LinkedIn也要做内容了吗？

    瑞恩•罗斯兰斯基是领英（LinkedIn）的内容产品主管，他极力否认领英的媒体野心，或者至少是拒绝正面发表观点。“我们并不是从一家出版或媒体公司的角度做出这项举措的，”他在上周曾经这样告诉我。

    “这项举措”是指，领英宣布将向它的2.77亿注册用户开放“内容发布平台”。此前，这个网站已经向25,000名测试用户开放了这个平台。此举实际上意味着领英向其用户提供了一个充满活力的博客工具，但里面又有新意。Tumblr（雅虎旗下）以及Twitter（和Blogger）创始人埃文•威廉姆斯运营的新站点Medium这些博客网站相对来说是免费向所有人开放。用户发表博文，使用社交媒体进行分享，希望有人会来看。发表在领英上的文章针对的是已经在你职业网络中的那些人，“你的领英身份是你专业资历的记录，”罗斯兰斯基说道。他表示，新增发布长篇专业信息的功能，“有助于确保一些人能够在职业生涯中脱颖而出，同时改善自己的职业形象。”

    领英现在的形象看起来已经相当不错了。这项大规模开放平台的策略依据的是领英在2012年推出的大获成功的影响者项目（Influencer）。这个项目受到严格控制，发布平台只向接到邀请的知名领英用户开放。影响者项目起步时有150名供稿人，现在的数量在500名左右。这些人的文章平均被浏览31,000次，能够获得81条评论以及200个“赞”（或曰读者表示认可的方式）。罗斯兰斯基确认，理查德•布兰森和比尔•盖茨所发布文章的数据要超过平均值，但他拒绝透露影响者项目文章的中位数统计数据，而那是更有意义的衡量指标（注：本人是影响者项目的初始成员，领英编辑主任丹尼尔•罗斯曾经是《财富》杂志的编辑，同时也是我的朋友）。

    至于领英是否正在转型成为一家媒体公司，答案似乎显而易见。罗斯兰斯基指出，领英的赚钱方式有三种：通过增值账户（跟其他新闻记者一样，领英向我免费提供了这种账户），在网站打广告，以及面向招聘者的工具。他说，等到新的发布工具推动用户更频繁地使用网站，那将增加广告机会，鼓励更多人注册增值账户，同时提升招聘者获得的信息质量。至于新的发布平台是否是一个赚钱机会，他提出了不同意见。他说：“一名参与度高的用户对我们所有三条营收线来说都是好事。”

    事实仍然是，领英的“发布平台”越看越像一笔媒体资产。丹•罗斯上周在接受读写网（ReadWrite）欧文•托马斯采访时稍微有些不谨慎，他告诉后者，领英希望找到自己的奈特•斯莱弗——斯莱弗是统计学家出身的作家，他起初为《纽约时报》（New York Times）撰写文章，现在则为娱乐体育节目电视网（ESPN）供稿。我在这里解释一下，以免大家产生困惑，《纽约时报》和娱乐体育节目电视网都是媒体机构，而下一个奈特•斯莱弗的出版商也是一家媒体机构。

    跟所有优秀的竞争者一样，领英并不避讳借鉴别人的思路，其中也包括传统的传媒公司。领英最新的影响者最佳建议“系列文章”——我的文章链接在此——会让《财富》杂志的订阅读者产生一种熟悉的感觉。我们邀请知名领袖人物制作的“我得到的最佳建议”专题最初发表在《财富》杂志2005年5月21日刊，封面人物是沃伦•巴菲特。

    如果领英的下一步行动中包括聘请真正的记者来补充它的业余供稿人队伍，大家不要感到意外。领英“媒体”产品的另一个自然延伸将是围绕其影响者举办现场活动。

    从一个关键的角度上看，领英肯定跟其他出版商是不同的。也许是因为它不为内容支付费用，同时还规避责任——L领英将内容的完全所有权授予会员供稿人，同时承诺将删除、注释或编辑违反网站政策的文章。

    这是多么伟大的商业模式：不用为内容支付费用，但又从这些内容中赚大钱，同时通过放弃所有权跟文章的质量、可靠性或准确性保持距离。领英绝对正在成为一家出版商——一家“不粘锅式的”出版商，它也许是所有出版商中利润最高的那一种。(财富中文网)

    译者：王灿均

    Ryan Roslansky, head of content products for the company, strenuously rejects LinkedIn's media ambitions. Or at least he refuses to address them head on. "We are not approaching this from a publishing or media-company perspective," he told me last week.

    The "this" in question is LinkedIn's announcement that it is opening its "publishing platform" to all its 277 million members, beginning with a test group of 25,000. The move essentially means providing a juiced-up blogging tool to LinkedIn users, but with a twist. Blogging sites like Tumblr (owned by Yahoo) or even Medium, the new site run by Twitter (and Blogger) founder Evan Williams, are relative free-for-alls. Post your blog, tell other people about it using social media, and hope someone will see it. A post on LinkedIn is targeted at the people already in your professional network. "Your LinkedIn identity is your professional profile of record," Roslansky says. Adding the ability to post long-form professional information, he says, "helps to ensure someone can stand out and look better in their career."

    LinkedIn is looking pretty good already. The platform-for-the-masses strategy expands on the wildly successful rollout in late 2012 of the LinkedIn Influencer program, a tightly controlled, invitation-only publishing platform for well known LinkedIn users. It started with 150 contributors and now has about 500. Their posts are viewed an average of 31,000 times, provoke 81 comments, and attract 200 "likes," or expressions of approval by readers. Acknowledging that the data for posts by Richard Branson and Bill Gates skew the average, Roslansky declines to divulge median statistics for Influencer posts, which would be a more meaningful measurement. (This seems like a good place to note that I am a founding Influencer and that LinkedIn's editorial director, Daniel Roth, is a former Fortune magazine editor and current friend.)

    As for whether LinkedIn is becoming a media company, the answer seems obvious. Roslansky notes that LinkedIn makes money three ways, through premium accounts (like other journalists, LinkedIn provides one of these to me free of charge), advertising on its site, and tools for recruiters. He says that to the extent the new publishing tool encourages people to use the site more, it will increase advertising opportunities, encourage more premium accounts sign-ups, and improve the quality of information for recruiters. As for whether the new publishing platform is a money-making opportunity, he demurs, saying, "An engaged member is a good story for all three of our revenue lines."

    The fact remains that LinkedIn's "publishing platform" looks more and more like a media property. Dan Roth was slightly less circumspect with Readwrite's Owen Thomas last week, telling him that LinkedIn hoped to discover its own Nate Silver, the statistician-turned-writer, first for the New York Times and now for ESPN. Lest there be any confusion, the Times and ESPN are media organizations; the publisher of the next Nate Silver is a media organization too.

    Like any good competitor, LinkedIn isn't shy about borrowing ideas, including from traditional media companies. It latest Influencer "package" on best advice—my contribution ran here—will have a familiar ring to subscribes of Fortune magazine. Our franchise on the "Best Advice I Ever Got" cited by prominent leaders first ran in the March 21, 2005, issue of the magazine, with Warren Buffett on the cover.

    Don't be surprised if LinkedIn's next moves include hiring real journalists to complement its amateur-writer contributors. Another natural extension of the LinkedIn "media" offering would be hosting live events around its Influencers.

    In one critical way, LinkedIn certainly is different from other publishers. Perhaps because it pays nothing for its content, and also undoubtedly to avoid liability, it grants full ownership rights to its member-writers, while promising to remove, annotate or edit posts that violate its policies.

    What a great business model: Make a ton of money off content you don't pay for and distance yourself from its quality, reliability or accuracy by never owning it. LinkedIn absolutely is becoming a publisher—a Teflon publisher, perhaps the most profitable kind of all.