The Tianya community, which had been shut down for nearly three years due to non-payment of server fees, was officially restarted with a new domain name on June 1 this year. On the first day, the entire network was hit by a wave of nostalgia. The influx of a large number of old users caused the platform to freeze and collapse. Related topics continued to appear in hot searches.
Just over half a month later, the platform traffic has dropped significantly, and doubts are still being heard from the outside world. However, founder Xing Ming is still optimistic about this restart, believing that the probability of project failure is extremely low, but it will still take time to return to its former peak.
It took more than two years to prepare for this restart. In the past three years, Tianya has been trying to save itself in many ways. In the early years, netizens' spontaneous live broadcasts to raise funds had little effect. Subsequent attempts to live stream e-commerce and negotiate large-scale financing failed to materialize until external investors injected funds and at the same time obtained legal protection for data migration through arbitration.
Hundreds of millions of user historical contents have been completely preserved. These contents, which carry the memories of netizens for more than 20 years, are also known as the "Riverside Scene during Qingming Festival" in the Internet era.
In order to replenish operating funds, the platform launched a 1,999 yuan Genesis membership service package, which includes ten-year reading rights, exclusive data time capsules and many other rights. The outside world questioned this move to harvest feelings, but officials said that the product supporting costs are high and have practical value.
Xing Ming said frankly that he originally chose to restart on June 1st in order to get rid of the retro and nostalgic label and promote the youthful transformation of the platform. The core team is mainly composed of those born in the 80s and 90s, and continues to attract those born after 00 to participate in operations.
