新聞媒體謹慎踏上Facebook的平臺

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Facebook’s long-rumored plan to directly host articles from news organizations will start on Wednesday, concluding months of delicate negotiations between the Internet giant and publishers that covet its huge audience but fear its growing power.

加利福尼亞門洛帕克——市場早有傳聞稱，Facebook計劃直接釋出來自新聞機構的文章。隨著這一網際網路巨頭與出版商之間為期數月的棘手談判告一段落，這一計劃將於週三啟動。出版商們垂涎於Facebook上的大批受眾，但卻對Facebook與日俱增的影響力心懷忌憚。

Nine media companies, including NBC News and The New York Times, have agreed to the deal, despite concerns that their participation could eventually undermine their own businesses.

包括NBC新聞(NBC News)、《紐約時報》在內的九家媒體公司已經同意了這項交易，儘管它們擔心，參與其中到頭來會導致自身業務受損。

The program will begin with a few articles but is expected to expand quickly. Users of iPhones will see glossy cover videos and photos tagged with map coordinates. Most important for impatient smartphone users, the company says, the so-called instant articles will load up to 10 times faster than they normally would since readers stay on Facebook rather than follow a link to another site.

直接釋出在Facebook上的文章起初不會太多，但其數量應該會迅速多。iPhone使用者即將看到精彩的主體視訊和標記有地圖位置的封面圖片。該公司稱，對沒什麼耐心的智慧手機使用者而言，最重要的是這些所謂的“即時文章”，會讓文章的載入速度比平常快10倍，因為讀者可以待在Facebook上，而不必點選連結、登入另一個網站。

Facebook has gone to unusual lengths to court the publishers participating in the project, some details of which were previously published by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

為了拉攏出版商參與該專案，Facebook可謂竭盡全力。時報和《華爾街日報》(The Wall Street Journal)對相關細節均有過報道。

The news publishers can either sell and embed advertisements in the articles, keeping all of the revenue, or allow Facebook to sell ads, with the social network getting 30 percent of the proceeds. Facebook is also permitting the news companies to collect data about the people reading the articles with the same tools they use to track visitors to their own sites.

這些新聞出版商可以將各自銷售的廣告嵌入文章所在頁面，並保留全部收入；也可以讓Facebook出售廣告，Facebook將抽走30%的收入。新聞公司會在自營網站上追蹤網站訪客，Facebook還允許這些公司使用同樣的工具來收集讀者資料。

For publishers, the Facebook initiative represents the latest in a series of existential balancing acts. The social network, which has more than 1.4 billion active users worldwide, captures more attention of mobile users — and prompts more visits to news sites — than virtually any other service.

對出版商而言，Facebook的這一創舉同它以往兼顧各方的舉措一脈相承。Facebook在全世界有超過14億活躍使用者，它受到的手機使用者的關注，以及向新聞網站帶去的訪問量，都超過了其他社交網路服務。

Publishers have little choice but to cooperate with Facebook, said Vivian Schiller, a former executive at NBC, The New York Times and Twitter who now advises media companies and brands. “That’s where the audience is,” Ms. Schiller said. “It’s too massive to ignore.”

曾在NBC、《紐約時報》和Twitter擔任高管，目前為媒體公司以及各品牌提供諮詢服務的維維安·席勒(Vivian Schiller)表示，除了與Facebook合作，出版商幾乎別無選擇。“受眾都在Facebook上，”席勒說，“規模太龐大，不容忽視。”

But Facebook’s role as a powerful distributor of news makes many people in the industry uneasy. The fear is that it could become more of a destination than their own sites for the work they produce, drawing away readers and advertising.

但Facebook變身為強大的新聞發行商，讓許多新聞從業者感到不安。他們擔心，他們製作的內容會更多地以Facebook為目的地，而不是自身的網站，導致讀者和廣告業務的分流。

James Bennet, editor in chief of The Atlantic, one of the project’s initial publications, said that publishing pieces through instant articles means “losing control over the means of your distribution.” On the other hand, he said, “we’re trying to get out stories to as many people as possible, and at the same time, continue to build a core, loyal, enthusiastic audience.”

《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)總編輯詹姆斯·班內特(James Bennet)稱，使用即時文章功能釋出新聞報道，意味著“失去對發行渠道的控制權”。另一方面，他說，“我們也在一邊努力地讓更到人看到我們的報道，一邊繼續構築忠誠、熱情的核心受眾群。”

Facebook has a long history of changing the algorithm that determines what people see in their feeds. Zynga, the mobile gaming company, built its business on Facebook only to lose much of its traffic when the company changed the rules to make a user’s game activity less visible to friends.

長期以來，Facebook一直不斷更改用以決定使用者會在資訊流中看到哪些內容的演算法。Zynga是一家依賴Facebook的手機遊戲公司。Facebook更改演算法後，使用者的遊戲活動呈現給朋友的頻率降低了，這一舉動曾讓Zynga的流量大幅下降。

Last year, Facebook decided to downgrade the prominence of viral content like cat videos and promote “high quality” news content. A month ago, it changed course again to highlight personal posts by users’ friends and family.

去年，Facebook決定改變病毒式傳播內容（如貓咪視訊等）滿目皆是的局面，要推廣“高品質”的新聞內容。一個月前，它再次更改演算法，突出了使用者的朋友和家人釋出的私人帖子。

Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, was unapologetic about the shifting rules. In an interview at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters, he said that Facebook’s mission was to give its users what they wanted most.

Facebook首席產品官克里斯·考克斯(Chris Cox)並未因為演算法變來變去而感到抱歉。他在位於矽谷的Facebook總部接受採訪時表示，該公司的使命是為使用者提供他們最想要的東西。

“We see ourselves as first helping people connect with friends and family,” Mr. Cox said. “And second, helping people be informed about the world around them.”

“我們認為自己首先要幫助人們與朋友和家人相聯絡，”考克斯說。“其次才是幫助人們瞭解身邊的世界。”

The Atlantic is going into the Facebook deal with its eyes open, Mr. Bennett said, referring to the prospect that Facebook might be in a position to dictate less favorable terms if its importance to publishers increases.

班內特表示，《大西洋月刊》會在參與Facebook這個專案時保持警惕。他提到，在Facebook對出版商越來越重要時，它可能就會借勢強加不利於出版商的條款。

Five American organizations are initially participating in the instant articles project and will publish one item each on Wednesday in the new format: BuzzFeed, National Geographic, The Atlantic, NBC News and The Times.

最初將有五家美國機構參與即時文章專案，分別是BuzzFeed、《國家地理》(National Geographic)雜誌、《大西洋月刊》、NBC新聞和《紐約時報》。每週三，它們各自都將以新的格式釋出一篇文章。

Four European outlets are also joining: The Guardian, BBC News, Bild and Spiegel Online. Over time, Facebook expects to add other publishers to the project, which is officially a test, and expand it beyond the iPhone version.

還有四家歐洲媒體參與：《衛報》(The Guardian)、BBC新聞(BBC News)、《圖片報》(Bild)和明鏡線上(Spiegel Online)。Facebook也希望，其他出版商也能逐步加入該專案，並將其擴大到iPhone版本之外的裝置上。該專案的正式狀態還是測試。

For The Times, Facebook represents from 14 to 16 percent of its web traffic — a figure that has doubled in recent months, according to Mark Thompson, chief executive of The New York Times Company.

對時報來說，Facebook代表了14%到16%的網路流量。據紐約時報公司執行長馬克·湯普森(Mark Thompson)介紹，這個數字在最近幾個月翻了一番。

“This is a chance to expand and explore whether Facebook can become an even bigger part,” Mr. Thompson said. On balance, the company felt that it was an experiment worth taking part in, he added. Articles on Facebook will not initially count against the 10 free items people who are not Times subscribers are allowed to read each month.

湯普森說，“這是一個擴大和探索Facebook能不能為我們帶來更多流量的機會。”他接著表示，總的來說公司認為這個嘗試值得參加。起初，Facebook上的文章不會算在非時報訂閱使用者每月可以免費閱讀的10篇文章之內。

Facebook is offering publishers new tools to showcase their work, including interactive maps and the ability to post high-resolution photos that readers can zoom into and view from any angle.

Facebook正在向出版商提供展示內容的新工具，包括互動式地圖，以及釋出高清圖片的功能。這種照片讀者可以從任何角度檢視和放大。

“We’re not trying to position Facebook as a replacement for a newspaper, or a radio show that you love, or TV, at all,” Mr. Cox said. “We can be complementary.”

“我們完全不是在試圖將Facebook定位成報紙，或者你喜歡的廣播或電視節目的替代品，”考克斯說。“我們可以互補。”

Facebook clearly plays an important role as a gatekeeper to news. Nearly half of American Internet users said they got news about politics and government on Facebook during the course of a week, almost as many as got such news from local television, according to a survey last year by the Pew Research Center.

Facebook明顯扮演著新聞守門人的重要角色。從皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)去年的一項調查來看，近一半的美國網路使用者表示，一週之中會在Facebook上獲取有關政治和政府的新聞，幾乎與從地方電視臺上收看這類新聞的人一樣多。

Jonah Peretti, chief executive of BuzzFeed, said the instant articles format enhances the current approach of simply posting links.

BuzzFeed的執行長喬納·佩雷蒂(Jonah Peretti)表示，與目前只是釋出連結的方式相比，即時文章的格式是一種改進。

“The look and feel of this feels more like an app,” Mr. Peretti said in an interview. “I think that our bundle of content will get even more compelling when it loads faster.”

“這樣的外觀和操作感受更像是一款應用，”佩雷蒂在接受採訪時說。“我覺得，如果載入速度更快，我們輸出的內容也會更有吸引力。”

Declan Moore, chief media officer of the National Geographic Society, said the appeal of instant articles was the speed with which items, even those with complex video and interactive maps, loaded once a mobile Facebook user clicked on them. “The No. 1 thing on mobile is it has to be fast,” he said.

國家地理學會(National Geographic Society)的首席媒體官德克蘭·穆爾(Declan Moore)表示，即時文章的吸引力在於Facebook使用者在移動端點選之後，新聞的載入速度，哪怕是那些配有複雜視訊和互動式地圖的新聞。“在移動裝置上第一位的是必須要快，”他說。

National Geographic, which gets about 25 percent of its traffic from Facebook, is one of the most popular news outlets on the service, with 35 million fans. Mr. Moore said that National Geographic had a long history of putting its content on as many platforms as possible.

《國家地理》有大約25%的流量來自Facebook，也是該平臺上最受歡迎的新聞媒體之一，有3500萬名粉絲。穆爾表示，長期以來，國家地理一直都在把自己的內容，輸出到儘可能多的平臺上。

It intends to use Facebook as a way to encourage more people to sign up for membership, he said. Indeed, its first instant article, about bees, will include two ads encouraging people to join.

他說，《國家地理》打算把Facebook當成一個鼓勵更多人成為會員的途徑。實際上，它的第一篇即時文章，就將包含兩條鼓勵人們成為會員的廣告，那篇文章是關於蜜蜂的。

The New York Times has been cautious about the Facebook program, viewing it as an experiment that could help it learn more about subscribers and potential subscribers who are reading its articles on Facebook.

時報一直對Facebook的專案持謹慎態度，認為這種新嘗試會幫助Facebook更多地瞭解在其平臺上閱讀時報文章的訂戶和潛在訂戶。

Unlike many news publishers, The Times generates significant revenue from digital subscriptions as well as online advertising, and the company is keenly interested in finding new ways to convert casual visitors to paid subscribers.

與許多新聞出版商不同，時報的數字訂閱和線上廣告業務創造了大量營收，公司迫切希望找到新的方法，把偶爾訪問的讀者轉變為付費的訂戶。

The publishers said they did not plan to put more than a few articles a week into the new format, at least at first.

參加專案的出版商說，它們每週只會以這種新格式釋出幾篇文章，至少一開始是這樣。

Facebook says it wants to be a good partner to news organizations. It began discussing its idea with around 20 publishers last August and tried to address the concerns they raised.

Facebook表示，它想要成為新聞機構的好夥伴。該公司從去年8月開始與大約20家出版商討論這個想法，並試圖解決他們提出的關切。

“We’re starting with something that we think is going to work for some publishers for some articles and for some business models,” Mr. Cox said. “We’re not trying to go, like, suck in and devour everything.”

“我們一開始只打算做我們認為對某些出版商的某些文章和某些商業模式管用的東西，”考克斯說。“我們不打算一張嘴吞掉一切。”