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浅析Facebook的平台及社交圈价值区别

发布时间:2012-09-05 16:41:43 Tags:,,,,

作者:Nicholas Lovell

Facebook的价值是不是被高估了?这是让许多人困惑的一个问题,无论他们究竟有没有打算购买Facebook股票。大家都想知道这个社交网站是否只是昙花一现的事物,这个领域的下一个突破性科技创新又是什么。

为了解答这个问题,我认为大家可以暂时不谈科技,先看看最传统的媒体技术——即现在已经很落伍的书籍。

书籍的属性

我喜欢书,看书、写书和藏书。

很长一段时间以来,我们都很清楚书籍的含义。它是纸页的集合,思想的集合。它们可以是文学作品,参考书或儿童读物。无论是哪一种,我们都很清楚它们究竟是什么。

随后又出现了互联网,它的问世让我们看到自己对书籍的错误定义。书籍实际上有两种截然不同的属性:

*它是可让我们阅读文字或查看图片的访问设备;

*它是那些文字和图片所表达思想的集合体。

过去我们无需认识到书籍定义的这种区别。毕竟在不能获取访问设备的时候,我们无从获得思想的集合体,并且只有对此感兴趣的哲学家或者老学究才会在乎这种区别。

但那个时代已经一去不返了。我们现在可以在自己的手机、Kindle阅读器、平板电脑或电脑下载书籍,我们几乎可以无需额外成本地获得思想集合体(无论是合法还是非法)。书籍(游戏邦注:以及CD/唱片集、DVD/电影、蓝光/电子游戏)被一分为二。访问设备不再是思想集合体的必须属性。

(值得一提的是,这也是整个媒体行业所面临的情况:该领域服务于出售书籍和CD等访问设备这单个目的,但用户并不希望购买更多此类产品,而发行商现在却难以向出售思想集合体的模式转型)。

Facebook的价值

原先Facebook获得极高估值时,分析师和投资者指出社交圈是Facebook主要价值组成部分。Facebook现在已有9亿用户,并掌握了连接这些用户的关系网络。无论你怎么看待它,都得承认这确实是一笔巨大的资产。

但同时也要意识到,我们在此不可无视访问设备与思想集合体之间的区别。投资者并未看出Facebook作为社交圈的价值与作为平台的价值这两者的区别。

*社交圈是Facebook的堡垒。我们过去5年在此创建的关系网络已经很难复制,它所提供的连接用户、产品、服务以及公司的渠道确实是无价资产。

*而平台则是Facebook的创收工具。它是将社交圈转化为真金白银的渠道。

直到现在多数投资者还是认为社交圈及平台这两者关系密不可分,这也正是我们过去对书籍属性的误解。

从以下截图中就可以看出这些投资者想错了。

iPhone screen(from gamesbrief)

iPhone screen(from gamesbrief)

这是我的iPhone界面。移动设备已经成为一个主导平台。Facebook应用是我iPhone手机上20个应用图标之一,此外我还有多个界面。对于一个需要依靠平台,从社交圈中盈利的公司而言,这个界面就很能反映问题。对Facebook来说,苹果是个问题,移动设备是个问题,我偏好离开Facebook到其他应用去玩游戏,看书,同好友互动的习惯,这也是个问题。

这些都是Facebook需要解决的问题。

永久价值转变

我认为我们将访问设备与思想集合体区别开来后,书籍价值也会发生一种永久转变。

我认为Facebook正面临一种紧迫的险境,其业务正发生这种价值分离。它保住了社交圈的价值,但却丧失了作为平台的价值。Facebook也知道这一点,因此不惜斥资10亿美元收购了Instagram(图片分享应用)——但这并不能解决它所面临的真正问题。

Facebook仍将长时间运营,它还是会有价值。但如果不能解决平台问题,它迟早会以超出人们预料的情况急剧贬值。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

The Reason why Facebook is overvalued

Nicholas Lovell

Is Facebook overvalued? That’s a question bothering a lot of people as they try to work out whether to invest in the stock or not, whether social networking is a fad, and what the next disruptive technology is going to be.

To answer the question (and the title of the post gives away what I think), I want to take you away from technology, and back to the oldest of media technologies: the dead-tree book.

The properties of a book

I love books. Reading them. Writing them. Owning them.

For a long time (until about ten years ago), we had no trouble understanding what a book was. It was a collection of paper pages, bound together, containing a collection of ideas. They could be literary novels, reference books or children’s story books. It didn’t matter.  We knew what they were.

Then along came the Internet, and technology, and it turned out we had been wrong for half a millennium. A book is two completely distinct things:

•A book is an access device that allows us to read words or look at pictures

•A book is the collection of ideas those words and pictures express

Until the turn of the millennium, it didn’t matter that we didn’t see the distinction. Since there was no way to get hold of the collection of ideas without getting hold of the access device, the separation was a matter only of interest to philosophers and the most pedantic of pedants.

No longer. We can now download a book onto our mobile phone, Kindle, tablet or computer. We can get hold of the collection of ideas (legally or illegally) at almost no additional cost. The book (and the CD/album, DVD/movie, Blu-Ray/video game) has been torn in two. The access device no longer has to be inseparable from the collection of ideas.

(As an aside, this is the heart of the disruption facing the entire media industry: it is a business constructed to sell single purpose access devices such as books and CDs. That is not what consumers wish to buy any more, but publishers are struggling to become sellers of collections of ideas.)

Now Facebook is being disrupted

When Facebook was getting stratospherically-high valuations, analysts and investors pointed at the social graph as being the primary component of value. Facebook has 900 million users and hosts the web of relationships that connects them. However you look at it, that is an enormously valuable asset.

However, in the same way that we didn’t see the distinction between the access device and the collection of ideas, investors didn’t see the distinction between Facebook’s value as a social graph and Facebook’s value as a platform.

•The social graph is Facebook’s moat. The web of connections that we have all built over the past five years will be difficult to replicate and provides a way to connect people, products, services and companies that is insanely valuable.

•The platform is Facebook’s monetisation tool. It is the way it converts the social graph into cold hard cash.

Until recently (and possibly still) most investors thought that the social graph and the platform were inseparable. In the same way that we thought the book was a book.

A glance at the screengrab below shows how wrong those investors are.

That’s my iPhone. Mobile is becoming the dominant platform. Facebook’s app is one of 20 icons on this screen of my iPhone, and I have several more screens. For a business whose financial success depends on it being a platform to monetize its social graph, that screen is a problem. Apple is a problem. Mobile is a problem. My preference for leaving FB to go to a different app to play games, to read books, to interact with friends, is a problem.

A problem they are going to have to solve.

Is it a permanent value shift?

I believe that there has been a permanent shift in the value of the book as we disassociate the access device from the collection of ideas.

I believe that Facebook is in imminent danger of the same separation happening to its business. It retains the value of the social graph, but loses the value of owning the platform. The company knows this – hence its $1 billion acquisition of Instagram – but that doesn’t stop it being a very real problem.

Facebook is going to be around for a long time, and it still has value. Unless it can solve this platform problem, though, it’s going to be a lot less valuable than people thought it was going to be.(source:gamesbrief


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