Hollywood Hunter

The Instagram website's outage on July 26th proved to be a blessing in disguise.

No matter how many media with various complex emotions or ridicule or ridicule Simon forcibly raised his vase, the result is that Instagram's exposure to mainstream media has increased significantly, and the number of website user registrations has skyrocketed in the next few days.

From 9 am on July 22 to 9 am until 9 am on July 29, a week, the total number of registered Instagram users reached 3.79 million, far exceeding the one million user level of the Instagram company team in the first week before the website was launched Expected value.

Not only that, the rapid popularity of the Instagram website has also directly driven the sales of digital camera products.

It’s just that Tinkerbair’s iCam series has seen a year-on-year increase in sales of 46% in the past week, directly rushing from the 150,000 sales in the previous week to a record-breaking 220,000 units in a single week. Many retailers even appeared due to insufficient stock A rare out-of-stock phenomenon.

Simon specifically sent an e-mail to several managements of Igreat to remind them of the importance of the product ecosystem.

However, Instagram's success also brought a small side effect.

On Friday, July 29, at 10 o'clock in the morning on the east coast of the United States, the United States Department of Justice officially held a press conference to announce the simultaneous launch of three companies suspected of monopolizing the Internet in the Westero system'Cisco-AOL-Igerit' Industry antitrust investigations.

Among the reporter's question and answer sessions, Instagram was specifically mentioned as evidence of the Westeros monopoly on Internet resources.

Simon was in New York this day. He watched the press conference of the Ministry of Justice for forty minutes and obtained more than 60 pages of investigation documents in advance.

Among them, the main investigation objectives include the use of Igreat’s market advantage in its online business to force the bundling of application software to customers, the monopolization of Internet interfaces by Internet Explorer to restrict competition, AOL’s alleged monopoly of the market by signing an exclusive agreement, AOL In terms of network support, there is malicious discrimination against small businesses, and Cisco has eliminated specific competition by establishing specific Internet standards in series with AOL and Eaglenet.

Attorney General Janet Reynolds told the live media that the main objective of this antitrust investigation is to prevent the three companies'Cisco-AOL-Igreit' from restricting competition in the Internet industry. To achieve this, the Ministry of Justice Eventually, Westeros may be forced to abandon the multiple shareholding structure of the two companies, Cisco and AOL, to prevent the executives of the three companies from serving as board directors between the companies in order to cut off the close interest relationship between the three companies.

In order to promote communication between the three companies and at the same time to control power in the Westero system at the initial stage of the IPO of Cisco and AOL, Simon allowed executives of the three companies to serve as directors of each company's board of directors.

This move is indeed somewhat inappropriate.

As the federal government and the media's calls for antitrust investigations by the three companies have grown stronger, Simon has already allowed Tim Berners Lee, John Chambers, Steve Case and others to withdraw from each other in advance Board of Directors.

The Ministry of Justice's "recall of old things" has actually reached a goal in advance.

The press conference of the Ministry of Justice has just ended, and the Westeros system responded to the antitrust investigation as soon as possible.

The Igreat portal published a headline article reiterating the great contribution of the Westeros system to the entire federal Internet industry through the creation of World Wide Web technology standards in the past few years. Igreat has not generously opened the basic patents of the World Wide Web. There will be no vigorous development of the Internet industry at this stage. The Westeros system does not have any attempt to monopolize the market. The close cooperation of the three companies is just to jointly promote the development of the Internet industry.

The article also issued a warning at the end of this investigation by the Ministry of Justice,

The capital market is always the most sensitive area.

More than a week ago, as the Ministry of Justice's anti-monopoly investigations against the three companies'Cisco-AOL-Igret' continued to release, the shares of Cisco and AOL, which have been listed, began to continue to fall. Friday morning The conference was just beginning. The share prices of Cisco and AOL fell by 3.1% and 2.3% respectively from the opening of 9:30 to the start of the conference at 10 o'clock. In half an hour, the two companies The market value of more than 3 billion US dollars disappeared.

Simon has a layout for this.

Since June, Cersei Capital’s hedge fund Cersei Fund Management Company has gradually reduced the long positions of Cisco and AOL. For this reason, it also carried out a super generous dividend return in early July The size of the fund is controlled within 3 billion US dollars.

However, Simon did not turn to bearish.

For tax avoidance considerations, billions of dollars of cashback funds have directly entered the account of the Black Rock Asset Management Company, and a special sub-fund has been set up for stock investment.

In the next few years, the overall trend of technology stocks will inevitably go all the way up, only because of antitrust and other reasons, the stock prices of the two leading Internet stocks Cisco and AOL will inevitably continue to fluctuate. For speculative capital that likes short-term hedging, The stocks of the two companies have undoubtedly become the best targets, but Simon, who tends to invest in the long-term, does not intend to accompany them to play this roller coaster game.

Next, Cersei Fund Management will still focus on building long stocks in technology stocks, but it will no longer involve the two rafters of Cisco and AOL.Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, SUN and other companies are the best targets, and then include General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway, and other traditional companies that will also skyrocket with the arrival of the US stock market bull market.

While responding through the media, Cisco, AOL, and Igreat have also begun to expand the size of their lawyers to respond to subsequent investigations and litigation.

This antitrust investigation will inevitably be protracted, so Simon has not put much thought on it.

In the morning, at the Westeros headquarters in Manhattan, I watched the live broadcast of the Justice Department press conference with James Rebold, and Simon began his day's work.

The first is North American box office data just over the past box office week.

Simon's concern for this matter is better than the antitrust investigation.

Most of the general public is actually not too concerned about the Ministry of Justice’s antitrust investigations of the three companies in the Westeros system. At most, they see the news in the newspapers and talk to the people around them as a chat after dinner.

Daenerys Entertainment's "God Watching Movies" topic boom last week was different.

Because of the continuous spread of this point of view, the total number of single-week box offices in North America reached $187 million in one week from July 22 to July 28, which is an increase of 19 from the previous week’s total of $156 million. %.Based on the average fare of US$4.2 at this stage, this is equivalent to an additional 7 million movie viewers this Monday.

Specific box office data.

After taking over the top five at the box office last Monday, Daenerys Entertainment directly gave up the single-week list this week.

Paramount's Harrison Ford starred in the new film "Burning Eyes", which reached US$39.05 million at the box office in the first week, ranking first in the weekly box office list.

After losing several new films in the summer, Paramount finally turned around.

The fourth week of the phenomenal "Forrest Gump" was released. Affected by the topic of "God Watching Movies", the box office decline again maintained a very impressive 21%, and received another 30.78 million US dollars. The cumulative box office reached 170.73 million US dollars.

The third place on the list is "Theft Fire".

Although the length of this crime action movie is close to three hours, but stimulated by the word-of-mouth marketing of the Daenerys film distribution team and the topic of "God to watch the movie", the first week of the museum still achieved a break of ten thousand, opening the painting for seven days. 2293 Ten thousand U.S. dollars.Because the three-hour period limits the number of single-day screenings, the average per capita of a film of $11,000 is actually better than that of many other films of $15,000.

James Cameron's "Real Lies" ranked fourth.

In the third week of the release, the film continued to receive USD 20.2 million, and it was also the film with the largest decline this week, reaching 33%. For a pure commercial film, in the face of many powerful competitors, this decline is actually also Within a considerable position.

At the same time, the cumulative box office of the film also reached 91.63 million US dollars, officially breaking the cost line of 90 million US dollars.

The cost of "True Lies" used to reach 115 million US dollars, but this time, under the strict cost control of Daenerys, the production cost of the film was controlled at 90 million US dollars, and the budget for the announcement was 30 million US dollars.

The local box office is expected to have a total box office of 140 million to 150 million US dollars. It is certainly impossible to return the capital. Counting the overseas box office, the two producers, Daenerys and Fox, can also directly recover the cost through the theater issue.

Quentin Tarantino's "Blood Romeo" ranked fifth.

The same is a crime movie. The two distribution teams of Daenerys Entertainment skillfully linked the two films and promoted them as the two most genre films worth watching this summer.

As a result, after the first-week box office exceeded expectations, the "Blood Romeo" box office fell only 23% the next week, and received another 18.39 million US dollars.In two weeks, according to the rules of step-by-step division, Gaomen Films has recovered all the production and distribution costs of 25 million US dollars, and began to achieve profitability.

Only the top five films in the list have reached a cumulative box office of 130 million US dollars.

Stimulated by the topic of "God Watching Movies", subsequent films such as "Batman: The Rise of the Dark Knight" and "Spirit" have also revived.

The sixth-ranked "Batman: The Rise of the Dark Knight" fell 21% this week, and continued to record $12.79 million, with a cumulative box office of $34.526 million, and $55 million away from breaking the $400 million mark.

In the case of other films, the weekly box office has only $12.79 million left, and a maximum of $30-40 million may be added in the follow-up. The phenomenon-level "Batman: The Rise of the Dark Knight" has at least two or three months of long-term screenings. In the cycle, it is not difficult to continue to acquire the $55 million box office.

The seventh-placed "Zhao Hun" received $7.01 million this week, a 25% drop, and the cumulative box office reached $112.6 million.

Only for the top seven films, the cumulative box office has reached the same level as last week's 150 million US dollars, and a series of other old films contributed more than 30 million US dollars to the account, and the collection reached 187 million US dollars.Although it is not the highest single week in the summer, it is already very rare at the end of this summer.

In fact, Quentin Tarantino's "Blood Romeo" received $42.36 million in two weeks, and the next week's decline was only a very impressive 23%. If there are no other strong competitors, it will be promoted to the 100 million box office club. The possibility of increasing again.

Simon's favorite "Theft of Fire" accounted for $22.93 million in the first week, and this result also exceeded the expectations of the Daenerys film publishing team.

Moreover, the reputation of this movie continues to ferment, and because of the 3-hour market, there are fewer rehearsals, which hinders many viewers who want to watch the movie for the first time. The media team’s reputation and feedback from the audience, etc. 'S follow-up trend may be better than "Blood Romeo".

In the first week of more than 20 million US dollars, in fact, it already has the potential to advance to the box office of 100 million yuan.In the end, whether we can really cross that threshold depends on the specific trend in the following weeks.But in any case, this project is considered a success.

At the same time, in the new week that started on July 29, three new films were released in North American theaters.

MGM's sci-fi thriller "Xenomorphic", Warner's feature film "Black Horse" and Fox's love movie "Allure".

"Nature" with the stunning appearance of Natasha Henschy is the second movie of MGM's summer season. Compared with other studios that have launched at least three or four new works, MGM's production has been unable to Up, however, the already-successful "Life and Death Speed" at the box office is enough to make MGM's recovery once again.

The production cost of this "Xenogenous" is $30 million, which is definitely not low for MGM.

Although the feedback from the previous internal audition was not as good as expected, MGM still gave 2379 open screens because of Simon's confidence.

Warner Bros. tells the story of "The Black Horse", a horse that has been continually wandering from a noble blood to a wealthy home. After the painting opened today, the word of mouth is very general, and it is basically a cannon fodder.

Fox's "The Story of Allure" starring Nicholas Cage and Brigitte Fonda, tells about a romantic relationship triggered by a huge winning lottery ticket, which satisfies the ultimate dream of many people with both money and wealth.

Speaking of, the two starring actors are from the second generation of Hollywood. One is from the Coppola family and the other is the famous Fonda family. Both of them have no problem in acting. The comprehensive media score of 7.1 points of the film is also good. The main competitor of Zhou Xianxian.