The most pressing strategic question in newsrooms is how to allocate resources between building a destination and creating journalism that is distributed. Business models dictate how organizations approach the dilemma. Publishers with an advertising-based model view social platforms as perhaps the only way to become sustainable. This “Hail Mary” strategy of publishing as much as possible onto third party platforms reflects the difficult state of the mobile advertising market for most publishers. Those with subscription strategies are very different. They see social platforms as a way to recruit new readers and turn them into paying subscribers, and are therefore more strategic in their posting patterns.
新聞室最迫切的問題，在於建立新聞發佈終端（destination）和創造分散式新聞的同時，能否有效的分配資源。商業模式往往也決定了組織的困境，出版商基於廣告模式，視社交平台為長期可發展的出路，如此的鋌而走險，盡可能仰賴第三方平台，也反映出行動廣告市場的現況，這和訂閱策略是非常不同的。出版商將社交平台視為招募新的讀者的方式，並希望將讀者轉變成付費訂閱者，這完全是策略性的考量。
“One of the biggest challenges was really figuring out how this fits in for [us] as a subscription business,” one newspaper social media manager told us. “A lot of platforms just don’t support subscription models.” In our conversations with platform representatives, we heard either anecdotally or directly that most of the major platforms were considering adding features that will drive readers toward subscribing to news organizations.
「最大挑戰之一，是搞清楚訂閱服務的模式適不適合我們？」一個報社負責社交媒體業務的主管告訴我們。「很多的平台不支援訂閱模式」。在與平台代表對話中，我們打探到最主要的幾家平台業者，正考慮推出鼓勵讀者向新聞組織訂閱的服務。
As one product developer from a technology company put it: “We do see that the ad market is not that great right now for publishers, so subscription might be something we have to look at.”
一位科技公司產品開發人員說：「我們看到廣告市場對出版商的不友善，所以訂閱機制可能是未來我們得努力的方向。」
“We have accepted that everything will be distributed on platforms, and that our control over that is gone,” said an executive in charge of innovation at a large metro news organization. “And what we are left with is thinking how we [can] monetize that relationship with our readers elsewhere.”
「我們已經接受，未來一切都將發佈到平台上，我們也將失去控制權，」一個在大型都會媒體任職的行政主管這麼說。「我們還剩下什麼？我們該如何和讀者在其它地方保持獲利關係。」
This approach contrasts markedly with that of New York Times President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Thompson. Speaking at the Tow Center’s Journalism and Silicon Valley conference in November, Thompson said: “We have to do both [destination and distribution],” adding: “I think we’re moving back to a world of destinations. Facebook wants to be a destination. The issue, and it’s a very interesting point for journalism, is whether you’ve got the guts and the confidence to say we’re going to be a destination ourselves.”
這樣的想法，讓人想到紐約時報總裁兼執行長Mark Thompson。在 11月矽谷和數位新聞中心的會議上，Thompson說：「新聞終端和分散，我們兩者都要兼顧」又補充道：「我認為我們走到了這樣的地步，臉書想做為一個發佈的終端，這對新聞業是很有趣的，取決你是否有勇氣和信心，相信我們要做自己的發佈終端。」
Our data on Facebook Instant Articles, which opened up to all publishers last April, offer a fascinating insight into how publishers think about evaluating the balance between destination and distribution. The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, with its digital advertising model, went “all in” on Instant Articles, a completely different approach from that of the subscription-based Wall Street Journal. The New York Times, as Thompson promised, is perched on the cyber fence, posting almost equal numbers of links back to its own site and Instant Articles, with links back to the Times’ own properties slightly ahead.
去年 4 月，臉書即時新聞向所有出版商開放，提供出版商評估新聞終端和分散參考的依據。Jeff Bezos的華盛頓郵報，靠著其特有數位廣告模式，全都投注在臉書即時新聞上，這和仰賴訂閱模式的華爾街日報有很大的不同。而紐約時報，就像Thompson所說的，像是站在網路圍牆外，透過連結回到自己的網站和臉書即時新聞相比，並沒有差距太多。
Technology companies are in fierce competition with each other, and the publishers that provide material for them are either, as the local news manager quoted earlier put it, “collateral damage,” or beneficiaries of this competition. The clash between Google, Facebook, and Apple, for instance, centers on control of mobile advertising and commerce. Both Apple and Facebook created news products to encourage journalism posted natively to their platforms, while Google has championed the idea of open links and searchable content.
科技公司彼此的競爭激烈，出版商也難以悻存，如同先前一位地方新聞經理說的，誰勝誰敗還很難說。谷歌、臉書和蘋果之間的衝突，則集中在行動廣告和商業的控制權。蘋果和臉書創建新聞產品，鼓勵新聞業以原生方式發佈到他們的平台，同時，谷歌則提倡開放式連結和可搜索內容的主張。
This graph shows articles posted “natively” to platforms where you have to be logged in to the platform to view content, versus links to articles that can be viewed on any site (what we call a “networked destination”).
平台上即可讀取原生內容，和透過連結返回原始出版商網站兩者之間的比較。
Of the total number of articles we tracked over the course of a week, most were posted natively to platforms such as Apple News, Facebook Instant Articles, Instagram, orSnapchat. Given that at the beginning of 2015, Instant Articles, Apple News, and Snapchat Discover did not exist, this gives an indication of how rapid adoption has been.
我們追蹤了一星期的文章，多半都發到蘋果新聞、臉書即時新聞、Instagram和Snapchat。但別忘了，在 2015 年初，臉書即時新聞、蘋果新聞和Snapchat Discover還不存在。出版商採用速度之快，是始料未及的。
The bad news is that so far there are no clear returns in terms of increased advertising revenue as a result of placing more articles on social platforms. Some publishers reported small increases, while others saw no change at all; we will have to wait for more data before a clearer picture emerges.
壞消息是，目前仍無法證明，社交平台文章數量和廣告收入會呈正比。一些出版商的情況是略有增加，其他則沒有變化。在有一個清晰輪廓前，我們需要更多的資料。
Whatever the underlying business models, our interviewees expressed almost universal concern in two areas: data and brand. Despite efforts by platforms to return more data to publishers, there is still a great deal of frustration that the platforms cannot give publishers enough insight into how their journalism is being read.
無論商業模式如何發展，我們的受訪者表示，平台和出版商有個普遍關注的問題︰資料和品牌。儘管平台努力將更多的資料回饋給出版商，仍有許多平台無法給出版商足夠資料，幫助他們了解新聞如何被讀取。
“The real problem that we have [with readers and viewers on social platforms] is that we just cannot extract enough information about user behavior at every point to make good interventions and ultimately build better news products,” a data scientist at an international news organization told us while discussing distributed articles.
「真正的問題是，即便我們擁有社交平台的讀者和觀眾，但我們無法獲取足夠的使用者的資訊，並創建更好的新聞產品。」在討論分散式的文章時，一名國際新聞組織的資料科學家告訴我們。
Owning the relationship with the reader or viewer is another way of thinking about “distribution versus destination.” Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages, for instance, was created expressly with the intention of giving publishers faster loading pages and allowing them to retain data and traffic from user visits. However, when AMPs are viewed as part of the “carousel” of search results, Google has greater control over the overall user experience, with an algorithm deciding which pages appear next to each other.
與讀者或觀眾的關係，是另一種思考「新聞分散與終端」的方式。谷歌的加速移動網頁（Accelerated Mobile Pages），讓出版商能更快的載入頁面，並且允許保留使用者的資料和流量。然而，當加速移動網頁被視為搜尋結果的一部分，谷歌即擁有整體使用者經驗，能藉由演算法決定哪些頁面該出現。
The question of whether a consumer of journalism “belongs” to the platform that hosts content or to the organization that produces it goes to the very heart of how platforms are becoming more than neutral vectors for links and traffic. If, for instance, Facebook is deciding via its newsfeed algorithm that a reader will see more video through her newsfeed and, also via algorithm, which stories or videos to recommend next, this is an active relationship with the user’s habits and behavior. Facebook and Snapchat both create a publishing environment for display advertising and are directly involved with ad transactions.
問題在於新聞消費者是「屬於」承載內容的平台，還是生產新聞的組織，這引發了「平台不只是提供連結和流量」的討論。如果，臉書決定通過其新聞演算法，讀者將會看到更多的影音，也會有更多文章和影音被推薦，這是與使用者習慣和行為互動的結果。Facebook 和 Snapchat 都為線上廣告建立一個出版環境，也直接參與了廣告交易。
At the Journalism and Silicon Valley Tow Center conference, we asked Facebook Product Manager for Instant Articles Michael Reckhow about his perspective on the dynamics of this relationship. “We think of our readers as the customers that we want to serve with great news, great experience,” he said. “And then with publishers, we also treat them as customers, and that’s…the language that we use because I think that explains the role that we play.”
在會議上，我們詢問臉書即時新聞產品經理Michael Reckhow 對這種關係的看法。「讀者就像我們的顧客一樣，我們想要提供好新聞和體驗」他說。「對於出版商，我們也把他們當做客戶，這就是我們所扮演的角色。」
Mark Zuckerberg is adamant that Facebook is just a technology company and not a publisher, yet this is at odds with the idea that the company seeks to attract, retain and own a readership. It was also recently disclosed that a number of publishers were paid to produce more live video specifically to promote Facebook Live.
Mark Zuckerberg始終認為臉書只是一個科技公司，並不是一個出版商，但和臉書力求吸引、維持和讀者關係的主張大相逕庭。最近還傳出，一群出版商在收錢之後生產更多的現場影音，以便推動 Facebook 直播服務。
This deal led to the famous exploding watermelon on BuzzFeed, which was watched by 800,000 people one rather slow Friday afternoon, and even to The New York Times putting an editorial meeting on Facebook Live.
這樣的交易也促成了BuzzFeed上的「西瓜爆炸」影片爆紅，在一個星期五的下午有近 80 萬人觀看。類似情況還有，紐約時報也得透過臉書直播編輯會議。
We came across other examples of incentivized partnerships. Some were transparent in nature, such as Google’s partnership with the Times to distribute a million Google Cardboard 3D viewers as part of a Virtual Reality experiment. Others were less significant, such as 360-degree cameras handed to publishers to help them test Facebook’s new panoramic video offering.
也有一些因為其他的誘因而成為夥伴關係的例子。像是谷歌和紐約時報合作，將 100 萬名3D體驗觀眾，作為虛擬實境實驗的一部分。其他則沒那麼重要，像是將360 度攝影機交給出版商，以協助測試臉書的全景影像服務。
Publishers do not always disclose that Facebook Live broadcasts, for instance, are being paid for in part by Facebook, which raises interesting ethical issues about transparency and more broadly about whether our news ecosystem is being shaped by more than user behaviour. It is clear from looking at what types of material news organizations create on Facebook that not all news outlets are as varied—or as incentivized—as others.
出版商不會直接揭露臉書直播的意圖，尤其臉書負擔部份費用的例子。這不僅是透明度的問題，也和新聞生態不僅是受到使用者行為影響的倫理問題有關。很明顯的，我們可以從新聞組織發佈到臉書的新聞類型發現，並不是所有的新聞類型都是多樣的，或對其他人有誘因的。
This graph shows the types of content published by news organizations on Facebook
新聞組織在臉書發佈的內容類型。
Some interviewees from news organizations were skeptical that social media platforms are “just technology companies.”
一些新聞組織的受訪者對於「社交媒體平台只是科技公司」的說法，感到懷疑。
“They are publishers, they control the audience in many ways. They’re the gateway to the audience and they determine what they will allow and what they won’t,” one senior executive at a successful publisher told us. “It’s their world. I see them as a partner. We call them a frenemy, and I don’t even know if that’s totally accurate.”
「他們是出版商，在各方面控制閱聽人，他們是通往閱聽人的管道，決定權都在他們手上」，一位成功的出版商主管告訴我們。「這是他們的世界。我視他們為合作夥伴，但也是我們的敵人，而我甚至不知道這是否完全準確。」
In the past year, we have seen platforms move beyond hosting material into shaping more aspects of news production and distribution. This includes some functions such as format choice, design parameters, ad sales, and audience data collection which were once at the center of a publisher’s business model.
在過去的一年，我們看到平台不僅管理這些線上資源，也插手新聞生產和分配。這包括一些格式選擇、參數的設計、廣告銷售，和閱聽眾的資料蒐集，這些都是過去出版商的商業模式可見的。
In the new closeness between news organizations and technology companies, the questions who is the publisher? and who owns the audience? are central. At the moment, this debate is viewed mostly in terms of how it affects business models and financial outcomes for commercial news organizations. However, there is a set of concerns and questions relating to the broader public sphere that have gained little visibility and had few resources directed to them by either news organizations or technology and platform companies.
新聞組織和科技公司之間的問題是：誰是出版者？誰又擁有閱聽人？這樣的爭論，也許能幫助我們了解，新聞組織的商業模式和財務是如何被影響的。然而，新聞組織、科技和平台公司對公共領域的視而不見，無法提供相對資源也是待解的難題。
Platforms now must consider significant issues ranging from broad questions of free speech to how to preserve and maintain the integrity of archived material. We have heard growing concern over the opacity of algorithmic and editorial systems that distribute a much more personalized version of news and information, but we do not yet have the right framework to regulate such systems.
從言論自由，到如何維護既有材料的完整性，都是平台現在必須考慮的問題，其它還包括演算法的不透明性，和編輯系統強調新聞和資訊的個人化所帶來的問題。但我們還沒有一個明確的架構，來解決這些問題。
The rights of users and citizens who post news material themselves and the ethical use of new tools that expose the public to potential risk, such as live video streams, are still to be worked out. Ultimately, even providing a clear view of the relationship between platform companies and publishers is a matter of public interest.
使用者和公民發佈自己的新聞材料和新科技的使用倫理，如線上影音直播，這些都仍有討論的空間。最終則是讓平台和出版商之間的關係一目了然，才能符合公共利益。
The relationships between platforms and publishers are complex, fast-changing, and vital to the future of journalism. Our research so far has mapped the territory of this emerging field. Next, we plan to dig deeper to explore the implications for democracy and the public sphere.
平台和出版商之間的關係是複雜、瞬息萬變的，並且對新聞業的未來至關重要。我們的研究目前已描繪出這一新興領域。下一步，我們計畫深入探討對民主與公共領域的影響。
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作者：Emily Bell
編譯：朱弘川
原文網址： http://www.cjr.org/tow_center/platforms_and_publishers_new_research_from_the_tow_center.php
