BuzzFeed的下个大动作：长视频
Kevin Moloney摄于财富头脑风暴科技峰会
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BuzzFeed公司CEO约拿•佩雷蒂 你认为未来我们将怎样消费视频内容？ 对这个问题，我们自己也一直觉得很惊奇。我们从没预料到人们会用手机看视频，但现在我们发现，人们差不多有一半视频是在手机上看的。有传闻说苹果正在开发大屏版iPhone，而且很多人也在购买屏幕更大、待机时间更长的Android手机，所以人们会花更多的时间在手机上看视频内容。 在你的Facebook动态消息流中看到别人用手机观看和分享的一段长达20分钟的视频，貌似也并不是一件遥远的事，但是这可能要三到六个月之后才会发生。我们不需要了解这种问题将来是怎么解决的，我们只需要一个能持续学习的团队，有办法根据它去尝试、拍摄和学习，并且获得数据和反馈。这不仅仅需要一家能够投资建立内容的公司，更需要一家能够衡量它的公司。我们既有艺术的一面也有科学的一面。如果我们这样做了，那么任何新平台的出现，对我们的工作方式来说都是好事。尤其是我们的核心技术就是在任何平台上都能把故事讲得很好。 “扎•弗克的价值并不在于他在网络视频里有多红。他不仅很擅长表演，而且也知道如何在不同的平台上取悦很多人。” 你是怎样聘请到他的？ 我和他大概是同一个时间出名的，只隔了一两个月。他的视频吸引了100多万人，因此我们基本上有相同的经历：我们做了一些小小的有意思的事，结果吸引了几百万人的关注。 与此同时，一夜而红的现象也发生在很多人身上，至少是发生在不少人身上。比如一度非常红的“Numa Numa”舞。但是大多网络红人最终回归了正常的生活，好比“一场春梦了无痕”。也有人尝试把同样的事翻来覆去地做，比如后来的《Numa Numa 2》和《Numa Numa 3》。但每炒一次冷饭，它的新鲜感就下降一些，结果也越来越差。 扎•弗兰克和我从理性上对这个原理很感兴趣，并且研究了人们分享事物和参与事物的模式。而扎•弗兰克使用最多的媒介就是视频。 弗兰克的视频形成了YouTube后来的许多惯例。比如现在连不少15岁左右的孩子在网上都有了疯热的粉丝，但他们的一些动作造型、把脸靠近屏幕的样子，以及让粉丝做“地球三明治”（比如一个中国人在河南省的某地把一片面包放在地上，地球另一端相对坐标的阿根廷某地，也有人在地上放了一片面包，这样他俩就做成了一个“地球三明治”）等行为，都能看到弗兰克留下的影响。 比如《纽约》杂志提到的那些青少年YouTube红人。 是的，弗兰克就像是那方面的祖宗。 你对视频的预算是多少？ 曾经有一个夜间节目调侃道，拍一支视频的全部预算大概只有100美元。实际模式是，你是有固定成本的，包括团队、场地等等。如果你有了对的人和对的环境，拍摄每支视频的成本就会降低。我们制订预算的方式是一个函数而不是一个数字。把X放在一边，如果另一边出来的是X+N，那就继续重复好了。 |
Jonah Peretti, CEO, BuzzFeed How do you think we’ll be consuming video content in future? We keep getting surprised. We never expected people would watch video on their phones, but now we’re seeing like half of our views are mobile. There are rumors that Apple is making a bigger format iPhone and people are buying more Android phones that are bigger and have longer battery lives, so people can spend more time watching mobile content. Having video content that is 20 minutes long in your Facebook News Feed that people are sharing and watching on their phones doesn’t seem that far-fetched. But that’s like three to six months in the future. We don’t have to know how it’s all going to be worked out in the future, we just have to have a team that continually learns, and have a method for trying, creating, and learning from that, and getting data and feedback. It’s not just having a company that invests in creating content, but [having one that] measures it. We have the art side and the science side. If we do that, any new platform that emerges is something that will be a big benefit for our way of working. Essentially our core skill is to do great storytelling on any platform. Ze—his [value] isn’t that he’s great at video. He’s great at playing with it and learning how to delight and amuse many people on different platforms. How did you recruit him? We both had viral hits around the same time, within a couple of months of each other. He had done these videos of himself and reached a million people, so we both essentially had the same experience: Some little fun thing we were doing while procrastinating that ended up reaching millions of people. At that time, it was happening to a lot of other people, or at least many other people. There was the Numa Numa dance. And most of them just went back to their regular life and were like, “This was a weird thing that happened to me and it’s a great story.” Or they tried to do the same thing over again it, like Numa Numa 2 and Numa Numa 3, and each time it was less and less novel and did less and less well. Ze and I got more intellectually interested in how does this work, and tracking how people shared things and engaged with them. The medium [Ze] used the most was video. His show really defined most of the conventions you see on YouTube now. The influence he had when you see all these 15-year-olds with millions of screaming fans doing certain styles of cuts, putting their face close to the screen, and having fans do stuff like making an Earth sandwich. The teen YouTube stars that were featured in New York magazine. Yeah, he’s like the grandfather of that. What’s your budget for videos? There was a Nightline episode where they were making fun of the fact that the whole production budget for a video was like $100. The model is, you have fixed costs which are the team and space and all that. If you have the right people and environment, the cost of each additional video goes down. The way we budget is a function more than a number. Put in X into one side and if X+N comes out in the other side, then just keep repeating it. |
