Twitter稱讚亞洲社交App的盈利模式
Twitter should take inspiration from Asian social media groups that convince users to pay for services rather than relying on advertising, the company’s revenue chief told the Financial Times.
Twitter全球營收業務總裁亞當•貝恩(Adam Bain)對英國《金融時報》表示，該公司應從亞洲的社交媒體企業那裏吸取靈感，說服用戶爲服務付費，而不是單純依靠廣告收入。Adam Bain said Twitter and the rest of the US internet sector could learn from the revenue model that has emerged in Asia, where products such as chat apps are used as platforms to sell everything from stickers to in-app games.
貝恩指出，Twitter以及美國互聯網行業的其他公司，應學習亞洲地區出現的營收模式；在亞洲，聊天應用等產品被用作電商平臺，銷售從貼紙到應用內購遊戲等各種商品。But he stopped short of suggesting that Twitter itself was planning on rolling out paid features on its platform.
但他並沒有明確表示，Twitter自身正計劃在其平臺上推出付費功能。
“The model of why people pay for certain features, in Korea and Japan – there’s a really good example for the rest of us to learn,” he said. “The way they’ve got consumers to pay for features and services is interesting, and something everybody in our space could learn from.”
貝恩表示：“在韓國和日本，促使人們願意爲某些特色功能付費的業務模式，對於我們其他人來說是非常好的學習案例。他們吸引消費者爲其特色功能及服務付費的方式很有意思，美國互聯網行業的所有企業都能從中學到點什麼。”Twitter is expanding its advertising business outside the US. Although more than three-quarters of users are overseas, that segment only contributes about a quarter of the revenue.
Twitter正在美國以外的市場拓展廣告業務。雖然該公司海外用戶所佔比例超過四分之三，但這部分用戶僅爲該公司帶來了約四分之一的收入。The nearly-eight-year-old company made the vast majority of its $665m in revenue last year from advertising, in the form of promoted tweets, accounts and trends, with a small contribution from selling Twitter data to partners. But it is reported to be working on incorporating e-commerce into the platform after hiring Nathan Hubbard, the former chief executive of Ticketmaster , to work for Mr Bain just before its initial public offering last autumn.
Twitter成立現已八年。去年該公司收入6.65億美元，絕大部分來自廣告業務，主要形式包括推廣性質的tweet消息、賬號以及熱門話題，還有一小部分收入來自於向合作伙伴出售Twitter數據。Twitter在去年秋季首次公開募股(IPO)之前，聘請了Ticketmaster前首席執行官內森•哈伯德(Nathan Hubbard)在貝恩手下工作；有報道稱，自那以來Twitter一直致力於將電子商務納入其平臺。Mr Bain has been travelling to learn about how marketers use the platform – and its rivals – and opening regional offices.
貝恩近期一直在到處出差，一方面瞭解市場營銷人員使用Twitter和其競爭對手的情況，另一方面在設立一些地區辦公室。While Twitter competes with Facebook for social media advertising spending across the world, in Asia it faces other rivals in the form of chat apps such as Tencent’s WeChat and the Japanese service Line. Snapchat, which Facebook tried to buy, according to two people familiar with the matter, has also said Tencent was a “role model” for the company.
雖然Twitter與Facebook在全世界爭奪社交媒體廣告業務，但在亞洲，Twitter還面臨其他競爭對手，比如騰訊(Tencent)旗下的聊天應用微信(WeChat)、以及日本的聊天應用Line。據兩位知情人士透露，Facebook曾試圖收購的Snapchat也曾表示，騰訊是該公司的“學習榜樣”。Facebook’s $19bn acquisition of WhatsApp last month underlined the value of chat apps and the importance for US social networks of further penetrating global markets.
Facebook上月斥資190億美元收購WhatsApp，凸顯出了聊天應用的價值，以及進一步滲透全球市場對美國社交網絡企業的重要性。But Mr Bain said that even in Asia there was no service offering quite what Twitter did to advertisers. “Our view is that Twitter is live, public, conversational and distributed. The power of those things together no other platform is offering. There are things that are live but not public or conversational or distributed, or those that are public that aren’t live and conversational.”
但貝恩表示，即便是在亞洲，也幾乎沒有什麼服務能與Twitter提供給廣告商的服務相匹敵。“我們認爲，Twitter是實時的、公開的、可對話的、以及可傳播的。沒有任何其他平臺能夠同時滿足這些特質。有些產品是實時的，但不公開、不可對話或不可傳播。有些產品是公開的，但卻不實時、也不可對話。”Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research, said there was no reason western consumers could not be convinced to pay for online services like those in Asia.
Pivotal Research的分析師布賴恩•威澤(Brian Wieser)表示，我們有理由認爲，西方消費者能像亞洲消費者一樣，被說服爲網絡服務付費。
