Facebook廣告突破的幕後功臣

At the beginning of 2012, Facebook's mobile ad revenues were literally non-existent. By the end of the year, they generated 23% of Facebook's total advertising revenue. With more users logging onto Facebook from mobile devices than ever before, a new search feature that competes with Google, and increased scrutiny from Wall Street, Facebook's ad strategy has received considerable attention both inside and outside the company. Can ads exist on the site without harming user experience· What about Facebook's (future) video ad strategy? How many mobile ads are clicked accidentally – as a result of the "big thumb theory"? Is Facebook selling user information?

2012年初，Facebook移動廣告收入幾乎爲零。而到年底，移動廣告收入卻佔到公司總廣告收入的23%。越來越多的用戶通過手機設備登陸Facebook，公司推出了一款堪與谷歌（Google）媲美的全新搜索功能，華爾街對它的關注也日益增加。Facebook的廣告策略不論是在內部還是外部均獲得了極大的關注。廣告能否在不損害用戶體驗的前提下繼續留在網頁上？Facebook（未來的）視頻廣告策略會是怎樣一種面貌？有多少移動廣告是意外點擊——即所謂“大拇指理論”的結果？Facebook有沒有兜售用戶信息？

On Feb. 13, Fortune's Adam Lashinsky interviewed David Fischer, Facebook's vice president of business and marketing partnerships, at a conference on the future of media hosted by Stanford's Graduate School of Business. A lightly edited transcript of their conversation, as well as questions from the audience, follows.

2月13日，在斯坦福大學商學研究生院（Stanford's Graduate School of Business）舉辦的關於未來媒體的大會上，《財富》雜誌（Fortune）的亞當·拉辛斯基對Facebook商務及營銷合作副總裁大衛·費舍爾進行了採訪。以下是兩人對話內容以及觀衆提問（略有編輯）的文字記錄。

ADAM LASHINS KY: Good morning, David. Good morning, everybody.

亞當·拉辛斯基：上午好，大衛。大家上午好。

DAVID FISCHER: Good morning, Adam.

大衛·費舍爾：上午好，亞當。

ADAM LASHINSKY: I'm going to start with some history. An interesting comparison between Google and Facebook is that -- Google and Facebook did not start as advertising platforms. [The founders] didn't have that in mind at all, presumably. And you came into both companies at a time when there was no revenue or no infrastructure for revenue, and said, "All right. Let's build one." Explain how you started from really I think from a business perspective a blank sheet of paper.

亞當·拉辛斯基：首先，我想談談你之前的經歷。對比谷歌與Facebook，我發現一件非常有趣的事情——谷歌與Facebook都不是以廣告平臺起家。（兩家公司的創始人）當初可能根本沒有想過廣告。在你加入之前，這兩家公司都沒有任何收入或能產生收入的基礎設施，你到來之後卻說：“沒事，我們可以搭建一個平臺。”請解釋一下，你是如何從一張白紙的狀態開始做起的？

DAVID FISCHER: Yeah, I think -- I'll take these two cases, but I think it's true for a lot of companies, successful companies in the Valley and beyond, about defining a business model and where that comes in the process of it. One of the things that was interesting when I was at the [Stanford Graduate School of Business] and then went to Google that struck me is, you know, when you talked about building a company there it always started with the business plan and monetization plan. And for Google, for Facebook, for lots of companies, it started with a consumer plan and what was going to be a great product for consumers, and monetization came later and not in a straight line. It was not linear, it was sort of bumpy to get there and figure it out.

大衛·費舍爾：好，我來談談這兩件事。不過我認爲，不論是在硅谷還是其他地方，許多公司明確商業模式的時候都會碰到這種情況。當初我在【斯坦福大學商學研究院（Stanford Graduate School of Business）】以及後來加盟谷歌時，有一件很有趣的事讓我很震撼。你知道的，說到開辦一家公司的時候，總是先從商業模式和貨幣化方案談起。而在谷歌，在Facebook，以及其他許多公司，最開始考慮的卻是消費者計劃——什麼樣的產品會成爲消費者認爲是了不起的產品，然後纔是貨幣化計劃。而且這並不是一個直線過程，中間會有許多曲折。

Now, it turns out that the companies -- these two companies that I've been at and I'd say for a lot of companies, advertising is a phenomenally good, efficient model that works really well. When I was at Google we got this question a lot, and at Facebook we get this question is "When are you going to diversify in your revenues?" But when you're talking about companies that have hundreds and thousands of advertisers, that [are] around the world, that's a fairly diversified stream, and it actually is quite efficient to -- you know, as margins or other things you care about on the business side goes -- it's a good business to be in. So that's sort of the starting point. So there's lots of ways you can think about monetizing those companies or other companies. I just happen to like the advertising model.

現在看來，許多公司，包括我工作過的這兩家公司和其他許多公司，廣告都是一種效果良好的模式，其好處顯而易見。在谷歌和Facebook，我們就經常會被問到這個問題：“你們什麼時候能實現收入多樣化？”而看看那些擁有成百上千廣告商的公司，它們的廣告業務遍佈全球，來源非常多樣化。你會發現——從你所關注的利潤率或其他商業因素的角度來看——廣告實際上就是一種很好的行之有效的商業模式。所以，這就是我的出發點。其實，要將這些公司或其他公司貨幣化，可以有很多種途徑。只不過是我恰好喜歡廣告模式。

Now, how you actually build it, I think what's interesting is -- with respect to the two companies -- is in the DNA, they're similar in so many ways compared to most large successful companies, and if you compared, you know, took any set of ten companies in history in this country and the world you'd say, "Oh, there's a lot of similarities there." But Google at its core was a company built on the what: information and discovering information. And Facebook is a company built on the who: on people. And so that advertising model works effectively in both cases, but it starts from a different place, the company starts from a different place, and we can maybe talk a little bit more about that. In terms of how you actually build it, the key to any of these things, as I'm sort of a business guy, and you need an effective product. And so it starts with a lot of partnership figuring out building something that will -- how do you show the right ad to the right person at the right time and create a sense of value. That doesn't happen day one. In both cases you need to kind of go in fits and starts, but I think the idea is that it adds real value when you have people engaged and spending time and, you know, in a place like Facebook spending more time than anywhere else in the web, and you'll have the opportunity to show them some useful commercial material, you create value in that.

再就是關於如何建立廣告模式的問題。我認爲，有意思的地方在於這兩家公司的DNA。與其他最大、最成功的公司相比，這兩家公司有許多類似之處。如果進行對比，比如從美國和世界歷史上挑選任何十家公司，你會發現：“哇，它們有很多相似之處。”而谷歌在本質上是以“什麼”爲核心：信息和發現信息。而Facebook則是以人爲核心。所以，雖然廣告模式在兩家公司都非常奏效，但出發點卻不同，因爲公司的出發點本身就存在差異。我們可以多談談這個問題。關於具體如何建立廣告模式，作爲一名商人，我認爲關鍵在於，你必須有一款實實在在的產品。所以，首先是尋找合作伙伴，確定如何在正確的時間向正確的人顯示正確的廣告，創造一種價值感。這不是一日之功。兩家公司都是在時斷時續地前進。我認爲，關鍵在於，當你讓人們參與其中，投入時間時，比如在Facebook上消磨的時間比在其他網站花費的時間更多，這時你便有機會向人們展示有用的商業素材。於是便能創造價值，進而真正增加公司的價值。

ADAM LASHINSKY: From a historical perspective, what I find so interesting is that I personally did not understand that Google was a publisher or later that Facebook was a publisher. I missed that. I think a lot of people missed it. But you, Larry and Sergey didn't miss that. Mark didn't miss that. And you came in at both company's stages and said -- you know, you executed that vision. And I'm using publisher in a very loose term. I wonder if you even agree.

亞當·拉辛斯基：從歷史的角度來看，我發現非常有趣的一點是，我過去沒能理解，不論是谷歌，還是後來的Facebook，它們其實都是出版商。不僅我本人忽視了這一點，我想很多人都忽視了。而你，拉里和謝爾蓋卻沒有。馬克也明白其中的道理。而你效力於這兩家公司的時候，都實現了它們的願景。當然，我所講的出版商，是一種非常寬泛的說法。我不知道，你是否同意。

DAVID FISCHER: Yes. It took me a while. Like I got my career started as reporter, so I also did not jump to the word "publisher" as quickly as you did, probably because we think about a publisher as something slightly different. But as a creator of content in a world in which if you think about it that way, it certainly -- I think the publisher piece works. And in some ways in Facebook, I think it's much more apt as a descriptor, because everyone, the whole notion of what makes Facebook work is you creating, everyone is a content creator, everyone is a publisher. That dynamic is, if you want to talk about what sets the companies apart, that's a critical piece in terms of what distinguishes them.

大衛·費舍爾：是的。我也是花了很長時間才搞明白。我的職業生涯是從做記者開始的，所以別說你，我也沒有那麼快便理解“出版商”的意義所在。這或許是因爲我們對出版商的看法有點不一樣。不過，按你的理解，對於一名內容生產者，我認爲，出版商的提法也說得過去。在Facebook，從許多方面來看，用“描述者”來形容它可能更爲貼切，因爲真正讓Facebook成功的，是你們的創造力，每一個人都是內容製作者，每一個人都是出版商。要說是什麼將一個公司與其他公司區別開來，這種動力就是非常關鍵的一個因素。

譯者：劉進龍/汪皓