Twitter的出路 打造實時新聞討論區

Here, in 140 characters or less, is some free advice for Twitter’s next chief executive: Focus on live events. People never tire of gabbing about what’s going on right now. Twitter could be the best place for that. Do it fast.

在這裏，我要用不到140個字符，爲Twitter的下任首席執行官提供一些免費建議：側重在實時事件上。人永遠不會厭倦談論當下正在發生的事情。Twitter可能就是最適合進行這種談論的地方。速度要快。

That may sound a bit simplistic. The news that Dick Costolo will resign at the end of this month is sure to elicit a raft of doomsaying commentary about the company. Mr. Costolo, who since 2010 has been chief executive of Twitter, the service that lets people post 140-character messages, helped take the company public in 2013 and built it into a Silicon Valley force.

這聽起來可能有點過於簡單化了。迪克·科斯特羅(Dick Costolo)將在本月底辭職，這個消息一定會引發一些評論，說Twitter末日將至。科斯特洛自2010年以來一直是其首席執行官，在他任內，這個讓用戶發佈140字符信息的服務在2013年上市，並且成爲一支硅谷的主要力量。

Along the way, however, Twitter’s audience growth stalled, and its advertising business looks to be cooling. From afar, Twitter can sometimes look dysfunctional, especially compared with its robotically disciplined competitors in the social networking business, among them Facebook and Pinterest, whose fortunes all burn brighter.

然而Twitter用戶增長停滯，廣告業務看上去日益冷清。總體來看，Twitter有時候顯得運轉不靈，尤其不如它在社交網絡領域那些井井有條的競爭對手，比如Facebook和Pinterest，前景都比它好。

Among some investors and users, there is now a more straightforward and optimistic case to be made for the rebirth of Twitter under a new chief. That case involves focus. Twitter, as a service, is many things to many people at different times. It is one of the world’s best sources for news and for jokes about news, a playground for professional networking, and a haven for that most human of pastimes, idle gossip.

在一些投資者和用戶看來，Twitter要下一個首席執行官手中重生，目前有一個更直接的、更樂觀的原因。它關乎側重點。Twitter作爲一個服務，對很多人來說，在不同時間裏有很多不同的用途。它是世界上最好的新聞來源，以及有關新聞的笑話的來源，也是職業人脈活動的平臺，還是很多人消遣、閒聊的避風港。

But because the service offers so many uses, Twitter, as a company, has had trouble focusing on one purpose for which it should aim to excel. The lack of concentration has damaged its prospects with users, investors and advertisers. Choosing a single intent for Twitter — and working to make that a reality — ought to be the next chief’s main task.

但由於它提供了這麼多的用途，Twitter作爲一家公司，難以側重在一個它應該出類拔萃的目標上。缺乏側重點的問題已嚴重損害了它在用戶、投資者和廣告主眼中的形象。給Twitter選擇一個目標——並努力實現它——應該成爲其下一任首席執行官的主要任務。

Among the many uses that Twitter fulfills as a social network, there is one it is uniquely suited for: as a global gathering space for live events. When something goes down in the real world — when a plane crashes, an earthquake strikes, a basketball game gets crazy, or Kanye West hijacks an awards show — Twitter should aim to become the first and only app that people load up to comment on the news.

作爲一個社交網絡，Twitter擁有衆多用途，其中有一個用途，沒有誰比它更適合：實時事件的全球聚會空間。Twitter的目標應該是：當現實世界中發生什麼事情——飛機失事、地震來襲，一場籃球賽打得非常精彩，或者坎耶·韋斯特(Kanye West)搶了一場頒獎晚會的風頭——它是人們打開的第一個、也是唯一一個應用，來對新聞發表評論。

We live in an era dominated by time-shifted media. Just about everything worth watching can be watched later, when it’s more convenient. Even so, many of us find experiencing media communally to be a deeply meaningful experience — much more meaningful than watching it later. The desire for communal experiences explains why the Super Bowl is still a mega TV event, why ESPN has grown to become one of the most valuable media properties on the planet, and why HBO has turned Sunday nights into a marquee time for television.

我們生活的這個時代是由時移媒體主導的。一切值得看的東西都可以晚點再看，到方便的時候再看。即便如此，仍然有很多人覺得，共同在媒體上獲得體驗具有深刻的意義——遠遠超過晚一點再看。共同體驗的願望，也解釋了爲什麼超級碗仍然是一個大型電視活動，爲什麼ESPN變成了這個星球上最有價值的媒體之一，爲什麼HBO讓週日晚上成爲了一個電視狂歡節。

Twitter is well-positioned to take advantage of this desire. It is already among the best places online for consuming news and commentary about live events. It would be ridiculous for many fans of the N.B.A. or of “Scandal” to watch TV without having Twitter nearby. Yet that behavior still remains a niche. Twitter’s next chief could change that, adding a few simple features that might transform the service into a required accessory for experiencing anything live.

Twitter完全有條件去利用這種意願。在消費實時活動的新聞和評論方面，它已經是最好的網上服務之一。對於很多NBA球迷或《醜聞》(Scandal)的粉絲來看，看電視的時候不打開Twitter是很可笑的事。然而，這種做法尚未成爲主流。 Twitter的下一任首席執行官可能會改變這種狀況，添加幾個簡單的功能，讓Twitter成爲一個體驗實時事件必不可少的應用。

How should Twitter do that? Tech journalists and tech investors have spilled thousands of tweets over the years in attempts to account for the general unpopularity of Twitter. Though Twitter has brought out an accelerating set of improvements over the last year, it remains a punishingly difficult service to get accustomed to and use. Twitter may be alone among large social networks in turning away more people away than it attracts. About 300 million people use it every month, but more than a billion have signed up and quit.

Twitter應該如何做到這一點呢？數年來，科技界的記者和投資者已經發表了數以千計的推文，試圖解釋Twitter總體上不得人心的原因。儘管在過去一年裏，Twitter已經加快腳步，推出了一套改善措施，它迄今仍然是一個難以熟悉和使用的服務。Twitter可能是唯一一個吸引到的人比放棄它的人少的大型社交網絡。每個月約有3億人在使用它，但有逾10億註冊用戶不再使用它。

Last week, in an extremely detailed post on his blog, the venture capitalist Chris Sacca, one of the earliest and larger investors in Twitter and an inveterate fan of the service, outlined the most straightforward recipe for Twitter to own live events. Much of what he called for could be easily done now. For every live event that generates tweets — whether it be news or a sporting event or a TV show — Twitter could create a dedicated section of the app.

風險投資人克里斯·薩卡(Chris Sacca)是Twitter最早也較大的投資者之一，而且還是該服務的超級鐵桿粉絲。上週，他在博客上發表了一篇非常詳細的文章，對於Twitter如何直播實時事件，列出了一些簡單直接的方式。他建議的很多東西，現在都是可以輕鬆辦到的。對於每一個可以產出推文的實時事件——無論是新聞、體育賽事，還是電視節目——Twitter都可以在應用中創建一個專門的板塊。

Say the N.B.A. finals are heating up (which they are), and Twitter knows you like basketball. The app would send you a notification, tap to see the best tweets timed to the moment — with photos, videos, commentary and, of course, jokes all focused on that event. In other words, an instant community talking about something you are interested in, and one that you can’t help getting glued to, because it’s about something happening live.

假設NBA總決賽正在升溫（事實的確如此），而Twitter知道你喜歡籃球。該應用就會給你發一條通知，點擊就可以查看最好最應時的推文——有照片、視頻、評論，當然還有笑話，全都側重在那場籃球比賽上。換句話說，這是一個實時社區，談論你感興趣的東西，你對它無法自拔，因爲它講的是正在發生的事情。

Twitter does some of this now, but not nearly as well as it could. When the Golden State Warriors were playing the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 3 of the N.B.A. finals on Tuesday night, I saw people tweeting about the game when I loaded up the Twitter app. I’m not usually interested in basketball, but the tweets suggested this was an amazing game, so I stayed fixed to the screen.

這方面的工作Twitter目前也做了一些，但沒有它本應有的那麼好。本週二晚上，金州勇士隊(Golden State Warriors)和克利夫蘭騎士隊(Cleveland Cavaliers)進行NBA決賽的第3場比賽時，我打開Twitter應用，看到人們在發關於這場比賽的推文。我通常對籃球不怎麼感興趣，但推文裏說這場比賽打得很精彩，所以我決定看一看。

Twitter made the experience difficult. I couldn’t see a running score, I didn’t know whose accounts to follow for the best stuff about the game, and basketball tweets were mixed in with ordinary posts about everything else. Tapping on some N.B.A. hashtags created a more focused feed, but it was still a messy experience, with lots of repetition, and, worse, boring tweets. The only reason I stuck with it is because I’m already a Twitter addict. Most people would have bailed.

在Twitter上體驗這個事情很困難。我看不到實時的比分增加，我不知道該關注哪些帳號才能看到有關這場比賽的最精彩的內容，籃球方面的推文和所有其他一般性的推文混在在一起。點擊一些關於NBA的＃標籤，可以看到重點更集中的推文，但仍然相當混亂，有很多重複內容，而且更糟糕的是，很多無聊的內容。我堅持看下去唯一的理由就是我已經是個“Twitter迷”了。大多數人可能都會放棄。

Mr. Sacca offered many obvious improvements to Twitter’s problems with live viewing. Twitter, he suggested, should hire human editors to create curated feeds for special events. It should offer these specialized feeds to users who don’t check in to the service very much, without requiring them to log in or to follow certain accounts permanently.

對於Twitter在現場直播方面的問題，薩卡提供了很多明顯的改進建議。他建議Twitter僱傭編輯人員來規劃特別活動的推文。Twitter還應該提供一些專門的推文給那些不常登錄它的用戶，而不是總是要求他們登錄或關注某些帳戶。

“Done right, live Twitter will have sports scores and TV listings front and center and will be the place everyone visits first to see how the game is going or when the show starts,” he wrote.

“正確做法是，‘Twitter直播’會有比賽成績和電視節目表，放在靠前和中心位置，大家最先就會去這個地方，看看比賽進行得怎麼樣了，或者比賽什麼時候開始，”他寫道。

The best analog for Mr. Sacca’s vision is a digital-era version of television or radio — a global coming together in an otherwise lifeless, anodyne digital world. Twitter’s next chief could build such a thing. And it could be glorious.

薩卡的設想，就好比是打造一個數字時代的電視臺或電臺——在一個原本缺乏生機、平淡無奇的數字世界中，讓大家聚集一堂。 Twitter下一任首席執行官可以打造出這樣的東西。那將是非常出彩的。