Facebook广告突破的幕后功臣（节选）

    2012年初，Facebook移动广告收入几乎为零。而到年底，移动广告收入却占到公司总广告收入的23%。越来越多的用户通过手机设备登陆Facebook，公司推出了一款堪与谷歌（Google）媲美的全新搜索功能，华尔街对它的关注也日益增加。Facebook的广告策略不论是在内部还是外部均获得了极大的关注。广告能否在不损害用户体验的前提下继续留在网页上？Facebook（未来的）视频广告策略会是怎样一种面貌？有多少移动广告是意外点击——即所谓“大拇指理论”的结果？Facebook有没有兜售用户信息？

    2月13日，在斯坦福大学商学研究生院（Stanford's Graduate School of Business）举办的关于未来媒体的大会上，《财富》杂志（Fortune）的亚当•拉辛斯基对Facebook商务及营销合作副总裁大卫•费舍尔进行了采访。以下是两人对话内容以及观众提问（略有编辑）的文字记录。

    亚当•拉辛斯基：上午好，大卫。大家上午好。

    大卫•费舍尔：上午好，亚当。

    亚当•拉辛斯基：首先，我想谈谈你之前的经历。对比谷歌与Facebook，我发现一件非常有趣的事情——谷歌与Facebook都不是以广告平台起家。（两家公司的创始人）当初可能根本没有想过广告。在你加入之前，这两家公司都没有任何收入或能产生收入的基础设施，你到来之后却说：“没事，我们可以搭建一个平台。”请解释一下，你是如何从一张白纸的状态开始做起的？

    大卫•费舍尔：好，我来谈谈这两件事。不过我认为，不论是在硅谷还是其他地方，许多公司明确商业模式的时候都会碰到这种情况。当初我在【斯坦福大学商学研究院（Stanford Graduate School of Business）】以及后来加盟谷歌时，有一件很有趣的事让我很震撼。你知道的，说到开办一家公司的时候，总是先从商业模式和货币化方案谈起。而在谷歌，在Facebook，以及其他许多公司，最开始考虑的却是消费者计划——什么样的产品会成为消费者认为是了不起的产品，然后才是货币化计划。而且这并不是一个直线过程，中间会有许多曲折。

    现在看来，许多公司，包括我工作过的这两家公司和其他许多公司，广告都是一种效果良好的模式，其好处显而易见。在谷歌和Facebook，我们就经常会被问到这个问题：“你们什么时候能实现收入多样化？”而看看那些拥有成百上千广告商的公司，它们的广告业务遍布全球，来源非常多样化。你会发现——从你所关注的利润率或其他商业因素的角度来看——广告实际上就是一种很好的行之有效的商业模式。所以，这就是我的出发点。其实，要将这些公司或其他公司货币化，可以有很多种途径。只不过是我恰好喜欢广告模式。

    At the beginning of 2012, Facebook's mobile ad revenues were literally non-existent. By the end of the year, they generated 23% of Facebook's total advertising revenue. With more users logging onto Facebook from mobile devices than ever before, a new search feature that competes with Google, and increased scrutiny from Wall Street, Facebook's ad strategy has received considerable attention both inside and outside the company. Can ads exist on the site without harming user experience? What about Facebook's (future) video ad strategy? How many mobile ads are clicked accidentally – as a result of the "big thumb theory"? Is Facebook selling user information?

    On Feb. 13, Fortune's Adam Lashinsky interviewed David Fischer, Facebook's vice president of business and marketing partnerships, at a conference on the future of media hosted by Stanford's Graduate School of Business. A lightly edited transcript of their conversation, as well as questions from the audience, follows.

    ADAM LASHINS KY: Good morning, David. Good morning, everybody.

    DAVID FISCHER: Good morning, Adam.

    ADAM LASHINSKY: I'm going to start with some history. An interesting comparison between Google and Facebook is that -- Google and Facebook did not start as advertising platforms. [The founders] didn't have that in mind at all, presumably. And you came into both companies at a time when there was no revenue or no infrastructure for revenue, and said, "All right. Let's build one." Explain how you started from really I think from a business perspective a blank sheet of paper.

    DAVID FISCHER: Yeah, I think -- I'll take these two cases, but I think it's true for a lot of companies, successful companies in the Valley and beyond, about defining a business model and where that comes in the process of it. One of the things that was interesting when I was at the [Stanford Graduate School of Business] and then went to Google that struck me is, you know, when you talked about building a company there it always started with the business plan and monetization plan. And for Google, for Facebook, for lots of companies, it started with a consumer plan and what was going to be a great product for consumers, and monetization came later and not in a straight line. It was not linear, it was sort of bumpy to get there and figure it out.

    Now, it turns out that the companies -- these two companies that I've been at and I'd say for a lot of companies, advertising is a phenomenally good, efficient model that works really well. When I was at Google we got this question a lot, and at Facebook we get this question is "When are you going to diversify in your revenues?" But when you're talking about companies that have hundreds and thousands of advertisers, that [are] around the world, that's a fairly diversified stream, and it actually is quite efficient to -- you know, as margins or other things you care about on the business side goes -- it's a good business to be in. So that's sort of the starting point. So there's lots of ways you can think about monetizing those companies or other companies. I just happen to like the advertising model.