The Blue New Year
The start of 2006 was prepared with the same grand New Year celebrations as always. The only difference was that the scale and splendor reached an all-time high. Even the iconic Times Square ball drop in New York drew an unprecedented crowd. At the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2006, the massive mirrored ball atop the triangular building descended to the ground, ushering in the new year. Nearly two million people gathered—the largest turnout in history. No matter where the broadcast cameras turned, the screens were filled with faces. Even with the shift to FHD systems and the wider 16:9 aspect ratio, every frame overflowed with people.
Another striking feature was that everyone wore blue hats. Nivea, the skincare and body-care company, had become the massive sponsor of the Times Square ball drop. They distributed identical packages to all participants: blue hats in Nivea’s signature color, sky-blue balloons attached to their flagship lip gloss, and various samples. The result was spectacular. On television, Times Square appeared completely covered in shades of blue and sky blue—a sea of blue stretching from one end of the square to the other. It meant Nivea had prepared enough promotional gifts to cover nearly two million people, and they had succeeded.
The lineup of performers invited to the ball drop was equally dazzling. The highlight was none other than the fully revived MJ. Michael Jackson had enjoyed explosive popularity since his debut and earned the title “King of Pop” with the album Dangerous. Countless fans had longed for his return, yet the scandals surrounding him had long prevented any public reunion. Once Yoo Jae-won’s support cleared those obstacles, offers poured in. Michael Jackson, who had also missed his fans, had been diligently recovering his health and gladly accepted. The timing aligned perfectly as Nivea’s sponsorship dramatically expanded the scale of the Times Square event.
On stage, Michael Jackson delivered a flawless performance worthy of his legendary title. His energy was so intense that several fans fainted from sheer excitement and had to be carried away. It was no exaggeration to call the 2006 ball drop the largest and most passionate in history.
Even more remarkable was that Times Square was not the only place experiencing such grandeur. New Year celebrations around the world seemed to compete in scale and brilliance. Even the San Francisco New Year festival, which Yoo Jae-won had once elevated to its most spectacular form, broke its own record this year.
Bang! With a tremendous roar, millions of brilliant fireworks lit up the dark night sky and the Golden Gate Bridge in dazzling colors. If the highlight of the Times Square ball drop was the descending mirrored ball, the highlight of San Francisco’s celebration was the fireworks display.
Yoo Jae-won and Tiffany stood on the mansion terrace, watching the spectacle. The view offered a breathtaking panorama of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge—a privilege reserved solely for the two of them.
“Wow! It’s so beautiful! They look like flowers blooming!”
“Yeah, they really do look like roses. Though if we’re talking about the red fireworks, that’s probably lithium or rubidium. Both are expensive, so they must have loaded quite a bit in there.”
While Tiffany’s reaction was purely aesthetic, Yoo Jae-won’s response carried the unmistakable tone of an engineer. It wasn’t an empty observation. The explosive growth of the global economy in 2005 was clearly reflected in the surging sales of mobile devices and computers. Large LCD TVs had also set new sales records. What had once been popularized in sizes under 32 inches was now moving toward 42-inch models as the new standard. This surge in demand had driven up the prices of key raw materials like lithium. Without lithium—the “vitamin” of the IT industry—factories simply couldn’t operate. Even ID Group’s lithium mines in Bolivia and Peru were struggling to keep up. Only after summer, when Chinese supply entered the market, did prices stabilize.
“Ugh, way to kill the mood. What kind of talk is that?”
Yoo Jae-won had no reply. Lately, with so many pressing matters demanding his attention, he rarely had a moment to simply enjoy himself. Watching the fireworks bloom like crimson roses and immediately thinking of lithium prices was proof enough that he had reached the terminal stage of workaholism.
Then a clear chime rang out.
—It is now 2006. Happy New Year!
It was the alarm from the AI assistant Gold. The system was set so that at midnight on January 1, it would automatically add the appropriate New Year greeting for each country, even without a custom message. Yoo Jae-won briefly wondered how many people around the world might be hearing Gold’s greeting at that very moment. At the same time, a warm sensation enveloped the back of his neck. Tiffany had wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. All other thoughts vanished instantly. Right now, the only thing that mattered was Tiffany—the most precious person in his world.
January 3, 2006. Tuesday. ID Group’s first workday of the new year began. Many other companies had started the previous day, Monday. However, because January 1 fell on a Sunday, it effectively eliminated one public holiday. The group had therefore implemented its own substitute holiday system and decided to begin operations on January 3. In the United States, a similar substitute holiday law existed for Mondays, but it covered only four specific holidays. Unfortunately, January 1 was not among them, so most companies had held their New Year ceremonies on the second and resumed work immediately.
—In five minutes, the ID Group New Year ceremony will begin.
Kim Dae-seok’s voice echoed twice through the study. New Year ceremonies were typically held in large auditoriums with all employees gathered. In the past, Yoo Jae-won had used the main auditorium at ID Technology headquarters to present his vision for the future. This time was different. The ceremony would be broadcast online so that everyone could watch comfortably from their own offices. The decision was made entirely for Yoo Jae-won’s convenience. He was deeply immersed in developing a new program and had no time to travel to headquarters. Finishing the ceremony in front of the camera and immediately returning to work was the most efficient approach. Still, he refused to appear disheveled before his employees. A stylist had been invited to the mansion to ensure his appearance was impeccable.
—Thirty seconds until we begin.
The secretary’s office had prepared the broadcast perfectly. All Yoo Jae-won needed to do was take his seat in the area where the interior and lighting had been meticulously arranged.
“Hmm.”
Yoo Jae-won silently admired his own reflection on the monitoring screen. The foundation was already excellent, consistent self-care had maintained it, and professional styling had elevated it further. The image on screen rivaled any Hollywood star. Compared to his appearance at the same age before his regression—and considering everything he had accomplished since—the difference was astronomical, as vast as the distance to Andromeda. Yet what was even more astonishing was how many goals still lay ahead.
Today’s New Year address would focus on the short-term objectives ID Group needed to achieve in 2006.
“In 2006, our ID Group faces a critical challenge. Many question our strategic decisions, and challengers are rising aggressively to exploit any perceived weakness.”
Yoo Jae-won opened the ceremony by directly addressing the word “challenge.”
“That said, I have no intention of adopting a defensive posture. We are champions who never grow complacent. This year, we will continue our smart innovation. In particular, we plan a comprehensive upgrade of sites that have written internet history since its earliest days—Nextcom, Next Music, 2CH.com, P Market, and others.”
Each of these services had existed for at least ten years. Nextcom and 2CH.com were fifteen years old, Next Music thirteen, and even the relatively younger P Market had surpassed the decade mark. While they had helped shape internet history from the beginning, they also carried an undeniable sense of age. Recently, statistics showed that generational divides were forming based on which smartphone apps people used. Nextcom was primarily used by those in their thirties and older, TokTok by people in their twenties, and Facebook by teenagers. The data came from big-data analysis of Gold users and was highly reliable. Without innovation, another ten years would turn Nextcom into a site populated almost entirely by middle-aged users.
Next Music remained one of the few services used across all age groups. Its rapid release of a smartphone app and the high quality of that app had been decisive factors. Since last year, AI technology had been integrated, delivering recommendations that perfectly matched user preferences and achieving a level of innovation suited to the twenty-first century. The acceptance rate of Gold’s recommendations hovered in the high seventies percent—something no competitor could hope to match.
Once Next Music’s dominance became absolute, even the traditionally immovable record labels began to move. EMI, which held the Beatles’ catalog, and Sony Music, which competed with ID Group across nearly every business sector from electronics and game consoles to smartphones, had both signed contracts to supply their music libraries to Next Music.
“For P Market, our first priority is to dramatically increase the number of items we distribute directly. To achieve this, we will establish large-scale logistics warehouses across North America and introduce a GPS tracking system with military-grade precision for efficient inventory management.”
P Market had begun as a personal auction platform for individual users. Over ten years later, large-scale sellers had become the dominant presence, transforming the site into something resembling a comprehensive shopping mall. Because individual sellers handled their own deliveries, P Market struggled to intervene when problems arose. Even when consumer needs were clearly identified, translating them into changes in available products proved difficult. As a result, P Market—once the undisputed leader in online shopping—was now facing fierce competition from latecomers, most notably Amazon.
Amazon, which had started as an online bookstore, had steadily expanded its product categories and was now P Market’s most formidable rival. Its growth rate was astonishing. The company also possessed an aggressive willingness to adopt any new technology and claim it as its own. Just as it had recognized that ID Group’s true strength lay in its cloud servers, Amazon had built its own. It had introduced electronic gift certificates usable within its platform and readily incorporated competing fintech services like N Pay and PayPal. It had also begun distributing digital content—music, movies, and even games were now available on Amazon. Anything that could benefit the platform was absorbed without hesitation.
Yoo Jae-won knew that the most effective way for P Market to counter these challengers was through sheer volume. Timing, however, was crucial. The moment when people no longer felt awkward about online shopping. The strategy was to host grand events that latecomers could not match and secure first place through them.
What kind of grand event? The Black Friday sale.
For years, large shopping centers in commercial districts had held massive year-end discounts. That was the origin of Black Friday. Two main reasons made such deep discounts possible. First, by late November, most businesses had already covered their annual costs and turned a profit; anything sold after that point was pure profit. Second, clearing out warehouses at year-end was considered good preparation for the new year’s business in the United States. Renting storage space itself was expensive. These two factors combined to establish the tradition of large-scale discount events in late November, giving rise to the name Black Friday.
Because Black Friday had originally been an offline phenomenon, online shopping malls also saw increased sales from late November onward. However, if a company operated its own large-scale logistics warehouses and handled a wide variety of products directly, it could easily host its own Black Friday event online.
Yet the aggressive expansion policy Yoo Jae-won had declared did not apply to the entire ID Group. In financial sectors such as ID Investment, Shin-Nihon Investment Bank, and the White Tiger Fund, a highly conservative stance was required. Even now, at the start of the new year, the U.S. financial and housing markets continued to surge as if mocking Yoo Jae-won and ID Investment. The hotter the market grew, the more certain he became that the subprime mortgage crisis would erupt this year. On Wall Street, ID Investment’s put options were treated as a joke, but the louder the laughter, the firmer Yoo Jae-won’s conviction became.
Time passed, and the cruel month of April arrived. Director Adam McKay’s new film, The Wolf of Wall Street, was finally complete.