網絡"注意力經濟"新標準 吸引點擊不再是王道

There aren’t many things that can capture a busy journalist’s attention. A juicy scoop, for one. The flashing lights of an ambulance may be another. (We tend to be the types that run toward danger.) And, for the vast majority of those writers and editors that work online, the hypnotic bounce of the Chartbeat needle telling them who’s reading their story at that very moment.

能吸引匆匆忙忙的記者注意力的事情不多。有趣的獨家新聞算是一種。呼嘯而過的救護車大概算另外一種。（這裏特指衝在危險第一線的記者。）而對於絕大多數網絡作者和編輯們而言，能夠吸引他們注意力的，則是Chartbeat指針像催眠一樣的跳動，因爲它能顯示出某一時刻有哪些人正在閱讀其文章。

The New York-based company, which offers real-time analytics for websites, has in just a few years worked its code into the websites of 80% of the top online publishers, including the one you’re reading right now. It has changed the way they react to traffic data. It used to be that you’d have to wait until the next day for data (pageviews, unique users, et cetera) to understand how stories performed. Then it became the next hour. With Chartbeat, it’s nearly instantaneous. A look at the “concurrents” needle on the Chartbeat dashboard is like staring at a person’s beating heart during an MRI scan.

提供網站實時分析服務的紐約公司Chartbeat，在短短几年內，客戶便覆蓋了80%的頂級在線出版商的網站，包括《財富》的英文網站。它改變了媒體對待流量數據的方式。很早之前，網絡媒體第二天才能得到數據（頁面訪問量、獨立用戶等），瞭解文章的受歡迎程度。後來變成了只需等待一個小時。如今有了Chartbeat，網絡媒體幾乎可以即時得到數據。看着Chartbeat控制面板上的“同步”指針，就像通過核磁共振掃描盯着一個人的心臟跳動一樣。

This dynamic has changed the way publishers react. You’ve no doubt noticed it. Headlines are refined on the fly. Secondary stories are promoted with more precise timing. And, of course, the bait becomes more click-y, fueled by an online display advertising business model that rewards views instead of interest. (Exhibit A: The headline used, quite tongue in cheek, on this story.)

這種方式已經改變了出版商應對數據的方式。讀者肯定注意到了。頭條的標題被不斷地精心調整。次要文章的推廣時間被定得更加精確。當然，受在線顯示廣告根據瀏覽量而非興趣付費的商業模式驅動，你會發現那些“誘餌”內容也更吸引人點擊了。。（證據一：這篇文章就使用了“吸引眼球”的標題。）

The underlying model has been the most troublesome, and it’s the primary reason why “Six Totally Shocking, Crazy, Outrageous Predictions About the War Against the Islamic State” and “Watch a Woman Attempt to Lose One Pound in 20 Minutes” are used to headline stories you’ve probably already seen elsewhere. The headline has always been a chief tool to grab a reader’s attention, but today’s model rewards publishers who exaggerate to reach far beyond their target audience.

這種基本模式一直令人頭痛不已，所以，你會經常看到 類似“一位女性如何在20分鐘內減掉一磅”這樣的標題，而其實裏面的內容你或許已經在其他地方看過。標題一直是吸引讀者注意力的主要工具，但現在的模式卻正鼓勵出版商極盡誇張之能事，以最大可能吸引讀者。

Like most people, Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile believes there’s a better way. On Monday, his company announced the first-ever accreditation by the Media Rating Council for metrics around attention, rather than clicks or load time. The accreditation spans both ads and content, and may prove effective in beating back the over-promising online headline.

與很多人一樣，Chartbeat公司CEO託尼o海勒相信還有更好的方法。上個月，他的公司宣佈“注意力標準”首度受到媒介視聽率評介委員會（Media Rating Council）的認可衡量標準，這個標準既不是看點擊率也不是看加載時間。而是貫穿廣告與內容兩方面，或許能夠有效地打擊言過其實的網絡文章標題。

“Instead of trying to value ads on the fact that the page loaded with the ad on it, it’s: Can you accurately measure how long the actual amount of attention you’re able to capture and then value it?” he said during a phone call Friday from the Online News Association conference in Chicago. “If you can do that, brands will more effectively allocate capital. On the publisher side, all the people who have invested in quality content actually have an economic reason to do so.”

在出席芝加哥在線新聞協會（Online News Association）會議期間，海勒接受電話採訪時表示：“我們並非想要根據加載頁面的情況給廣告計價，而是想解決兩個問題：你是否可以準確測量能夠抓取的注意力的具體數量？如何計算這些注意力的價值？如果你能做到這兩點，品牌就可以更有效地分配資本。而在出版商方面，從經濟角度來說，所有投資高質量內容的人，都有理由這樣做。”

Publishers have long sought a better way to measure attention, but have for years disagreed on how to specifically do it. “You want to know and understand what’s quality content,” Haile said. “If you can get someone to click on a headline and come through to a page where the ad loads in the top 500 pixels, what’s the incentive for you to invest in quality content? You can just write a clever headline. But if you can keep them on that page and keep them reading so that ad has a chance to work, there’s a very great difference. Fifty-five percent of all pageviews on the web get less than 15 seconds of attention. If you’re dealing with something where you can prove attention better, you can charge more.”

出版商一直在尋找更好的方法測量注意力，但多年來始終無法就具體方式達成共識。海勒說道：“你想了解什麼是高質量的內容。如果你能讓讀者點一下標題就進入頂部500個像素位置含有廣告的頁面，那麼你投資高質量內容的動機是什麼？你只需要編寫一個聰明的標題就可以了。但如果你能讓讀者在那個頁面停留，讓他們一直閱讀下去從而使廣告有機會發揮作用，這會與前者有很大的不同。55%的網頁瀏覽量得到的注意力長度不足15秒。如果能夠找到一種方法，更好地證明注意力，你就可以提高廣告費率。”

What Haile is suggesting is a massive change to the online advertising industry, which has done much to refine its existing model but accomplished little in the way of a full rethink. “We’ll begin moving our attention to brand advertising—that is, advertising that communicates a message to you, rather than prompting an action, or direct response,” he said. “The brand side has been using direct-response metrics for the wrong purposes. That’s going to change over time.”

海勒的建議是對在線廣告行業的一次巨大變革，雖然在線廣告業一直在努力完善現有的模式，但卻很少能產生全新的想法。海勒說道：“我們將開始把注意力轉移到品牌廣告，即向消費者傳遞信息，而不是宣傳一項活動或直接響應式的推銷。品牌方對直接響應標準的使用走入了誤區。未來，這種情況將逐漸改變。”

Which means in time publishers won’t be incentivized quite as much to churn out so-called clickbait. The road ahead is rocky, Haile said, and change will be unevenly distributed as publishers and ad agencies begin to embrace the new standard. But the direction forward is, for the first time, clear. “A visitor’s default behavior isn’t to read every word,” he said. “It’s to leave.”

這意味着，未來出版商將失去粗製濫造所謂點擊誘餌的動力。海勒說道，未來的路非常艱難，隨着出版商與廣告公司開始接受新標準，變化將會不均衡地展開。但這是我們第一次看到如此明確的方向。他說：“訪客的默認行爲不是閱讀每一個字，而是離開。”