Chapter 51: Sudden Inspiration
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
It was already late August. Soon, the universities would be welcoming new students.
The last batch of fourth-year students who had completed their supplementary exams dragged their suitcases and as they headed towards society, they waved goodbye to their youth. A new group of freshly graduated high school students was about to flood the university campus, opening their new chapter of youth.
It would soon be the most lively time period of the year.
The members of the student union had returned to the school and they were busy having meetings to welcome the new students.
Even though he was not in any meetings, Lu Zhou was busy as well. He held a large stack of flyers and was about to start doing his old job.
He was about to give out the first flyer when he was stopped by the vice president of the student council.
Lin Yuxiang stared curiously at Lu Zhou’s stack of flyers and asked, “What are you doing?”
Lu Zhou had an awkward expression when he realized he was caught.
“Oh, you can’t stick flyers here?”
Lin Yuxiang said innocently, “Although I can pretend I didn’t see anything, it’ll still soon be taken away by other student union staff…”
This is troublesome…
Lu Zhou was thinking about what to do. Lin Yuxiang walked forward and looked at the flyers.
“Campus train app? Wow, I didn’t know you knew how to program. Did you write this yourself?”
Hey, you’re too close to me…
Lu Zhou subtly moved half a step backward and asked, “Yes, why?”
“Why don’t you post it on our school’s Tieba forum? The students that are already here probably won’t use a ticket-buying app right?” Lin Yuxiang pointed out.
Do you think that I didn’t think about this already?
Lu Zhou said grudgingly, “… It got banned because it was flagged as an advertis.e.m.e.nt.”
Lin Yuxiang’s eyes lit up and she smacked her fist into her palm.
“Oh, I see. Then I’ll sort this out for you.”
Lu Zhou was surprised, “Sort it out?”
Lin Yuxiang played with her hair. She smiled and nodded, “Yeah! Our school’s Tieba forum is managed by the student union. The administrator account is used by the union president and I can just tell him about your situation. You can have it stickied on the forum for a few days. Oh yeah, send me the QR code or the APK file. I’ve heard that many students posting on Tieba about having troubles getting a taxi.”
Lu Zhou was surprised.
“Really… Thank you so much!”
Lin Yuxiang smiled, “Don’t need to thank me. I should be thanking you.”
This…
The power of having connections?
She was just a normal staff during her first year, but now, she was the vice president of the student union.
Lu Zhou looked at her walking away and could not help but think.
What a scary woman…
But regardless, I’m thankful!
He was originally quite mad at this “useless” teammate, but now he had nothing to complain.
Wait a minute…
Lu Zhou’s heart moved, he seemed to have realized something.
A lot of students are asking about taxis…
The target demographic of his “Campus Train” app was students.
“Getting a taxi is a problem. Not just taxis…” thought Lu Zhou. When he first arrived, he even went to the wrong campus. He started to seriously think about this problem. “It’s perfectly possible to add a student route into the main app interface and have options for leaving from school and traveling to school. This can help new students to buy the tickets and also give them the shortest transportation route.”
“But then I would have to crawl data from major bus stations… Wait a minute, I can directly crawl data from third-party maps. Baidu Gaode has a transportation system! How did I forget about this!”
The more Lu Zhou thought about this, the brighter his eyes became.
Not only did the students travel by bus and subway, but they also traveled by car. They would get off the train and carpool using unlicensed taxis.
If he used his app to collect the user’s train number, travel information, and the number of various university students, then he could team the students up for carpool right?
Even if the students did not want to carpool, they could still find a group of other students to travel together.
It was easier traveling to than from school. Many high schools had subway lines directly to the universities. However, it was not as easy leaving school, especially when they got off the train in their hometown. If there was a need for carpooling, the students could find other students to carpool with. It would be better than carpooling with strangers.
How many universities are there in the country?
How many college students?
Even if he managed to only reach half of the market share, the number of the users would still be astronomical.
Also, the user’s group location would be tracked accurately and the value of that was unimaginable.
Lu Zhou stopped hesitating. He immediately went back to his dorm and began to write the version 0.12 update.
[During this major update, the app will remember (bind) the user’s university and train information. If the user is bound to the university information while sitting on the train, they can know how many other students on the train are also using this “Campus Train” app.]
[Add friend features, messages, carpooling, travel route notifications… These are a must. I could also add group chats to increase user’s usage. Although it would require a lot of work, there are many problems involved as well, I have to push this back till later.]
[Because of the number of changes I have to make to the core code, the amount of work needed is extremely large. Coupled with the addition of sub-features for students, the entire user interface has to be adjusted]
To save time, Lu Zhou consumed 150 general points. He handed over some of the difficult parts of the code to the system to solve. He then copied the code from his memory onto the app. He finally finished the final stability test before the end of August.
His general points balance was 775.
“Uploading updates…” murmured Lu Zhou. He took a deep breath before saying, “This change is ground-breaking. I hope I can stand out from other apps.”
He looked at the download numbers. It was only 15.
Lu Zhou tried to comfort himself. It was double the amount of downloads version 0.11 had. It could be counted as a good start. He sent the link to Lin Yuxiang so that she could log onto the school’s Tieba today. After that, his user numbers would surely increase.
“Oh yeah, if I can advertise on Tieba, why can’t I try to advertise on other platforms?”
Lu Zhou suddenly remembered that he had registered a Weibo account during his fight with Zhu Fangcai.
He did not hesitate and logged on.
The f*ck?
Did I get another 10,000 followers?
Lu Zhou looked at the number of followers and he was surprised.
He then looked at the 99+ private messages and frowned.
He clicked on it and unsurprisingly, they were all either asking for his contact information or asking him to write a thesis.
F*ck, can’t these people give me a price?
Maybe then I’ll write the theses for them?
Why are they so insincere!
Lu Zhou shook his head. He wrote a Weibo blog post and attached the link.
[Campus Train app is released, come to download it…]
Emm…
Bit awkward.
How should I write this advertis.e.m.e.nt?
Lu Zhou could not think of anything and he gave up. He randomly added a line at the end.
[I will pick ten fans that re-post and edit their SCI thesis (not signed)]
He could not offer anything else other than his talent.
His fans were mostly college students so in theory, this advertis.e.m.e.nt should work.
Who cares if this doesn’t work.
Lu Zhou hit post and closed Weibo.
I did the planning and G.o.d will determine the outcome!