這些商業模式爲何還不過時
A daughter is visiting and wants to show her mother something.
一個女兒來看我們，想要給她媽媽看件東西。
My wife’s head is in her laptop.
我妻子正埋頭在筆記本電腦上打字。
Just a moment, I’m writing an email, she says.
稍等一會兒，我在寫電子郵件，她說。
God, it’s like 1996 round here, says daughter.
天哪，你好像還生活在1996年，女兒說。
This is an (almost) fully functioning person who nonetheless once FaceTimed me in New York to ask how far from the corner of an envelope you stick a stamp if you want to avoid seeming weird.
她是一個（幾乎）具有完全行爲能力的人，有一次卻在紐約通過FaceTime聯繫我，詢問把郵票貼在距離信封右上角多遠處，纔不至於顯得怪異。
None of her friends even uses email, she claims.
她說，在她的朋友中，甚至連使用電子郵件的都沒有了。
Young people (and those who like to appear young) message only on social media.
年輕人（和那些喜歡假扮年輕的人）只用社交媒體來收發信息。
I have been hearing for 10 years that email is over, but it is still with us.
電子郵件過時了的說法，我已聽了有10年了，但它仍未從我們的生活中消失。
I was on a train with a young venture capitalist the other week; he apologised for spending 20 minutes attending to emails.
不久前的一天，我跟一位年輕的風險投資家一起坐火車；他爲花費20分鐘處理電子郵件向我道歉。
I’m surprised you even do email, I said.
讓我驚訝的是，你竟然還在使用電子郵件，我說。
He looked puzzled.
他看上去有些困惑。
I live on email, he said.
我離不開電子郵件，他說。
Hadn’t he heard it is over? Vaguely, he said.
難道他沒聽說過電子郵件過時了嗎？隱約聽說過，他說。
But nothing’s ever over, is it? I even heard somewhere that handwritten letters are making a comeback.
但是，什麼東西都不會絕對過時，不是嗎？我甚至在某個地方聽說，手寫信件又回來了。
In the past few weeks, I have seen Facebook, Twitter, eBooks, websites, apps, phone calls, smartphones, desktops, laptops and TV written off as over.
過去幾周，我曾看到Facebook、推特(Twitter)、電子書(eBook)、網站、應用(app)、電話通話、智能手機、臺式電腦、筆記本電腦被宣告過時。
Manifestly, they are not.
可它們顯然都沒有過時。
I confidently predict that in the next year, the current tech hot-picks — tablets, smartphones, VR, Instagram, wearable tech, the internet-of-things, Snapchat and self-driving cars — will be pronounced by someone as over.
我敢預測，在未來一年，當前的熱門技術——平板電腦、智能手機、虛擬現實(VR)、Instagram、可穿戴技術、物聯網、Snapchat和自動駕駛汽車——將會被人宣告過時了。
Then, one by one, they will be proclaimed to be back.
然後，它們將被一個接一個宣告回來了。
I confess I have done it.
我承認我這麼做過。
The essayist and former trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb has called this neomania, arguing that technology that has been successful for many years will probably continue to be many years into the future.
評論家、前交易員納西姆•尼古拉斯•塔勒布(Nassim Nicholas Taleb)把這種現象稱爲嗜新狂，他辯稱，成功了多年的技術很可能在未來還將持續許多年。
The number of people consuming technology is so big it can accommodate pluralism.
科技消費者的人數如此多，完全容得下多元化。
Almost anything technically redundant — vinyl records, valve amplifiers, photographic film, typewriters, even, dare I say it, printed newspapers — can thrive and have a commercially significant following.
幾乎任何在技術上多餘的物品——黑膠唱片、電子管放大器、照相膠片、打字機，我敢說，甚至還有紙質報紙——都可能風生水起，擁有在商業上重大的粉絲羣體。
The increasingly elderly population in much of the world helps to feed this.
在世界很多地區，人口老齡化日益嚴重，助長了這一趨勢。
Not to forget those mindful young seekers after obsolescence, the WG Grace-bearded hipsters.
不要忘記那些特意追求古舊物品的年輕人、那些留着威廉•吉爾伯特•格雷斯(WG Grace)式鬍鬚的潮人。
But technological pluralism is not merely the province of the ageing or the achingly chic.
但是，技術多元化並非老齡人羣或追求時髦者的專屬。
I mentioned ham radio — the global version of citizens band, or CB — in a column a couple of months ago, only to discover it is experiencing a modest boom.
在兩個月前的一篇專欄文章裏，我提到了業餘無線電——即民用波段(CB)的全球版，隨後竟發現它在經歷一定程度的捲土重來。
Other fields that technology should have destroyed just keep going.
其他本該被技術摧毀的領域依然存在。
High-street travel agencies should have gone the way of the phone box, yet two big travel agents have opened in the past year in Richmond, my south London suburb.
商業街上的旅行社本該跟公用電話亭命運相同，但在我居住的倫敦南郊的里士滿，過去一年開張了兩家大型旅行社。
Over online technologies have a habit of reviving.
過時的網上技術往往會再度活躍。
The early social networking site and talent showcase, MySpace, is almost a paradigm for over-ness.
早期的社交網站和才能展示平臺MySpace差不多是一個過時的範例。
Yet I met a man last week who has effectively reinvented the idea and may have the Next Big Thing on his hands.
然而上週我遇上的一個人實際上再創了這個主意，他或許握有明日之星(Next Big Thing)。
Ricardo Porteus, from Blackpool, England, has left his job as head of marketing for Pacha Group, the Ibiza-based nightclub brand.
來自英格蘭布萊克普爾(Blackpool)的裏卡多•波蒂厄斯(Ricardo Porteus)辭去了位於伊比沙島(Ibiza)的夜總會品牌派弛集團(Pacha Group)營銷負責人的職位。
Last year, he put ￡250,000 of his own money into developing , which allows 16 to 20-year-olds to showcase their passion for music as well as such talents as modelling, tattooing and crafts.
去年，他自己拿出25萬英鎊開發，該網站讓16歲至20歲的年輕人展示自己的音樂激情，以及模特表演、紋身和手工藝等才能。
pulls all their social media streams together, helping give them what amounts to a free, constantly updated website.
把他們的所有社交媒體流整合到一起，幫助給他們提供了一個免費的、不斷更新的網站。
Websites are dead for artists, Mr Porteus says.
網站對於藝術家來說死掉了，波蒂厄斯說。
Facebook is dead as a creative space.
Facebook作爲一個創意空間已經死了。
And Google’s dead.
谷歌(Google)死了。
Young kids hang out on Snapchat and Instagram, — sentiments that may strike some as ironic coming from the guy making a new version of MySpace.
年輕人在Snapchat和Instagram上消磨時間，——這種情緒來自一個打造了新版MySpace的人，或許讓人感到諷刺意味。
Mr Porteus, 36, has 5,000 established artists using , 30,000 hopefuls, and has on the board an ex-Yahoo CEO and top guys from Facebook.
36歲的波蒂厄斯吸引了5000個已經成名的藝術家和3萬個仍在打拼的藝術家使用，其董事會裏包括一名雅虎(Yahoo)前CEO和Facebook的幾名高管。
He is working on raising a further ￡500,000 now, then plans a ￡5m funding round next year, aiming for a ￡15m valuation in 2017.
現在，他正着手再融資50萬英鎊，然後打算明年融資500萬英鎊，希望公司在2017年達到1500萬英鎊的估值。
People always make the comparison to MySpace and see it as a negative, but for me it’s flattering.
人們總把我們比作MySpace，並把這一點視爲不利因素，但在我看來，其中有奉承的意思。
Every dog has its day.
凡人都有得意日。
Its day was six to eight years, which in tech is a lifetime.
MySpace的鼎盛時期是6到8年，對技術而言，這就是一個生命週期。
So what, I asked him, is ’s life expectancy?
我問他，那麼的預期壽命是多久？
I’d say for cool people, we’ll have a three-year peak, and in five years, we’ll peak corporately, he says — an impressive case of a company planning for its own over-ness.
我得說，對於潮人，我們將有3年高峯期，5年後，我們作爲一家公司將達到巔峯，他說。這是一家公司爲自己的過時進行籌劃的令人印象深刻的例子。
And yet no one would be amazed if were still around in 15 years.
不過，如果15年後仍然活着，誰也不會感到驚訝。
Over is over. Or should be.
過時的說法已經過時，或者說應該過時。
