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十问BuzzFeed国际业务副总裁

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    Scott Lamb joined BuzzFeed in 2007, when the company was more of a goofy user-generated link-sharing site than the viral powerhouse it is today. Now, the company, backed by $46.3 million in venture funding, employs 150 journalists who attract more than 130 million unique visitors per month. Last year, BuzzFeed began overseas expansion, a rarity for any digital-first publication that's not run by Arianna Huffington. BuzzFeed now publishes in French, Portuguese, and Spanish, and has a growing stable of correspondents and freelancers in countries like Russia and the Middle East, as well as newly opened regional offices in London and Sydney.

    Fortune spoke with Lamb, who last year became the company's VP of international, about how BuzzFeed's international growth was spurred by a gimmicky job application, why GIFs are the universal language, and how the French don't share cat photos.

    Why did BuzzFeed decide to expand internationally?

    The first office we opened was in London last year. We were expanding a lot and trying to figure out which areas to expand in. We had a really great applicant for a night editor who was based in London. It was one of those kinds of applications we get a fair amount of, as you'd expect, like "23 Reasons You Should Hire Me." But he (Luke Lewis) really blew it away, and that's not an easy thing to do.

    What made it so good?

    It was just a good, funny list. A lot of people just make 90s GIF jokes. The bar for those is pretty high at this point. But his was both idiosyncratic, and it really felt like his voice. It was really informative and told us a lot about who he was.

    So now you have correspondents in different countries, as well as international editions that you translate into a three different languages. How does that break down?

    We have foreign correspondents in Cairo, Instanbul, and Moscow and starting soon, a woman in Nairobi, and that is a very particular part of our growth. They're all reporting to Miriam Elder, who is the foreign editor. That came out of us wanting to do some international coverage. That was a bit of a separate push.

    [When we launch new offices], we start with a very small team, just three people, and we have them focus on the social shareable content. They make the lists and quizzes that people share at a really high volume. That's the first push and the natural place to start. It's core to what BuzzFeed does. If that is working -- if people in this new market are really sharing the content the same way that readers in the U.S. do -- then we expand and figure out which venues we want to push more in.

    Can you explain how you're working with Doulingo (an app for learning languages) to translate BuzzFeed content into different languages?

    We have a partnership with Duolingo where their users translate some of BuzzFeed's content for the French, Spanish, and Portuguese sites. But we also know translations will only take us so far. We have two editors in New York (who run our French- and Spanish-language sites) and freelance writers in all those countries.

    Buzzfeed is not a humor site per se, but a lot of what we do is based in humor. You really can't translate humor or jokes. They don't hit the same way in other languages, which is partly why we're so interested in hiring and developing local talent and letting them experiment and figure it out. BuzzFeed Brazil is going to be very different than it is in the U.S.

    斯科特•兰姆于2007年加入BuzzFeed。那时,这家公司只不过是一家怪癖的用户生成型链接分享网站而已。如今,它已成为了病毒式内容业界的巨擎。目前,这家公司斩获了4,630万美元的风投资金,聘请了150名记者,每月吸引的独立访问者超过了1.3亿。去年,BuzzFeed开始了海外扩张之旅。这对于其它任何数字刊物来说,除了阿里安娜•赫芬顿(阿里安娜•赫芬顿是新闻博客网站《赫芬顿邮报》的联合创始人——译者注)所运营的刊物之外,还真是件新鲜事。BuzzFeed目前的出版语言有法语、葡萄牙语和西班牙语,而且其俄罗斯和中东等地区的记者和自由作者在稳步增长,此外还在伦敦和悉尼新开设了区域办事处。

    《财富》杂志采访了于去年成为公司国际业务副总裁的兰姆,向他询问了巧妙的工作申请对BuzzFeed国际业务增长的促进作用,为什么说GIF(图形交换格式)是通用语言,以及,法国人为什么不分享猫的照片?

    为什么BuzzFeed决定向海外扩张?

    去年我们在伦敦开设了第一家办事处。当时我们在大举扩张,而且一直在思考该向哪些领域扩张。有一位非常不错的申请人申请了夜间编辑,而且他常驻伦敦。可以想象的是,这样的简历我们收到了很多,而且它们都像“你应该聘请我的23个原因”那样程式化。但是他(卢克•路易斯)确实让我们眼前一亮,要做到这一点并不容易。

    是什么让它如此之吸引人?

    它本来就是一个不错的、有趣的榜单。很多人的搞笑GIF格式图片都只局限于90年代。从这一点来看,对于这些人来说,门槛是非常高的。但是他的笑话不但很有特点,而且跟他本人的声音也很接近。里面的信息量很大,也让我们详细了解了他是什么样一个人。

    如今,公司在不同的国家都有记者,而且国际版是以三种语言发行的。如何进行分类呢?

    我们的外国记者遍布开罗、伊斯坦布尔,而且很快内罗毕也将有一位女记者加入我们。这是公司成长过程中非常特别的组成部分。他们都向外国编辑米瑞姆•埃尔德汇报。这是因为我们想做一些国际报道的缘故。可以算是另一种推送。

    【当我们设立新办事处时】,我们会先组建一个小团队,仅有三个人,而且我们让他们专心做可于社交媒体上共享的内容。他们会编出共享率非常高的榜单和小测试。这是第一次推送,也是开展业务的自然起点。这是BuzzFeed业务的核心。如果这个举措奏效了——如果在新市场中,人们分享内容的积极性跟美国读者是一样的——然后我们会扩张,思考我们应在哪一方面予以进一步推送。

    能解释一下,公司利用Doulingo(一种语言学习应用)将BuzzFeed内容翻译成不同的语言的做法吗?

    我们与Duolingo建立了合作关系,他们的用户会为法语、西班牙语和葡萄牙语网站而翻译BuzzFeed的部分内容。但是我们也知道,翻译的帮助是有限的。我们在纽约有两个编辑(他们负责运行我们的法语和西班牙语网站),而且在所有这些国家都有自由作者。

    Buzzfeed本身并不是一个搞笑网站,但是我们的很多业务都基于幽默。人们很难翻译幽默或笑话。其它语言的笑点不一样,这也是我们非常倾向于招聘和开发本土人才,并让他们进行尝试并了解相关业务的部分原因。BuzzFeed巴西与BuzzFeed美国将有很大的差别。


    Did it work?

    I think it has. Especially in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, it works much better than we thought it would. It seems like there's a real hunger for the model that BuzzFeed has in other places. There are not a lot of digitally native publications in a lot of these other media markets. They still have very powerful large newspapers and magazines that are trying to adapt to the web, but very few startups along the lines of BuzzFeed in these countries.

    What's gotten the most interest: the entertaining lists or the journalism-with-a-capital-J?

    We have been translating a much higher volume of lists. It has been interesting to see what does well and what doesn't. Stuff that is highly visual is much easier to translate, and irrespective of your culture, something like that tends to have a much bigger impact.

    A lot of the lists we do about aging, anything about the anxiety of getting older does really well across cultures, as well as things about parenting. When I saw that, I was like, "Of course." It shouldn't have come as a surprise. It's universal. Those posts are also very BuzzFeed-y. They use a lot of animated GIFs.

    So are GIFs the universal language?

    There is a bit of an international language on the web. GIFs are a part of it, especially if they're not all about the text at the bottom. They are a part of a shared culture. They're tied to Hollywood, but the sensibility of web culture is fairly universal because from its inception, it's global. YouTube is an incredibly global site. A hit like Gangnam Style was so big because it was easy to enjoy even without understanding the lyrics. That's true of web culture. There's an advantage to being a web-first publication and being able to speak that language.

    Any interesting cultural differences you've observed so far?

    In the U.K., the cultural difference is not so great, and there's not the same language barrier. But if you look at the posts the U.K. team is doing, they do have a different sensibility. BuzzFeed in the U.S. is very enthusiastic and largely positive. They have a bit of a "no haters" policy. Similar to the original Office, the sensibility in the U.K. is a little more satirical and biting. They have developed their own sensibility and have approached things in a different way.

    One of the greatest Internet clichés of all time is cats. In France, people might click on cute cuddly things, but they don't share them. They would much rather share something with a political or contrarian take, and that has affected the way the French editor thinks about translating and what kind of content to create herself.

    Have advertisers in international markets caught onto this whole native advertising and sponsored content trend, or are you going to be the trailblazers there?

    In a lot of places we're going to be trailblazers. The conversations about native advertising are similar to what we saw in the U.S. two to three years ago. In some places, it's not even at that point. The way the digital market is developing is very similar in Brazil and Germany to what we saw here, and this notion of social advertising is still fairly new.

    Will you build out local sales teams, or sell ads to American companies with global presence, such as your first deal with Intel in Latin America?

    Ideally for us it will be a mix in each market. A lot of our brands that we work with currently are also global brands. Other media companies like The Mail online and The Guardian have been expanding their global footprint a lot, and as brands are starting to think about unifying their global message, we'd like to continue working with them.

    这种做法行得通吗?

    我认为行得通。特别是法语、西班牙语和葡萄牙语,比我们预想的要好得多。似乎其它地区对BuzzFeed的模式非常感兴趣。在其它的媒体市场中,本土的数字刊物并不多见。这些地方仍拥有非常有影响力的大型报纸和杂志企业,它们正试图与网络接轨,而且在这些国家中,与BuzzFeed有着类似业务的初创企业少之又少。

    什么最具吸引力:娱乐榜单还是正统新闻?

    一直以来,我们所翻译的榜单的数量在不断增多。在这个过程中,弄清楚哪些能翻,哪些不能翻是一件很有意思的事情。那些很直观的东西翻译起来很容易,而且不受文化的限制,这类事物往往会拥有更大的影响力。

    我们做的很多榜单都与老龄化有关,一切与衰老焦虑有关的话题在不同文化中都很受欢迎,子女教育话题亦是如此。我看见这种话题的反应是,“那是当然。”这并不会让人感到惊讶,因为它是一个共同话题。这些帖子的分享率也非常高,它们使用了很多GIF动画。

    那么GIF是一种通用语言吗?

    网页里多少有一些国际通用语言。GIF是其中的一部分,特别是如果你不用看最底行的文字内容就能看懂的话。它们是共享文化的一部分。它们与好莱坞有着密切关系,但是网页文化给人的感受通常是共通的,因为从创建之初,网站就是全球性的。YouTube便是一个非常出色的国际性网站。《江南Style》这样的单曲之所以能变得如此火的原因在于,人们无需看懂歌词便能欣赏这首歌曲。网页文化便是这样。成为以网页为主要载体的刊物、并且能用这种语言进行表达有一定的优势。

    到目前为止,你都看到了哪些有意思的文化差异?

    在英国,文化差异并不明显,而且语言上也没有障碍。但是,如果你看看英国团队所发的帖子,他们的确会给人一种不同的感觉。BuzzFeed美国非常有激情,而且基本上比较乐观。他们奉行的是一种“非仇视”政策。BuzzFeed英国办事处的风格跟英剧《办公室》(Office)有点类似,更挖苦,更辛辣。他们已经形成了自己的一套风格,而且看待事物的角度也不同。

    一直以来,互联网中最为老生常谈的话题莫过于猫。在法国,人们倾向于点击可爱、逗乐的事物,但是他们并不会去分享这些东西。他们更情愿站在政治或相反的立场上来进行分享,而这也影响了法国编辑看待翻译的方式以及她创建内容的种类。

    国际市场的广告商能理解本土广告和赞助内容这个趋势吗,或者你们是否会成为这些市场中第一个吃螃蟹的人?

    在很多地方,我们都将成为第一个吃螃蟹的人。两三年前,美国市场也出现了类似的、有关本土广告的探讨。在一些地方,事情甚至还没进展到那一步。巴西、德国数字市场发展的方式会与我们在美国经历的发展方式类似,而社交广告这种概念仍然比较陌生。

    你会成立本土销售团队,或在全球各地向美国公司提供广告服务吗,例如拉美分公司与英特尔做的第一笔生意?

    就理想状态而言,每个市场都将是内外兼修。目前,我们合作的很多品牌都是国际性品牌。其它媒体公司,例如The Mail online和《卫报》(The Guardian)都已经大规模地拓展了自己的全球业务,而且众多品牌已开始思考统一全球广告用词,我们希望继续与它们保持合作。(财富中文网)

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