The domain name crisis - the origin of 163, 126, and 188
In 1993, Ding Lei returned to his hometown of Ningbo after graduating from university and was assigned to the Ningbo Telecommunications Bureau. The telecommunications department has always been an enviable workplace. However, two years later, Ding Lei resolutely left the telecommunications bureau in order to pursue his ideals. However, this short experience brought a lot of inspiration to the subsequent development of Ding Lei and NetEase. The most classic one is the story of domain name registration.
The origin of NetEase
As for the origin of the name "NetEase", Ding Lei's explanation is that there were too few "netizens" at that time, and the reason was that the network was too weak. Suitable for Chinese people. Indeed, around 1997, when NetEase was first established, there were very few Chinese websites and service fees were very expensive. For the vast majority of Chinese people, accessing the Internet was out of reach. NetEase's goal is to change this situation and make it easier for Chinese people to access the Internet. To achieve this ambitious goal, it is natural to have a good company name. Ding Lei quickly thought of the seemingly simple but meaningful name "NetEase". However, www.netease.com was already registered at that time, so Ding Lei registered www.nease.net and www.nease. com.
A year later, when Ding Lei bought www.netease.com from others, NetEase had launched free homepage, free domain name, free email, virtual community and other services. Strive to make China's Internet easier, "NetEase" is worthy of its name.
Squatting on digital domain names
When developing a web-based e-mail system, Ding Lei considered both technical issues and domain names, because Ding Lei believed that free e-mails must be successful. , you must have a domain name that is catchy and easy to remember. According to foreign Internet practice, the most commonly used and best remembered domain names are those with three English letters, such as www.xyz.com. However, for Chinese people, the pronunciation of the 26 English letters is often difficult to explain clearly. "What kind of domain name is the most suitable?" Ding Lei thinks about this question almost every day.
One day at two o'clock in the morning, Ding Lei woke up from his dream and suddenly thought, "Why not use numbers to represent domain names?!". Due to the special nature of numbers, the pronunciation of numbers, whether in Chinese or foreign languages, is particularly crisp and not easily confused. Compared with English or any other text, the 10 Arabic numerals from 0 to 9 are universally accepted and are truly an international language. The combination of three numbers has been commonly used in the most important phone numbers in countries around the world because it is simple and easy to remember, such as 119, 110, 911..., etc.
Thinking of this, Ding Lei jumped up from the bed, dialed 163 to go online, and checked www.163.com. Thank God, it has not been registered yet. After quickly registering this domain name, Ding Lei went to bed again, but couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard he slept, so he jumped out of bed again and registered a batch of short digital domain names such as www.126.com and www.188.com in one go.
Ding Lei later said that his sensitivity to numbers came from his work experience in a telecommunications bureau, because telecommunications people are too familiar with numbers. Why did Ding Lei choose 163, 126 and 188 among the many number combinations? Regarding this issue, there are various versions circulating so far. The official version provided by NetEase is as follows:
163 - the No. 1 brand of Chinese mailboxes
As early as the founding of NetEase, 163 already had the meaning of pointing to the Internet in China. People dial 163 every day and are extremely familiar with it. In fact, at that time 163 was synonymous with the Internet. It seems now that in an era when the number of Internet users is doubling and growing rapidly, the digital domain names that are the same as dial-up Internet access are so precious.
163 Free Mail adheres to the three major characteristics of large size, speed and safety.
In 2005, there was even more action: the capacity was greatly expanded to a super large capacity of 2280 MB, a faster extreme speed style and a new generation of secure storage solutions were successively launched - 280 MB super large network disk, and a large-scale "Active Points" prize-winning event was officially launched. True feelings Give back to our loyal users.
Today, 163, as the symbol of NetEase mailbox, has become the well-deserved "No. 1 brand of Chinese mailboxes" with a total of 90 million high-quality users. The brand value of 163 has increased by more than ten million times!
126——Your professional electronic post office
In the 1980s, the postal and telecommunications department began to introduce and develop paging services, and the Chinese gradually moved from wired communications to the era of wireless communications. Since 1984, the total number of paging users in China has increased at an average annual rate of 110% for 13 consecutive years, reaching 70 million by the end of 1997, surpassing the United States and becoming the first in the world. Before 1998, "Call me if you need anything" was one of the most commonly used colloquial expressions. And as soon as the "Beep" sounds, people immediately look for public phones, which is also a scene of that era...
The earliest and largest paging station in China was 126, when the Internet was still in its infancy. , the number 126 has long been known to tens of millions of people. This is a landmark number, and the domain name of the 126 mailbox comes from this.
In September 2003, NetEase launched 126 free mailboxes with the largest capacity in the country, focusing on "professional electronic post office" services, providing a quick login method and a simple and clean interface for the international top-level domain name www.126.com, while supporting New features such as Kaspersky antivirus engine, intelligent anti-spam technology, and super mobile mail have become the favorites of many email "enthusiasts". In just two years, 126 quickly became the second largest Chinese mailbox in the world after 163 free mail.
188——Communication creates value
188 is homophonic to "Yaofafa" and is a symbol of dignity and value in the eyes of the Chinese. 188 Fortune Mail is a new generation of paid mailboxes built by NetEase based on 8 years of experience in email mailbox operations and assembled by top technical developers.
188 Fortune Mail has the largest 16G luxury mailbox in the country, and is exclusively equipped with innovative functions such as super network disk, super mobile mail, picture signature, address book and email dual cloning for free. Less than a year after its launch, 188 Fortune Mail has been enthusiastically sought after by advanced email users for its high cost performance, leading innovative functions, no advertising harassment and flexible payment methods. The number of registered users has maintained a good momentum of continuous rapid growth. .
The domain name is equivalent to the house number of the Internet service provider on the Internet. A good domain name can not only make it easier for netizens to find your website, increase the number of visits to the website, but also help create huge brand value. Originating from Ding Lei's flash of inspiration in the early days of his business, NetEase learned to think about users from the very beginning of domain name registration, because domain names are inseparable from a deep understanding of user needs. The user-oriented concept has been deeply imprinted on the domain names www.163.com, www.126.com, and www.188.com since then, which has contributed to the growth of NetEase Mailbox and even the entire NetEase company. Laying a solid foundation