扎克伯格密友担纲主演Facebook路演大戏

    在考克斯的世界里，产品推介从来不仅是推介产品，而是更宏大的事。他说：“我们正在这一代人里彻底改变人类相互沟通的方式。”考克斯补充道：“只要地球上存在两个相知相识的人，世界上就存在社交网络图。而展现每个人及其相互间关系的社交地图则是一种全新事物。”整部影片引人入胜。IPO咨询公司Class V Group的创始人里瑟•拜尔表示，Facebook“已将路演视频提升到了新的高度。”

    拜尔曾经参与过谷歌的IPO，他表示Facebook在某种程度上正试图与潜在个人投资者和解，其中大部分都是Facebook用户，他们均没能参与到Facebook早期融资活动中。例如，去年Facebook就被指责在销售其上市前股份时只允许高盛投资（Goldman Sachs）的高端客户购买。（据了解Facebook股票发行内幕的人士介绍，Facebook计划通过一些零售券商向个人投资者出售IPO股份。）

    拜尔说：“直到现在之前，Facebook都从来没有对那些帮助建立公司的人表现出一丝关心。这是一次试图与（与个人投资者）冰释前嫌的尝试，我认为它很有效。”

    化干戈为玉帛总是明智之举，对于一家努力改善企业形象的公司而言更是如此。别忘了，之前有一部关于Facebook的电影，那部电影可不是Facebook控制得了的，其结果是获得奥斯卡奖的《社交网络》（The Social Network）对扎克伯格和Facebook可没什么好话。因此，Facebook不仅要通过这则路演视频修复关系，更要发出自己的声音，为公司塑造一个更亲和的形象。拜尔说：“这则视频给Facebook这个庞然大物增添了人情味。”

    译者：项航

    In Cox's world, product description is never just that, but rather something more cosmic. "We are now changing within a generation the fabric of how humanity communicates with itself," he says at one point. At another he adds: "The social graph is something that has always existed as long there were two people on earth who knew each other," says Cox. "The one thing that there's never existed was a map of everybody in the world and their relationships with each other." The overall effect is compelling. Lise Buyer, the founder of Class V Group, an IPO advisory firm, says Facebook "has clearly taken the video roadshow to an entirely new level."

    Buyer, who worked at Google during its IPO, says Facebook, in part, is trying to make peace with potential individual investors -- many of whom are Facebook users -- who were shunned in earlier financing rounds. Last year, for example, Facebook came under criticism when it sold some of its pre-IPO shares, but only high-net-worth clients of Goldman Sachs (GS) were allow to buy them. (People with direct knowledge of Facebook's offering say the company plans to make some of its IPO shares available to individual investors through retail brokerage firms.)

    "Until this point, Facebook hasn't shown they cared a whit about the folks who helped to build the company," Buyer says. "This is attempt, and a successful one I think, to reach out and mend some of those fences."

    It's always smart to mend fences, especially for a company that has struggled with its corporate image. Remember that the last time there was a movie about Facebook, the company didn't have much control, and the result -- the Oscar-winning The Social Network -- wasn't particularly flattering to Zuck or Facebook. So with the video roadshow Facebook isn't just mending fences, but also telling its own story and projecting a more cuddly version of itself. Says Buyer, "This video humanizes the behemoth."