "Jack and the Magic Bean" climbed to the sky overnight, and douban seems to have such magic. Douban started with an angel investment of 200,000 yuan, and quickly achieved more than 400,000 registered users in one year. This website, which collects books, movies, music reviews and recommendations, is recognized as the pioneer of the Web2.0 era in China. Bai Yang, the founder of Douban.com, has also become a man of the hour in the Web2.0 era.

Bai Yang, graduated from the Physics Department of Tsinghua University, and received his Ph.D. from the Physics Department of the University of California. This young man, who calls himself "in his thirties", has a net name of "Abei", and his online avatar is an angry youth with his head wrapped in red cloth. But when he met face to face, he showed his true colors: he looked younger than his actual age, tall but not loud, gentle and even a little shy, typical of a science student, and the heart of a literary youth. Three years ago, he lived in Douban Hutong near Chaoyangmen in Beijing, frequented Starbucks nearby, took a peeled Apple notebook and frantically wrote a bunch of programs that people couldn't understand-half of Douban's programs were written in Starbucks, and the name came from Douban Hutong.

This "turtle" went ashore and returned to China only because his job at IBM in the United States was too stable. "I can imagine my position, salary and welfare decades later with my eyes closed. But people around me are talking about returning to China to start a business. " With a vision and challenge for the future, he sold his car and furniture and resigned from IBM to return home.

After returning home, I tried the water for the first time, and joined the "Quick Step Yi Jie" as the chief technology officer. Like many people with lofty ideals in those days, the goal of Kuaishou is to become the most important logistics networking solution provider in China. However, "after the process of financing and burning money,' Quick Step' failed to move towards the goal". The biggest lesson he learned from "Fast Yi Jie" is to at least do what he likes. In this way, no matter what the result is, the process is happy.

Gather "like-minded people"

Bai Yang is determined to be his favorite website.

At first, he chose to travel. Halfway through the reading, Bai Yang found that the plan was too small. In busy China, few people will spend a lot of time and money just for backpacking, so it is difficult for this marginalized website to gather popularity.

Bai Yang turned to books. Reading is more popular than traveling. He is a book lover, but like many people, he despises the ranking of bestsellers and the recommendation of media editors, and prefers to go to a corner to find some non-mainstream books and periodicals with a smaller audience. "If there is such a website and there are people like me, we can communicate with each other, know what is better now and share our feelings with you. At least for me, this is a useful website. "

In March 2005, Douban, a book review, film review and music review website developed and operated by one person, began to wander in the online world. When Douban first appeared on the Internet, it was bred quite lonely in an inner room, and no one knew her. Bai Yang was sweating like a pig, staring at the monitor and constantly brushing the screen. The first string of footprints left by a netizen named "boring to death" on Douban. Com made him realize what mixed feelings are, just like a new father hearing his child's first cry.

The positioning of douban. Com is to help you find what you like. How to do this? Bai Yang was inspired by real life. "A bunch of people are chatting. You tell a book, and a colleague jumps out and says I have read it. You can talk and speak other books. " The most effective influence on most people often comes from relatives, friends and colleagues. One or two casual recommendations not only convey your true feelings, but also include the judgment of your taste and subsequent screening.

Now Douban.com has expanded the recommendation group so that strangers with similar tastes can come together. Douban Com has no editors and authors, and there are no special articles. All the contents, classification, screening and sorting here are generated by registered members themselves. Once you register as a "bean friend", you can upload books, music and movies you have collected and recommended on your own page. Through the technology behind the website, you can know how many strangers are reading the same book and watching the same disc with you, their comments and preferences. Just click on their heads and you can add them as "friends and neighbors" and gradually form a small circle. "This can be understood as a personal network with specific objects such as books as the medium."

"If you are a bookstore, you have inventory restrictions. The books you didn't buy are not in the database. But watercress is different. As long as someone has seen it, it can be added, and its space has no cost. " There are currently 800,000 kinds of books on Douban. The database is connected with Dangdang, Zhuoyue and Amazon. Users can also add some old books themselves, which often brings surprises to book lovers.

Douban has accumulated tens of millions of records about who is reading what books and who likes what music. Here, you can quickly find friends with similar tastes and establish a circle where birds of a feather flock together and people are divided into groups.

Like all Web2.0 websites, Bai Yang claims to be "free forever" for users.

"Douyou" became an employee.

For a long time at first, Bai Yang was basically the only one who made Douban. "In the beginning, the website only needs to pay attention to core values such as book reviews and book recommendations, and there is no need to put on such a big shelf." Bai Yang said: "At that time, so many people could not be raised."

In March 2006, on the first anniversary of Douban's official launch, Douban welcomed its second official employee Brant. This year is the third year after Douban was launched. At present, the team has about 25 people. Last winter alone, Bai Yang held a job fair in colleges and universities, which expanded many talents he was satisfied with.