十问BuzzFeed国际业务副总裁

    斯科特•兰姆于2007年加入BuzzFeed。那时，这家公司只不过是一家怪癖的用户生成型链接分享网站而已。如今，它已成为了病毒式内容业界的巨擎。目前，这家公司斩获了4,630万美元的风投资金，聘请了150名记者，每月吸引的独立访问者超过了1.3亿。去年，BuzzFeed开始了海外扩张之旅。这对于其它任何数字刊物来说，除了阿里安娜•赫芬顿（阿里安娜•赫芬顿是新闻博客网站《赫芬顿邮报》的联合创始人——译者注）所运营的刊物之外，还真是件新鲜事。BuzzFeed目前的出版语言有法语、葡萄牙语和西班牙语，而且其俄罗斯和中东等地区的记者和自由作者在稳步增长，此外还在伦敦和悉尼新开设了区域办事处。

    《财富》杂志采访了于去年成为公司国际业务副总裁的兰姆，向他询问了巧妙的工作申请对BuzzFeed国际业务增长的促进作用，为什么说GIF（图形交换格式）是通用语言，以及，法国人为什么不分享猫的照片？

    为什么BuzzFeed决定向海外扩张？

    去年我们在伦敦开设了第一家办事处。当时我们在大举扩张，而且一直在思考该向哪些领域扩张。有一位非常不错的申请人申请了夜间编辑，而且他常驻伦敦。可以想象的是，这样的简历我们收到了很多，而且它们都像“你应该聘请我的23个原因”那样程式化。但是他（卢克•路易斯）确实让我们眼前一亮，要做到这一点并不容易。

    是什么让它如此之吸引人？

    它本来就是一个不错的、有趣的榜单。很多人的搞笑GIF格式图片都只局限于90年代。从这一点来看，对于这些人来说，门槛是非常高的。但是他的笑话不但很有特点，而且跟他本人的声音也很接近。里面的信息量很大，也让我们详细了解了他是什么样一个人。

    如今，公司在不同的国家都有记者，而且国际版是以三种语言发行的。如何进行分类呢？

    我们的外国记者遍布开罗、伊斯坦布尔，而且很快内罗毕也将有一位女记者加入我们。这是公司成长过程中非常特别的组成部分。他们都向外国编辑米瑞姆•埃尔德汇报。这是因为我们想做一些国际报道的缘故。可以算是另一种推送。

    【当我们设立新办事处时】，我们会先组建一个小团队，仅有三个人，而且我们让他们专心做可于社交媒体上共享的内容。他们会编出共享率非常高的榜单和小测试。这是第一次推送，也是开展业务的自然起点。这是BuzzFeed业务的核心。如果这个举措奏效了——如果在新市场中，人们分享内容的积极性跟美国读者是一样的——然后我们会扩张，思考我们应在哪一方面予以进一步推送。

    能解释一下，公司利用Doulingo（一种语言学习应用）将BuzzFeed内容翻译成不同的语言的做法吗？

    我们与Duolingo建立了合作关系，他们的用户会为法语、西班牙语和葡萄牙语网站而翻译BuzzFeed的部分内容。但是我们也知道，翻译的帮助是有限的。我们在纽约有两个编辑（他们负责运行我们的法语和西班牙语网站），而且在所有这些国家都有自由作者。

    Buzzfeed本身并不是一个搞笑网站，但是我们的很多业务都基于幽默。人们很难翻译幽默或笑话。其它语言的笑点不一样，这也是我们非常倾向于招聘和开发本土人才，并让他们进行尝试并了解相关业务的部分原因。BuzzFeed巴西与BuzzFeed美国将有很大的差别。

    Scott Lamb joined BuzzFeed in 2007, when the company was more of a goofy user-generated link-sharing site than the viral powerhouse it is today. Now, the company, backed by $46.3 million in venture funding, employs 150 journalists who attract more than 130 million unique visitors per month. Last year, BuzzFeed began overseas expansion, a rarity for any digital-first publication that's not run by Arianna Huffington. BuzzFeed now publishes in French, Portuguese, and Spanish, and has a growing stable of correspondents and freelancers in countries like Russia and the Middle East, as well as newly opened regional offices in London and Sydney.

    Fortune spoke with Lamb, who last year became the company's VP of international, about how BuzzFeed's international growth was spurred by a gimmicky job application, why GIFs are the universal language, and how the French don't share cat photos.

    Why did BuzzFeed decide to expand internationally?

    The first office we opened was in London last year. We were expanding a lot and trying to figure out which areas to expand in. We had a really great applicant for a night editor who was based in London. It was one of those kinds of applications we get a fair amount of, as you'd expect, like "23 Reasons You Should Hire Me." But he (Luke Lewis) really blew it away, and that's not an easy thing to do.

    What made it so good?

    It was just a good, funny list. A lot of people just make 90s GIF jokes. The bar for those is pretty high at this point. But his was both idiosyncratic, and it really felt like his voice. It was really informative and told us a lot about who he was.

    So now you have correspondents in different countries, as well as international editions that you translate into a three different languages. How does that break down?

    We have foreign correspondents in Cairo, Instanbul, and Moscow and starting soon, a woman in Nairobi, and that is a very particular part of our growth. They're all reporting to Miriam Elder, who is the foreign editor. That came out of us wanting to do some international coverage. That was a bit of a separate push.

    [When we launch new offices], we start with a very small team, just three people, and we have them focus on the social shareable content. They make the lists and quizzes that people share at a really high volume. That's the first push and the natural place to start. It's core to what BuzzFeed does. If that is working -- if people in this new market are really sharing the content the same way that readers in the U.S. do -- then we expand and figure out which venues we want to push more in.

    Can you explain how you're working with Doulingo (an app for learning languages) to translate BuzzFeed content into different languages?

    We have a partnership with Duolingo where their users translate some of BuzzFeed's content for the French, Spanish, and Portuguese sites. But we also know translations will only take us so far. We have two editors in New York (who run our French- and Spanish-language sites) and freelance writers in all those countries.

    Buzzfeed is not a humor site per se, but a lot of what we do is based in humor. You really can't translate humor or jokes. They don't hit the same way in other languages, which is partly why we're so interested in hiring and developing local talent and letting them experiment and figure it out. BuzzFeed Brazil is going to be very different than it is in the U.S.