Making a real fortune out of virtually nothing

By Wu Chen (China Daily)





Few people had heard of Ai Qingqing before she announced online that she would trade a paperclip for a house within 100 days. That was on October 15, 2006.



"I have no money, but I have heard about a young Canadian guy (Kyle MacDonald) who traded a paperclip for a two-storey house. I want to achieve the same kind of miracle in 100 days. Will you help me realize my dream?" read her posting.



People soon began to react. More than 1,000 people said they would like to exchange articles with Ai. Photographs and cellphones, old wine and jade bangles were tossed into the ring. Ai started trading and the value of the articles she got started to grow... and grow... and grow.



Another Internet "miracle" was about to happen. TV stations and newspapers began following the website "miracle" with enthusiasm. Millions of netizens, TV viewers and readers were glued to screens and searched newspapers for the latest on Ai.



But, as we all know, things are not always what they seem. It turned out, Ai's was not a spontaneous act; an invisible partner had scripted it carefully. The trading ended on January 23 this year with Ai signing a contract with a record company to become a singer.



Then came the shocker: she broke up with the man who had masterminded the operation.



Yang Xiuyu, nicknamed Li Er, later revealed that he had masterminded the plan to repeat the "Canadian miracle". He wrote the blog and chatted with netizens under the name of Ai Qingqing. In real life, Ai Qingqing was Wang Xiaoguang. The act was not difficult for Wang, for she was an actress in the plays that Yang produced and directed.



The 34-year-old discovered the money-making potential of online advertising and promotion four years ago while working in a Shanghai-based foreign company and surfing the Net, like so many other white-collar workers, to kill time. Yang says he had planned to act as Wang's manager after she became famous. "I could have earned more than 1 million yuan ($131,000) from this operation."





Ai Qingqing poses with her paperclip on January 23 when she announced that she had signed a contract with a record company to become a singer.



"More than 30 newspapers and TV channels covered the online bartering. Those companies would have spent more than 5 million yuan on the coverage," Yang says. Several companies and small businesses, including a bar, a jewelry firm, a wine producer and a publishing house clamored to provide goods for Wang to barter.



Yang says several other companies had called to offer their products but were turned down because their goods were "not suitable for the drama".



After his "actress" split with him, Yang's profit dropped considerably from what he had hoped it to be. But the operation nevertheless was a "success", from which he made a cool six-digit profit. "I should have signed a formal contract with her. I'll do that next time," says Yang. But still, he is proud of his creativity in what was his debut on the "Internet promotion stage".



Before setting up his own studio, Yang used to work for another cyber world promoter, Yang Jun, the driving force behind cyber star "Tian Xian Mei Mei" or "Fairy Girl". The "Fairy Girl", a member of the Qiang ethnic group, is said to have come from a remote village in Southwest China's Sichuan Province. She was promoted as a pure beauty who never knew about or had seen the outside world.



In reality, she was a professional dancer in a local ensemble. And after becoming famous, she was chosen by Sony Ericsson to promote its new mobile phone models.





Yang Xiuyu couldn't get along with his former boss for long. So he quit the job and set up his own studio last year. Yang knows full well the demands in this era of Net entertainment, and looks for attractive cyberspace projects that everybody can take part in, such as the "paperclip for house show".



"These events entertain people and give companies an opportunity to promote their products, and often a cyber star is born as a by-product," he says. Official figures show that by the end of last year China had 137 million Internet users; they would increase to 200 million by 2010. The cyber world has become crucial for enterprises that want to promote their products and for gold diggers, such as Ai Qingqing or the "Fairy Girl". And if events on the Net are big or interesting enough, they are bound to draw the traditional media.



Net surfing has become an integral part of journalism today, says Jin Lingyun, a senior editor with the Beijing Times, which covered the "paperclip for house show" along with a large section of the media, including China Central Television (CCTV) and Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television. "When we choose news from the Net, however, our rules state that the event must really have happened and the identities of the main figures are clear."



Jin initially doubted the authenticity of the "paperclip for house show", but many other media had already run stories on it. "If we hadn't reported it while our competitors were doing so, we would have lost some of our readers," Jin says.



Soon newspapers and TV channels were competing with each other to establish Ai's fame. But in the end, they woke up to the fact that they had been hoodwinked. "What has happened will harm our newspaper's reputation even if, in the end, we did help readers realize that the whole thing was a con job."



When Jin and his colleagues reviewed the episode, they realized that they had failed to follow their own rules. "We did not establish the identities of the people who were exchanging the goods with the girl." Working against deadline made it difficult for his news team to check out each character of the play individually, he says.



Chen Changfeng, a professor with the Peking University's School of Journalism and Communications, says the episode reflects the fierce market competition. "The media need advertising revenue and to attract advertisers they must have sufficient readers and viewers. Which means they are always on the lookout for eye-catching news. Cyber promoters capitalize on this."



Earlier cyber stars some of whom achieved international fame, such as "Sister Lotus", the lip synching boys and "Little Fatty", were boosted by different teams of cyber promoters. "Behind such cyber-stars are clever hands that can manipulate the market, lure common people with dreams of fame, tempt advertisers into promoting their clients and seduce the media into gullibility." The media should have a general set of rules on self-discipline and stick to professional journalism, she says.



Jin Lingyun believes the traditional media will be much more careful in the future in dealing with Internet news.



But Yang Xiuyu is unrepentant, and says he would continue to target the Internet market. "The traditional media will get trapped again. You know, anyone can become a promoter and create a story on the Internet," he says with a grin.
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