CEO：Pinterest不是社交网站

    在今年的《财富》科技头脑风暴大会上，《财富》撰稿人艾琳·格里菲斯向Pinterest首席执行官本·西尔伯曼提的第一个问题非常简单。

    Pinterest是社交网络吗？

    西尔伯曼犹豫了一下，抬头看了看炽热的舞台灯，然后做出了回答。他告诉现场观众，Pinterest是一个“点子目录”，“和社交网络有非常大的差异”。他说，二者的目标不同——人们把照片上传到社交网站上是为了让别人喜欢这些照片；在Pinterest，这样做则是为自己服务。

    西尔伯曼说：“我们希望别人看到我们网站上的好点子后将其付诸实践。”他把Pinterest比作一本针对用户的 “手工编撰目录”。

    这就解释了该公司最近涉足电子商务的原因。这家初创企业坐拥巨额资金，最新的数字是110亿美元，这让它成为《财富》评选的十大独角兽公司之一。Pinterest正在寻找值得夸耀的收入源，而最好的办法就是推动这个“目录”概念进一步商业化。

    西尔伯曼表示：“我们真的非常了解人们开始制定计划时的情况”。（他还说，尽管女性在Pinterest的用户中仍占多数，但男性用户是增长最快的群体；国外用户也是如此，40%的Pinterest用户都在美国以外，而且这个数字还在上升。）

    不过，西尔伯曼承认，交易方面的工作尚未完成。他说：“这是个相当难的问题。”在Pinterest上购买产品或服务应当是个流畅的过程，“简单、轻松而且愉快”。但和成千上万的商家打交道可不是什么小事情。西尔伯曼说：“做好这件事需要时间。”Pinterest从去年夏天开始着手这方面的工作。

    西尔伯曼透露，目前Pinterest还没有从自家网站上进行的交易中抽取费用。这项业务处于成长状态。他说：“我们希望为产品和服务供应商建立一个平台，帮助他们去[接触]客户。人们浏览我们网站的原因是他们希望从自己的生活中找到灵感。”那么Pinterest正通过其他途径创收吗，比如“推广图钉”（Promoted Pins）？西尔伯曼答道，他们正在这样做。

    他说：“广告这个词带有负面意味。许多广告真的都很糟糕，很难看，有损受众的体验。我们希望“推广图钉”会让用户觉得这是他们想要的创意。”他指出，从商业角度讲，“想投放广告的人可以考虑的平台有很多”，而Pinterest希望帮助他们更好地了解这个网站，以便他们为用户创造出更好的东西。

    Pinterest的员工已经超过500人，而且这个数字仍在上升。在设法创收的同时，Pinterest想过IPO吗？西尔伯曼说，没有，“短期内我们没有上市计划。”他说，上市公司要有可预期的收入。而结论是，Pinterest不具备这个条件。

    西尔伯曼表示，眼下他们的首要任务是海外扩张，比如西欧、日本和巴西，让用户更好地进行发现，同时扩大收入源。

    不过，Pinterest已经做出了最简单的决定，那就是要以图像为主。西尔伯曼说：“再多技术也不会改变一个事实，那就是人通过视觉来处理信息。”（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    校对：詹妮

    Fortune writer Erin Griffith kicked off her interview with Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann by asking a very simple question.

    Is Pinterest a social network?

    Silbermann paused, glanced up at the hot stage lights, and responded.

    Pinterest is a “catalog of ideas,” he told attendees at this year’s Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference. “I think that’s a very different thing than a social network.” The objectives of the two are different, he said. On a social network, you upload photos for other people to like. Pinterest, on the other hand, is self-serving.

    “Our hope is that when we show you the right idea you go out and do that thing,” he said. He likened Pinterest to “a catalog that’s hand-picked” for his users.

    Which explains the company’s recent foray into “Buy” buttons. The highly-funded startup—$11 billion at last count, putting it in the top 10 on Fortune‘s Unicorn List—is in search of revenue worth crowing about. The best way to do it is to encourage the more commercial aspects of that catalog concept.

    “We have a really clear understanding when people begin to plan events,” Silbermann said. (He added that while the majority of his users remain women, men are its fastest-growing segment. As is international: 40% of Pinterest users live outside the U.S. and the number is growing.)

    But transactions are still a work in progress for the company, Silbermann allowed. “It’s a pretty hard problem,” he said. Buying a product or service through Pinterest should feel seamless—“easy and light and fun.” But working with “thousands” of merchants is no small undertaking. “It took time to do it right,” he said. Pinterest began working on the effort last summer.

    Today, Pinterest takes no cut of transactions it processes, Silbermann said. It’s in growth mode. “We want to create a platform for product and service providers to [reach] customers,” he said. “People go to Pinterest because they’re looking for inspiration from their life.”

    And as for Promoted Pins, the company’s other revenue-generating effort? It’s coming along, Silbermann said.

    “Advertising has a bad word associated with it,” he said. “A lot of ads really suck. They’re really ugly. They detract from the experience. You want Promoted Pins to feel like the ideas you want to make your own.”

    On the business side, “advertisers have a lot of platforms to think about,” he added. Pinterest wants to help them understand Pinterest better so that they create something better for users.

    With all of these revenue-generating efforts afoot, is Pinterest—more than 500 employees strong and still growing—thinking about an IPO? No, Silbermann said. “We don’t have any short-term plans to go public.” Public companies have predictable revenue, he said. The inference: Pinterest does not.

    For now, priorities are international expansion—western Europe, Japan, and Brazil, he said—improving discovery and building out the money machine.

    But the easiest decision for Pinterest is already made: making it image-focused. Said Silbermann: “No amount of technology is going to change the fact that people process information visually.”