社交网络Ello拒绝广告向互联网传统say no

2014-10-11 15:51:54来源：可可英语

　　There’s a small problem with being too self-righteous on the Internet, though: People areeager to point out your hypocrisy. Not long after Ello went viral, one of the site’s userspointed out that it had raised venture capital. The message was that the company willeventually be pressured to make lots of money or sell to someone who would likely do thesame. Ello’s investors own 12% of the company, Budnitz says, and acknowledges that Ello is“obviously a business.” Unsurprisingly, his inbox has been flooded with venture capital interestthis week.

　　不过在互联网上抢占道德高地也会碰到一些小问题，比如人们会迫不及待地证明你的伪善。就在Ello走红后不久，该网站的一名用户指出，Ello已经从风投那里拉来了融资。这说明Ello最终还得面临赚钱的压力，或者被卖给想通过Ello赚钱的人。巴德尼茨也坦承投资者拥有该公司12%的股份，并表示Ello“显然是笔生意”。不出所料，他的邮箱这周都快被表达风投意向的信函挤爆了。

　　There have been issues with Ello’s lack of privacy and blocking features, a basic requirementfor any social media site in the era of online bullying and harassment. The company hasresponded by building features as quickly as possible, moving around its priorities, not unlike apolitician might do to keep various constituents happy. For the haters, Budnitz has littlesympathy. “If you don’t like what we’re doing, then please delete your account and leave,” hesays.

　　Ello目前依然存在缺乏隐私和阻止功能等问题，在这个网络流氓泛滥的年代，这个功能对任何社交媒体都是必不可少的。Ello公司表示会尽快构建相关功能，调整工作重点。他们就像政客对待选区的民众一样，希望让大家都满意。不过对于讨厌Ello的人，巴德尼茨则毫不留情面。他说：“如果你不喜欢我们正在做的事，请删除你的账户并离开。”

　　Even if Ello, a company with strongly stated principles, can make its audience of users withstrongly held beliefs happy, it faces a much bigger challenge: survival. To be a successfulbusiness, Ello faces the not insignificant task of turning Internet’s entire business model on itshead.

　　对于Ello这样一家原则性很强的公司来说，就算它真的能让那些同样很有原则的用户感到高兴，它也依然面临着一个更大的挑战，那就是生存。想要成为一家成功的企业，Ello需要解决的一大任务，就是转变互联网行业的整个业务模式。

　　Content and communications on the Web have monetized with eyeballs and advertisementssince the Web’s earliest days. In Michael Wolff’s 1998 book Burn Rate, the teams at Time andWired magazines in the mid-1990s separately have a lightbulb moment: “Users prefer to acceptadvertising rather than pay for the cost of content.” He writes: “Wired’s stature in the Internetcommunity, and Time’s stature in the advertising community nearly overnight madeadvertising part of everyone’s plans for the Web.”

　　从互联网的襁褓阶段开始，网络上的内容和传播就一直在靠网友的眼球和广告挣钱。迈克尔o沃尔夫在1998年的著作《烧钱速度》(Burn Rate)一书中写道，90年代中期，《时代》(Time)和《连线》(Wired)杂志都分别意识到广告对互联网的重要意义。书中写道：“用户更倾向于接受广告，而不是花钱去购买内容。《连线》在互联网社区中的高度，以及《时代》在广告界的地位，几乎一夜之间使广告成了每个进军网络的人都要考虑的问题”

　　Wired’sfirst banner ad appeared in 1994. On that foundation, the Web’s economy was built.The ad-supported Web contributes around $530 billion to the U.S. economy, directly employingtwo million people and indirectly, 3.1 million, according to an IAB study from 2012, the latestavailable.

　　《连线》的第一条网页横幅广告诞生于1994年。以此为基础，互联网经济开始建立起来。根据IAB公司2012年的一项研究，由广告支持的互联网行业为美国经济贡献了大约5300亿美元，提供了200万个直接工作岗位和310万个间接工作岗位。

　　It’s not that the world loves digital advertising. It’s that advertising happens to be the thingthat works best. The Atlantic recently called digital advertising “the Internet’s original sin.”And so, we have a handful of noble, ambitious, possibly naive attempts to repent by reelingback Web’s default business model. Before Ello, there were the social networks App.net andDiaspora, both of which came up short in their lofty goals.

　　这并非是说世界喜欢数字广告，而是广告正好是最合适的东西。《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)最近撰文称，数字广告是“互联网的原罪”。因此，有少数内心崇高又雄心勃勃(可能也有点幼稚)的公司希望能摆脱这种默认的业务模式。比如在Ello之前还有App.net和Diaspora等社交网络，可惜他们的目标虽然高尚，却仍免不了昙花一现的命运。

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