不管外界如何看待BuzzFeed的內(nèi)容和分發(fā)戰(zhàn)略， BuzzFeed實(shí)際上已成全球領(lǐng)先的新媒體公司，號稱多個(gè)平臺(tái)上總用戶數(shù)已超過50萬。聽聽BuzzFeed首席執(zhí)行官喬納·佩雷蒂怎么看媒體業(yè)的未來是很有意思的。

科技博客Recode刊登了一份發(fā)給BuzzFeed員工的備忘錄，透露了不少有意思的細(xì)節(jié)，包括該公司的財(cái)務(wù)狀況。佩雷蒂在信中表示，今年BuzzFeed收入增長超過65%，超過六年保持兩位數(shù)增長率。

對媒體公司來說這是很了不起的成績，尤其是采用全新分發(fā)模式的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司。其實(shí)一開始BuzzFeed只是赫芬頓郵報(bào)聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人佩雷蒂的研究項(xiàng)目。

今年早些時(shí)候，有報(bào)道稱BuzzFeed在2015年沒達(dá)到收入目標(biāo)。英國《金融時(shí)報(bào)》稱其收入僅為1.7億美元，而不是2.5億美元，而且內(nèi)部將2016年的收入預(yù)測由5億美元“大幅削減”至2.5億美元。

BuzzFeed總裁肯·萊勒否認(rèn)了該報(bào)道，他表示2016年的收入預(yù)測沒有變化，不過并沒提到2015年是不是沒達(dá)到預(yù)期。

“行業(yè)里沒出現(xiàn)大動(dòng)蕩，發(fā)展勢頭非常好，” BuzzFeed的投資人之一萊勒告訴Recode?！爸皇前l(fā)展方式跟過去不一樣了。要成功就要張開雙眼意識到當(dāng)前形勢的不同，然后充分利用?！?

佩雷蒂在信中強(qiáng)調(diào)的核心也正是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)導(dǎo)致的媒體行業(yè)變動(dòng)。簡要地說，答案就是社交媒體崛起以及分發(fā)渠道民主化，用戶可以在傳播過程中發(fā)揮重要作用，與傳統(tǒng)媒體發(fā)展早期截然不同。

佩雷蒂可能是全世界在病毒傳播上花時(shí)間最多的人，他用一系列圖表描述了整個(gè)過程。

第一張圖是傳統(tǒng)的單向傳播模式，媒體公司向用戶發(fā)布信息，沒有加工也沒有任何反饋。第二張圖是早期電子發(fā)行模式，看起來跟第一張差不多，不過參與者多一些。但是反饋還是很少，與用戶也幾乎沒有互動(dòng)。

Regardless of what you think of its content or publishing strategies, BuzzFeed is one of the world’s leading new media entities, with what the company says is a total audience of more than half a billion people across multiple platforms. So it’s always interesting to hear from BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti about what the future holds for media.

A memo to BuzzFeed staff that was published at Recode contains a number of interesting elements, including a previously unreleased statistic about the company’s financial health. According to Peretti’s letter, BuzzFeed’s revenue grew by more than 65% this year, which he said continues a trend of more than six years of double-digit revenue growth.

That’s a remarkable track record for a media company—let alone one based on an entirely new model of publishing, a company that initially began as a kind of research project for Peretti, a co-founder of The Huffington Post.

Earlier this year, there were reports that BuzzFeed had missed its revenue targets for 2015. The Financial Times said the company had made only $170 million instead of $250 million, and that it had “slashed its internal projections” for 2016 to $250 million from $500 million.

These reports were denied by BuzzFeed chairman Ken Lerer, however, who said forecasts for 2016 had not changed, although he didn’t say whether the company had missed its projections for 2015.

“There’s nothing cratering in the industry. It’s better than ever,” Lerer, who is also an investor in BuzzFeed, told Recode at the time. “It’s just different. And if you want to succeed, you have to open your eyes and realize how it’s different, and take advantage of it.”

Realizing how the industry is different as a result of the Internet is the core of Peretti’s letter. The answer, in a nutshell, is that it is different because social media and the democratization of publishing allow users to play a role in the process that is unlike anything else we have seen since the earliest days of traditional media.

Peretti, who has probably spent more time trying to understand the viral spread of Internet content than just about anyone else in the world, describes this process in a series of graphs.

The first graph shows traditional publishing as a one-way exercise in which media companies distribute content to users, with zero input or feedback of any kind. A second graph representing the early days of digital publishing looks very similar, although the number of players has grown. But still, very little feedback or interaction with users.

佩雷蒂表示，下一階段是公司發(fā)現(xiàn)可以從用戶處獲得更多數(shù)據(jù)，了解用戶在做什么，用戶來自哪里等等。類似YouTube和Netflix的新媒體公司都發(fā)現(xiàn)有了數(shù)據(jù)就能掌握“關(guān)鍵競爭力，”他表示。

他認(rèn)為最大的革新是將所有過程里加入社交行為。在此之前，全行業(yè)“一直將觀眾當(dāng)成獨(dú)立個(gè)體的集合”。但有了社交媒體人們就可以分享內(nèi)容，也就能理解（至少是努力理解）用戶在做什么。佩雷蒂是這么解釋的：

分享行為最能看出媒體生產(chǎn)的內(nèi)容如何加強(qiáng)人際社交關(guān)系。所以媒體從業(yè)者都很在意‘轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)語’，也就是用戶轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)時(shí)加的點(diǎn)評。所以我們會(huì)仔細(xì)研究分享行為中價(jià)值的交流：對分享者來說有什么價(jià)值？對轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)對象來說又有什么價(jià)值？

他認(rèn)為理解分發(fā)中的新要素至關(guān)重要。但互聯(lián)網(wǎng)出現(xiàn)之前，很多媒體公司從來沒想過這個(gè)問題。媒體總是假定觀眾會(huì)喜歡某種類型的內(nèi)容，雖然一點(diǎn)證據(jù)也沒有。也從不在意互動(dòng)。

不過BuzzFeed的首席執(zhí)行官先生在信中忽略了一些內(nèi)容，包括因依賴Facebook等平臺(tái)的“分發(fā)內(nèi)容”戰(zhàn)略導(dǎo)致收入和利潤的變化等。

舉例來說，目前并不清楚BuzzFeed調(diào)整目標(biāo)是不是因?yàn)橄蛞曨l投入更多時(shí)間和資源，包括最近調(diào)整公司結(jié)構(gòu)以增加視頻內(nèi)容。視頻到底能不能賺錢還是未知數(shù)，部分原因是Facebook的變現(xiàn)戰(zhàn)略尚未明確。

不過佩雷蒂表示有件事是確定的：不管當(dāng)前的媒體公司怎么變，也不管過程多長，最終的贏家一定是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。他是這么說的：

本公司做決策時(shí)一向以互聯(lián)網(wǎng)為重心，一方面因?yàn)槲覀儫釔刍ヂ?lián)網(wǎng)，另一方面是這樣才能制定出最佳商業(yè)策略。模擬印刷和廣播還要過幾十年才會(huì)衰退，電視在未來很多年里還是能賺很多錢，但長期來看互聯(lián)網(wǎng)一定是贏家。只要眼光夠長遠(yuǎn)，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)一定會(huì)贏。

不過他口中的“贏”到底包括哪些內(nèi)容？是不是BuzzFeed之類新媒體公司是唯一的希望？現(xiàn)存的媒體公司有沒有可能適應(yīng)變化，找出生存之道甚至東山再起？佩雷蒂?zèng)]有明說。或許以后的備忘錄里能找到答案。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

作者：Mathew Ingram

譯者：馮豐

審校：夏林

The next phase, Peretti says, came when companies realized they could get data from their users and understand more about what they were doing, where they were coming from, etc. New media enterprises like YouTube GOOG 0.27% and Netflix NFLX -0.26% realized that data gave them “a key competitive advantage,” he says.

The final revolution, he argues, came when social behavior was added to the mix. Until then, the industry was “still thinking of audiences as a collection of isolated individuals.” With social media, it became possible to see people sharing content, and to understand (or at least try to understand) why they were doing so. As Peretti puts it:

Sharing is the clearest metric for showing that media is creating a social connection between people. It is why we obsess about ‘share statements,’ or what people say when they share our content. It explains why we carefully study the exchange of value that occurs when sharing happens: What is the value for the person who shares? What is the value for the person who receives?

Understanding these new elements of publishing is critical, he argues. But it’s not really something that many media companies thought about all that carefully prior to the Internet. It was just assumed that audiences would want certain types of content, even if there was no evidence to prove it. And interaction was virtually non-existent.

There are a number of things the BuzzFeed CEO doesn’t really get into in his letter, including how the site’s revenue and profitability is changing as a result of its reliance on platforms such as Facebook FB -0.13% for its “distributed content” strategy.

For example, it’s not clear whether the site is shifting its goals because it is devoting more time and resources to video, including a recent restructuring of the company aimed at producing more video content. The ability to make money from all that video remains a question mark, in part because Facebook’s monetization strategy is still unclear.

Peretti says one thing is clear, however: That regardless of what happens to existing media entities, or how long the process takes, the Internet will ultimately win. As he describes it:

As a company, we’ve continually made decisions embracing the internet, both because we love it and because it is the best business strategy. It will take decades for analog print and broadcast to decline, and TV will continue to be very profitable for many years, but in the long run, the internet will win. In the long run, the internet always wins.

And of what exactly does “winning” consist? Does it mean that entirely new media entities like BuzzFeed are the only hope, or is it possible for existing ones to adapt and figure out how to survive or even prosper? Peretti doesn’t say. Perhaps the answer will be in a future memo.