TikTok如何打破社交媒体(上)

Business

商业版块

The ad business: How TikTok broke social media

广告业：TikTok如何打破社交媒体

Whether or not it is banned, the app has forced its rivals to adopt a less lucrative model.

无论TikTok是否被禁止，这一应用程序都已迫使其竞争对手采取利润较低的商业模式。

Is TikTok's time up?

TikTok的时间结束了吗？

As the social-media app's chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, was getting ready for a grilling before Congress on March 23rd, after The Economist went to press, TikTok's 100m-plus users in America were fretting that their government was preparing to ban the Chinese-owned platform because of security fears.

3月23日，在《经济学人》付印后，社交媒体应用TikTok的首席执行官周受资正准备接受国会盘问，美国1亿多的TikTok用户因为政府出于安全考虑准备禁止这一中国社交平台而感到焦躁不安。

Their anguish contrasts with utter glee in Silicon Valley, where home-grown social-media firms would love to be rid of their popular rival.

他们的痛苦与硅谷的幸灾乐祸形成了鲜明对比，在硅谷，美国本土社交媒体公司很乐意摆脱这个受人欢迎的竞争对手。

With every grumble from Capitol Hill, the share prices of Meta, Pinterest, Snap and others edge higher.

从国会山上每发出一声抱怨，Meta、Pinterest、Snap等其他公司的股价就会小幅上涨。

TikTok's fate hangs in the balance.

TikTok的命运悬而未决。

But what is already clear is that the app has changed social media for good--and in a way that will make life harder for incumbent social apps.

但已经很清楚的是，这款应用已经永远改变了社交媒体--而且在某种程度上，这将让现有社交应用的日子更加难过。

In less than six years TikTok has weaned the world off old-fashioned social-networking and got it hooked on algorithmically selected short videos.

在不到六年的时间里，TikTok让世界脱离了老式社交网络，转而沉迷于由算法筛选的短视频。

Users love it.

用户喜欢TikTok。

The trouble for the platforms is that the new model makes less money than the old one, and may always do so.

但这个平台的麻烦之处在于，新模式比旧模式赚的钱更少，而且情况可能永远都是如此。

The speed of the change is astonishing.

变化发生的速度令人震惊。

Since entering America in 2017, TikTok has picked up more users than all but a handful of social-media apps, which have been around more than twice as long.

自2017年进入美国以来，TikTok吸引的用户超过了除少数几个应用之外的所有社交媒体应用，而这几个应用存在的时间是TikTok的两倍多。

Among young audiences, it crushes the competition.

在年轻观众中，它完全碾压了竞争对手。

Americans aged 18-24 spend an hour a day on TikTok, twice as long as they spend on Instagram and Snapchat, and more than five times as long as they spend on Facebook, which these days is mainly a medium for communicating with the grandparents.

18-24岁的美国人每天使用TikTok的时间为一个小时，是Instagram和Snapchat使用时间的两倍，也是Facebook使用时间的五倍多，如今Facebook主要是与爷爷奶奶进行交流的媒介。

TikTok's success has prompted its rivals to reinvent themselves.

TikTok的成功促使其竞争对手重塑自我。

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has turned both apps' main feeds into algorithmically sorted "discovery engines" and launched Reels, a TikTok clone bolted onto Facebook and Instagram.

拥有Facebook和Instagram的Meta，已将这两款应用的主要推送转变为由算法整理的"发现引擎"，并推出了Reels，这是绑定在Facebook和Instagram上的TikTok的翻版。

Similar lookalike products have been created by Pinterest (Watch), Snapchat (Spotlight), YouTube (Shorts), and even Netflix (Fast Laughs).

其他类似的产品也被Pinterest(Watch)、Snapchat(Spotlight)、YouTube(Short)，甚至网飞(Fast Laughs)推出。

The latest TikTok-inspired makeover, announced on March 8th, was by Spotify, a music-streaming app whose homepage now features video clips that can be skipped by swiping up.

受TikTok启发的最新改版由音乐流媒体应用Spotify于3月8日宣发，其主页现在主打视频片段，可以通过向上滑动而跳过。

(TikTok's Chinese sister app, Douyin, is having a similar effect in its home market, where digital giants like Tencent are increasingly putting short videos at the centre of their offerings.)

(TikTok的中国姊妹应用抖音在其本土市场也产生了类似影响，腾讯等数字巨头正越来越多地将短视频置于其产品的中心地位。)

The result is that short-form video has taken over social media.

结果是短视频已经占领了社交媒体。

Of the 64 minutes that the average American spends viewing such services each day, 40 minutes are spent watching video clips, up from 28 minutes just three years ago, estimates Bernstein, a broker.

经纪公司伯恩斯坦估计，美国人平均每天用于浏览社交媒体的64分钟中，有40分钟是用来观看短视频的，而三年前这一数字还只是28分钟。

However, this transformation comes with a snag.

然而，这种转变带来了一个麻烦。

Although users have a seemingly endless appetite for short video, the format is proving less profitable than the old news feed.

尽管用户似乎对短视频有着无穷无尽的胃口，但事实证明，这种形式的利润不如老式的新闻推送。

TikTok monetises its American audience at a rate of just $0.31 for every hour the typical user spends on the app, a third the rate of Facebook and a fifth the rate of Instagram.

普通美国用户每使用TikTok一小时，该应用仅能赚取0.31美元，是Facebook收入的三分之一，Instagram的五分之一。

This year it will make about $67 from each of its American users, while Instagram will make more than $200, estimates Insider Intelligence, a research firm.

研究公司"内部商情"估计，今年TikTok将从每个美国用户身上获得约67美元的收入，而Instagram获得的收入则超过200美元。

And it is not just a TikTok problem.

这不仅仅是TikTok的问题。

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive, told investors last month that "Currently, the monetisation efficiency of Reels is much less than Feed, so the more that Reels grows…it takes some time away from Feed and we actually lose money."

Meta的首席执行官马克·扎克伯格上个月向投资者表示，"目前，Reels的变现率远远低于Feed，随着Reels业务增长，这一情况更甚...…Reels抢走了Feed的时间，我们实际上是赔钱的。

The most comforting explanation for the earnings gap is that TikTok, Reels and the other short-video platforms are immature.

对于这种收入差距，最能给人安慰的解释是TikTok、Reels等短视频平台还不够成熟。

"TikTok is still a toddler in the social-media ad landscape," says Jasmine Enberg of Insider Intelligence, who points out that the app introduced ads only in 2019.

"在社交媒体广告领域，TikTok还只是个蹒跚学步的孩子，" 内部商情公司的贾斯敏·恩伯格说。她指出，TikTok直到2019年才推出广告。

Platforms tend to keep their ad load low while getting new users on board, and advertisers take time to warm to new products.

平台在吸引新用户时往往将广告量保持在低水平，广告商也需要时间来让新产品升温。

"You can't really wave a magic wand and declare that your new ads are 'premium' without any performance history to back it up, so they start at the end of the line," says Michelle Urwin of Skai, an ad-tech firm.

"你不能挥舞一下魔杖，然后就宣称你的新广告是'高级'的，而没有任何之前的表现来支撑这种说法，所以广告是最后才开始的。"广告技术公司Skai的米歇尔·厄温说。