Monopoly or not, can Facebook deliver a better internet ad?
一种“更优越”的广告形式?
The worry is that its model is just too creepy. From the IPO filing: “Advertisers can specify that we show their ads to a subset of our users based on demographic factors and specific interests they have chosen to share with us . . . We offer advertisers the ability to include ‘social context’ with their marketing messages. Social context is information that highlights a friend’s connections with a particular brand or business, for example, that a friend Liked a product or checked in at a restaurant.” To translate: we will harvest information about you and use it to help advertisers sell you things, or (creepier still) help advertisers “join the conversation” between you and your friends.
不管垄断不垄断，Facebook能否提供更好的网络广告服务?
Now, this may have some pleasant repercussions. Advertisers could end up offering stuff people actually want. And privacy protection features will be put in place. But the issue is whether what Facebook does to increase the value of the data it collects makes users enjoy Facebook less and use it less. Users might start to think they are the product not the customer. Not a fun feeling.
人们担心的是，Facebook的模式太可怕了。Facebook在它的IPO文件中写道：“广告商可以要求我们根据用户统计因素和用户分享中显示的兴趣，对特定用户进行定点广告投放……广告商可以在‘社交背景’中发布市场推广信息。社交背景是一种信息，它凸显一名好友与某个品牌或某种业务之间的联系，例如，一名好友‘赞’了某种产品，或去过某家餐厅。”说白了就是：我们会收集关于你的信息，利用这些信息帮助广告商将一些东西卖给你，或(更可怕的是)帮助广告商“插进”你和朋友们之间的对话。
The contrast with Google is striking. If Lex types “HP 12C calculator” into Google, it is setting itself up to see a certain kind of ad alongside search results. Indeed, users often have commercial intentions when they search. This is absolutely not the case on Facebook. And if the company cannot target ads without turning off users, revenue growth will slow, and soon.
如今，关于这一点，人们的反响可能在转好。最终，广告商提供的东西可能是人们实际上想要的。隐私保护机制也会被启用。但问题是，Facebook为提高所收集用户数据的价值而做的一些事，是否会让用户变得不那么喜欢Facebook，也不再那么频繁地使用Facebook。用户可能会开始认为，自己是一项“产品”，而非顾客。这种感觉不好玩。
So one metric worth following is growth in revenue per user. The numbers do not look good. There is still double-digit growth but there is a clear pattern of deceleration. Revenue growth is coming more from adding users than from making ads work better. If this continues, that is a signal of serious tensions in Facebook’s business model.
令人瞩目的是，在这一点上，谷歌的情况则大不相同。如果笔者在谷歌中键入“惠普(HP)12C计算器”，在出现搜索结果的同时会出现一些类似广告的东西。用户搜索某样东西时，确实常常是打算购买。而Facebook的情况完全不同。如果Facebook无法在不招用户讨厌的情况下进行广告定点投放，它的营收增长就会放慢，而且用不了多长时间。
What’s a friend worth?
所以，一个值得关注的衡量标准是，每名用户的平均营收增长率。这项数字看起来不妙。增长率仍然保持在两位数，但明显有下降的趋势。营收增长更多地来自用户的增加，而非广告效果的提高。如果这种情况继续下去，就标志着Facebook的经营模式面临严重问题。
How to put all this into a Facebook valuation? To justify the big numbers being tossed around – $100bn and up – several things must happen in the next five to seven years. The business needs to become much less capital intensive (inclusive of acquisitions) over time, as Google and Microsoft have done. That is the easy part. But margins must also stay near today’s level of about 50 per cent – which would be uncharted territory. And sales would have to grow at least sixfold in this period.
一个Facebook好友值多少钱?
The latter is certainly possible. For comparison, when Google had the same revenues as Facebook has now it took just seven years for them to increase another 10 times. That magnitude of growth took a decade at Microsoft when it too earned about $4bn a year back in 1993.
在评估Facebook价值的时候，如何把这一切都计算进去?Facebook的IPO估值为1000亿美元或更高，在未来5至7年内，几件事情必须实现，这么高的估值才能算合理。首先，Facebook必须逐渐大幅降低资本密集度(包括减少并购)，如谷歌和微软所做到的那样。这是比较容易的部分。其次，Facebook还需要基本保持当前的利润率水平(约50%)，这一点目前还没有任何企业做到过。第三，在未来5至7年内，Facebook的销售额也必须增长至少5倍。
The conclusion is this: it is hard to imagine the required levels of growth or margins if Facebook does not become ubiquitous or cannot deliver on the promise of a superior sort of internet advertising. If it cannot, a $100bn-plus valuation will be about as meaningful as having 3,000 friends.
最后一点是绝对可能实现的。以谷歌为例，它只花了7年时间就把营收在Facebook如今的水平上提高了10倍。1993年，微软的营收达到40亿美元后，它也只花了10年时间就把营收提高了10倍。
结论是：如果Facebook无法变得无处不在，或无法兑现提供更优越网络广告的承诺，那么我们就很难想象它能实现必要的增长率或利润率。如果Facebook做不到这两点，超过1000亿美元的估值之于投资者的意义，恐怕仅仅相当于3000名好友之于用户的意义。
