Chirpify化网络谈笑为真金白银

John Patrick Pullen | 2012-10-29 11:22

There's no sign on the door, the shades are half drawn, and there's little art on the walls. Standing across the street from Chirpify's Portland, Ore. headquarters, you'd hardly think its first-floor office was even occupied. Its neighbors -- the upcoming cast of MTV's The Real World -- get all the attention. But Chirpify is there convincing users to tweet "buy," "donate," or "pay," to make real world transactions over Twitter.

Chirpify enables businesses and consumers to make in-stream transactions over social media. Using simple grammatical construction -- or what founder Chris Teso calls "conversational commerce" -- users can make purchases, donations, or transfers that circumvent the shopping cart, simply by typing out a properly ordered command like "Pay @jppullen $30 for lunch tab." Since the service's February 2012 launch, 10,000 members have signed up and more than 3,000 transactions have been made.

Over the past two months, the service has gathered momentum thanks, in part, to high-visibility users such as Green Day and Amanda Palmer using it to sell MP3s, T-shirts and the like. The company's goals go beyond celebritweets. "Our long-term vision is to de-centralize the commerce process across social networks," says Teso. Today, Chirpify announced the addition of its services to Instagram.

If you think of Twitter as a giant cocktail party, says David Wolman, author of The End of Money, Chirpify allows consumers to buy whatever is being discussed without even putting down their drinks. "If you know you want something, it shouldn't take more than a click, or typing the letters b-u-y," he says. "That's a pretty powerful idea, when it comes to the future of commerce."

Wolman's book explores the implications of our impending cash-free society, an apropos product to sell through Chirpify. Because of the serendipity of Twitter conversations, Wolman felt that he connected with readers with whom he wouldn't have found otherwise, but he also notes the Twitter sale was of the physical book. (Chirpify would likely influence e-book sales even more.)

More than a quick profit is at stake. CMOs have long labored to measure return-on-investment from social media. By reducing the steps to purchase something, Chirpify creates a direct correlation between individual social media posts and the amount of purchases they generate. "People interacted with [Chirpify tweets] at a rate that was much higher than even Twitter's promoted tweets because there's actual utility in the tweet," says Teso. "It wasn't just a redirection somewhere else."

For example, on Sept. 6, Green Day performed a new song at MTV's Video Music Awards. After the show, the band's Twitter account tweeted: "#VMA special! Love the new song? Get it now + all 3 new GD albums, deal ends tmrw Reply "buy" for $29.99 via @Chirpify." The purchase was delivered back as a direct message that says congratulations on the purchase, here's your download link. It is, in effect, a listing, payment, and fulfillment process, all wrapped up within two tweets.

Chirpify declined to release sales results of the Green Day sale, and the post has since been deleted, but the next day, Mediabistro analyzed the results. In the first four hours alone, there were 250 purchases, 1496 retweets and 596 favorites. That means the band pocketed more than $7,500 before midnight. And the next day, as the posts rippled across Twitter, they become exponentially more valuable than a paid Twitter-promoted ad.

But more valuable than money for Chirpify, the Green Day post generated users for the service. "Of the x-amount of people who replied "buy" for Green Day, 95 percent signed up and converted," says Teso. Similarly, indie rocker Amanda Palmer held a flash t-shirt sale where 97.1% of all people who replied "buy" signed up and completed the purchase. Before Amanda Palmer and Green Day, the site had been growing seven percent month over month. It's now up to 24%.

Needless to say, the company is on the hunt for more influencers to drive adoption. Similar to the way that Twitter grew on the backs of Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears, Chirpify is one rogue Radiohead album away from being a force in online commerce. With eight people on staff, Chirpify runs a lean operation, even though a first round of funding brought backing in April. Drawing from the likes of Voyager Capital's Geoff Entress, former Facebook (FB) general counsel Rudy Gadre, and HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes, the company raised $1.3 million. In addition to the platform's ease of use, investors were likely attracted by its revenue model.

Chirpify makes money in three different ways. First is a transaction fee — the company takes 4% from the recipient's end of each exchange. Second is by selling enterprise-level features, which cost either $29 or $99 per month, and include options like advanced reporting, fulfillment system integration, and branded registration pages. Chirpify's third revenue source comes through selling access to the service's API.

Currently, all sales are processed by Paypal (EBAY), so Chirpify loses 2.9% (plus .30 cents on each transaction) on each transaction, but the startup has recently agreed to work with a yet-unnamed bank to process transactions in the future. With the savings, Teso estimates Chirpify will be in the black in 2014.

As that happens, expect the nature of conversation to change greatly on Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks that Chirpify comes to support. The platform's potential will lead to more product shilling and corporate messaging, not to mention visible monetary exchanges between accounts. And as if the amount of followers a user had weren't already important enough, friend lists will have invisible price tags attached to them. Variables like activity, retweets, and Klout scores will influence a user's ability to sell. "One hurdle might be how often a merchant, author, or artist is tweeting about their item per sale," says Wolman. "How do you do so in a way that doesn't contaminate the perceived authenticity of the Twitter conversation?"

Another concern: hackers. "Fraud is something we take really seriously as we become a payments platform," says Teso, who is recruiting security experts in Chirpify's next round of hires. "While Twitter accounts do get hacked more often because people get phished, at the same rate it's really public and really easy to tell who you're dealing with and if something had gone wrong." While that may be true, it will provide no relief to users wrestling with banks to return money to their accounts.

But that likelihood didn't discourage online shopping, auctions, and deal-a-day sites, and it won't slow Chirpify's adoption, either. After all, with the move to Instagram, the service has one foot in Facebook's side door. A demonstrable success -- like Justin Bieber using a photo of an album's cover art to sell a digital download -- is all this startup needs to blow up overnight.

And that's why the firm's offices are so spartan. Employees didn't bother getting comfortable in their ground-level headquarters, because they knew the company would be moving to an 11th floor office next month. With 5,000 square feet, the new space will give Chirpify plenty of room to grow.

门上没有任何标记，窗帘半垂，墙上也没有多少装饰。——站在Chirpify位于美国俄勒冈州波特兰市的总部大楼所在的街道对面，这样的画面很难让人觉得，这栋大楼的底楼办公室里起码还是有人在的。反倒是它的左邻右舍——MTV频道真人秀《现实世界》（The Real World）即将启用的下一班人马——吸引了外界投来的全部目光。不过，Chirpify就是在这里，说服它的用户们发布“购买”、“捐赠”、“支付”等推文，利用Twitter完成现实世界当中的金钱交易的。

Chirpify为企业及消费者创造了在特定的社交媒体上进行交易的可能。用户只要用键盘输入“支付@jppullen 30美元的餐费”这样合理排序的命令句，便可借助简单的语法结构——Chirpify创始人克里斯•特索称之为“交谈式商务”（conversational commerce）——完成购买、捐赠、支付等一系列围绕着购物车展开的动作。这项服务自2012年2月上线以来，注册用户人数已达10,000名，完成交易逾3,000次。

过去的两个月里，这项服务的增长势头十分迅猛，一定程度上要归功于那些富有远见的用户，如利用它销售音乐MP3、T恤衫及其他同类商品的绿日乐队（Green Day）和阿曼达•帕摩尔等。这家公司的目标并不仅限于Twitter上的名人用户。特索称：“我们的长期愿景，是要实现社交网络商务流程的去中心化。”就在今天，Chirpify又发布公告称，他们将为图片分享服务Instagram带来同样的服务。

《货币的终结》（The End of Money）一书的作者戴维•沃尔曼表示，如果将Twitter看作是一场规模庞大的鸡尾酒舞会，那么Chirpify就是要让消费者连手中的酒水都不必放下，便可以完成对交谈中所涉任意一款商品的购买。“如果你清楚自己想要哪种商品，你要做的不过是点一下鼠标，或是用键盘输入‘购买’二字，”他说。“就未来的商务形态而言，这是个十分了不起的创意。”

沃尔曼的著作探讨了我们即将迎来的无现金（cash-free）社会所带来的影响，正是一款适合通过Chirpify销售的产品。由于Twitter交谈拥有可为用户带来意外收获的特性，沃尔曼察觉到，这在他与他的读者之间，在他与他在别处无从觅得的一群人之间，架起了一道桥梁；但他也同时注意到，他在Twitter上销售的商品是本实体书。（Chirpify对电子图书销售的影响应该会更大。）

但它的重大意义并不仅仅在于迅速获利。估算社交媒体投资回报率的问题素来让CMO（首席营销官）们感到棘手。Chirpify通过精简整个购买流程所包含的环节，将发布在社交媒体上的一条条信息和它们所带来的购买量直接联系了起来。“人们与这些（Chirpify推文）的互动速度甚至超过了Twitter官方向用户推送的特定推文，因为这些Chirpify推文确实能够发挥出实际的效用。”

举个例子来说，9月6日那天，绿日乐队在MTV电视台主办的音乐电视大奖（VMA）颁奖典礼上演唱了一首新歌。演出结束后，这支乐队的Twitter账号发布了下面这样一条推文：“#VMA 特价！喜欢这首新歌吗？欢迎购买新曲＋3张绿日新专辑，促销于明日结束。用@Chirpify 回复‘购买’，只需29.99美元。”回复购买者则会收到一封私信回复，内容为恭喜购买成功、下载链接在此云云。实际上相当于只用了两条推文，就完成了听歌、付款、成交这一整套流程。

Chirpify拒绝公布绿日乐队此次特价促销的销量结果，并且，这条推文一到期就被删除了。不过就在次日，媒体资讯网站Mediabistro对促销结果给出了分析。促销开始后的头四个小时里，该条推文收到购买回复250次，被转发1,496次，收藏596次。这意味着还不到午夜12点，就已有7,500美元进了这支乐队的口袋。到活动第二天时，由于相关推文在Twitter上一次又一次地扩散传播，它们的价值已经达到了Twitter官方推送的付费广告的几何倍数级。

不过对于Chirpify而言，比收入更有价值的是，绿日乐队的这条推文为他们的服务带来了新的用户。特索称：“在绿日乐队的推文下回复‘购买’字样的全体Twitter用户中（具体人数保密），95%注册了我们的服务，成为了我们的用户。”同样，独立摇滚人阿曼达•帕摩尔也办过一次时间很短的T恤促销，回复“购买”者有97.1%注册了Chirpify并完成了这次购买。在阿曼达•帕摩尔和绿日乐队的这两次活动发布之前，Chirpify的注册用户人数一直保持着月增7%的成长率。如今，这一数字已经上升到了24%。

不用说，Chirpify公司正在寻找更多有影响力的合作伙伴，以推动他们的改造进程。就像Twitter借助艾什顿•库彻和布兰妮•斯皮尔斯之力实现了强劲增长一样，Chirpify也只需要随便一张Radiohead乐队的专辑，便能成为电子商务生力军中的一员。该公司的企业结构十分精简，全体人员加起来只有8人，尽管Chirpify在4月时已经获得了第一轮投资资金的支持。投资者中不乏投资公司Voyager Capital的杰夫•恩特里斯、Facebook前任法律顾问鲁迪•加德雷、社交媒体管理系统公司HootSuite的CEO瑞恩•高斯林这样的业内人士，募得的投资金额总计达130万美元。除了平台本身的易操作性外，吸引投资者的可能还有Chirpify的盈利模式。

Chirpify通过三种方式营利。其一为交易手续费——公司会在每笔交易结束后，向收款方收取交易金额的4%。其二为付费使用的企业级服务，分为月付29美元和月付99美元两种服务套餐，可供选择的套餐内容有专业报告、成交系统集成、为品牌定制的注册页面等。第三种收入来源则是付费才可使用的Chirpify服务API。

目前，他们所有的交易都通过贝宝（Paypal）系统完成，因此，Chirpify在每笔交易中都要损失交易金额的2.9%（外加0.30美分）。不过这家初创企业最近已经与一家尚未透露名字的银行达成了合作协议，未来将通过这家银行处理他们的所有交易。算上由此可省下的相关开支，特索预计，Chirpify在2014年就可以实现盈利。

如此一来，相信在Twitter、Instagram以及Chirpify今后将会支持的其他社交网络上，网络对话的性质将会发生巨大的改变。Chirpify平台所具备的潜力将会催生更多的商品推销和企业通信，更不用说各账号之间显而易见的金钱交易。而且，Twitter用户的粉丝人数在以前似乎并没有引起足够的重视，而在今后，用户的好友名单将被贴上隐性的价格标签。诸如活跃度、转发数、Klout评分（一种用来计算用户账号社区影响力的评分系统）等参数，也会影响用户账号的营销力大小。“其中可能的一大障碍是，这位经销商、作家或者艺术家在每次销售活动中推送商品的推文频度有多少，”沃尔曼说。“而你又要怎么做，才不会导致这种频度下的Twitter交谈在用户眼中的真实性大打折扣？”

另一项让人担忧的问题则是黑客。“我们对于诈欺的问题非常重视，因为我们做的是一个支付平台，”特索说，他正在为Chirpify的下一轮聘用计划招募安全专家。“一方面，由于钓鱼行为的出现，Twitter账号遭黑客盗取的问题的确变得越来越常见；而另一方面，用户交易的对象及进展情况，也同样变得非常公开，非常透明。”尽管事实可能确实如此，但对疲于为退款问题与银行方面斗智斗勇的用户来说，这却无法带来丝毫的慰籍。

不过这种可能性并不会妨碍在线购物、拍卖以及团购网站的发展，也不会延宕Chirpify的改造进程。毕竟，只要能够成功在Instagram上落脚，就等于Chirpify已有一只脚踏进了Facebook的侧门。一次可以起到示范作用的成功——就像贾斯汀•比伯用一张专辑封面的照片来卖数字音乐下载一样——便是这家初创企业实现一夜走红所需要的全部条件。

而这就是这家企业的办公室会如此简陋的原因所在。它的员工们并不需要费心去适应现在位于一楼的总部，因为他们知道，公司在下个月就会迁入一间高居十一楼的办公室。届时，那处占地5,000平方英尺的新场所将会带给Chirpify更大的成长空间。

译者：薄锦

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