Tom在线退市预示中国门户网进入新一轮淘汰和调整阶段

 

作者：比尔   编辑：先见策划和知识银行和戴维评论

 

先见策划http://foresight.blog.sohu.com, http://foresight.spaces.live.com,

知识银行http://knowledgebank.blog.163.com, http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com,

戴维评论http://davidsun.chinavalue.net

 

据和讯IT消息 9月3日消息，按照私有化计划，TOM在线9:30从香港创业板退市，并将于美国时间9月6日从纳斯达克退市。

Tom在线是中国门户网中一个非常奇特的网站，曾经Tom在线赢利能力排名中国门户网前三位。最大赢利来源就是以网络短信为主的电信增值业务，这也是Tom在线最大特色。

然而成也萧何败也萧何，由于中国网络电信政策调整，短信竞争加剧，Tom在线电信增值业务业绩大幅下滑，今年第二季度财报显示，TOM在线净亏损956万美元。这是Tom在线决定退市最主要原因。

私有化只是Tom集团一种自我解释，Tom在线要起死回升重新崛起，用私有化的策略显然无济于事。因为Tom集团本身是私营的股份制，不是国有企业，采用私有股份改造来刺激企业发展不会有多少效果。

事实上中国的门户网站早在三、五年前就暴露出了恶性竞争局面，像Tom在线那样网站经营收益难以维持网站发展的现象还有很多，如雅虎中国；中华网；网易的收入基本上来源于游戏，网易门户收入很少；腾讯的收入也主要来源聊天室增值业务和网络游戏，腾讯的门户收入很少。

虽然今天新浪和搜狐网的访问量和广告收入相当客观，但是也存在着许多问题和危机。

中国的门户网是中国互联网产业的开创者，门户网的为中国互联网发展起到了积极作用。然而，中国的门户网从一开始就存在着许多先天的不足，如：用各种技术和人为手段来制造虚假点击率来换取风险投资和广告；用强制收费手段来增加短信收入；大规模复制和抄袭他人文章等等。从而造成了门户失去了自己的创新和创作能力。

从本质上说门户网是一个大型的综合性网络媒体，媒体最重要的竞争力是特色内容的创作和创新。然而，直到今天，我们很难从一个门户网上看到一篇或则几篇自己独创的有特色有深度的文章和内容，所有门户网的文章似乎与其他网站文章都是相同和类似的。没有自己的独创特色，何来媒体的生命力？

虽然新浪网和搜狐网已经在中国互联网产业建立了自己的地位和用户群体，然而，我们不知道新浪和搜狐有多少文章内容是付费的？是高质量的？新浪和搜狐的广告收入发展不错，然而，对投放广告企业而言又有多少广告效果，有多少访问新浪和搜狐的人会去看广告？

当然，中国门户网的经营者也早已意识到了许多问题，他们已经在经营多方面进行了调整和改造，比如新浪和搜狐开设了博客空间，从而他们带来了巨大的访问量和点击率。雅虎中国将重心放到娱乐内容等等。

巨大的博客群体确实给新浪和搜弧网带来了巨大人气，网易的博客也在积极追赶，但是，如果门户网不能将博客群体的利益与网站利益集合起来，这种博客群体的人气并不会带来很大经济收入。

门户网如果不能创建自己独特的内容优势，门户网的生存发展必然会存在危机，Tom在线的退市只是一个信号，是门户网新一轮优胜劣汰的开始。

 

先见策划http://foresight.blog.sohu.com, http://foresight.spaces.live.com,

知识银行http://knowledgebank.blog.163.com, http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com,

戴维评论http://davidsun.chinavalue.net

Foresight89@yahoo.com.cn

2007年9月3日星期一 

动漫大跃进：“看得见的手”与“看不见的手”

《财经》记者 杨彬彬/文《财经》网络版

中国推动动漫产业的决心，很容易让人联想起当年全国高科技园区一哄而上的情形

 

　　【网络版专稿/《财经》杂志记者 杨彬彬】上月底，湖南动漫三强宏梦、三辰、金鹰有望合并的消息引起业内人士和资本界的广泛兴趣。这桩整合由宏梦卡通的投资方红杉资本一手策动，不过，半个多月过去，整合仍然没有揭盅的迹象。原因是“有关领导”尚未正式表态。
　　中国对动漫产业的热情从未像现在这样膨胀过。各级政府在大力投入，资本也正跃跃欲试，甚至各地高校也在纷纷增开动漫专业。在多股推动力中，以政府因素最为显著。
　　2006年4月，国务院转发了财政部、文化部等十部委《关于推动我国动漫产业发展的若干意见》（以下简称“若干意见”）。随后，“动漫”逐渐成为各地经济主政者口中的时髦名词。据国家工商总局统计，2002年到2006年，全国动漫制作机构从120多家猛增到5400多家，20多个省、市、自治区将发展动漫列入十一五规划，广州当时分管动漫产业的副书记方旋更提出：“要像抓汽车产业一样抓动漫产业！”
　　中国动漫产业的现状用两个数字可以形容：2004年，全球动漫及衍生品市场高达5000亿美元，而中国直到2006年不过区区200亿人民币。这种差距后面隐含的市场潜力令投资产心动不已，政府也希望发展动漫产业来更有效地影响下一代。中国推动动漫产业的迫切和决心很可理解，但地方的超常热度很容易让人联想起当年全国高科技园区一哄而上的情形。事实无情，尽管当年全国上下一派高科技园区你争我赶的盛景，最终稍成气候的只有中关村一地。
　　文化部“扶持动漫产业发展部际联席会议专家委员会”成员、广州《漫友》杂志社社长金诚称，中国的动漫产业要“赶日超美”，一定要大干快上，小打小闹不行。但他也承认，目前，中国动漫产业还处在初级阶段，各地在发展时都带有一定的盲目性，一些不够条件的项目也在上马，“走一些弯路、交一些学费、浪费一些资源，恐怕在所难免。”
　　据统计，中国目前有50多个城市宣称要建设中国的“动漫之都”或“国家动漫产业基地”，其中已经挂牌的接近30个。除了深圳、长沙、杭州、苏州这些原本就有动漫发展基础的城市外，还有河北石家庄、广西柳州、辽宁阜新这些传统意义上的二三线城市。仅江苏一地，就有苏州、无锡、常州三个“国家级动漫基地”。这些林林总总的“国家级基地”，分别由文化部、教育部、信息产业部、广电总局、新闻出版总署等六大部委发牌，各有神通、互不相让。
　　与之形成鲜明对比的，则是全国5400多家动漫制作机构，自主制作能力超过10部、10000分钟的，目前只有两家（三辰和宏梦），绝大部分制作机构的生产数量只能以个位计算，时长只有一两千，甚至几百、几十分钟；有盈利能力的，更是不超过1%。
   由于缺少清晰的产业思路和资源配套。目前，这些“动漫基地”在抢夺企业资源时，最常用的杀手锏仍然是“给房”、“给地”、“给钱”这三板斧，这和若干年前全国一哄而上大搞“汽车产业基地”的情况如出一辙。以刚刚出台的江苏省常州市政府“关于鼓励和扶持动漫产业发展的若干规定”为例（常政发〔2007〕115号），入驻动画基地企业租用的开发、生产和办公用房第一年可以房租全免，第二年、第三年房租减半，符合条件的甚至可以三年房租全免。此外，各地还普遍通过财政拨款的形式，设立从数千万到数亿元不等的专项资金，用于资助原创动画制作和播出，视播出平台的不同，中央台和地方电视台分别给予3000元/分钟和400元/分钟的播出奖励，约占制作成本的1/3。
    不过，这些速效措施很容易被其他地方模仿和赶超。国内知名的新锐漫画家姚非拉，刚刚把自己的工作室从北京石景山动漫基地搬到杭州动漫基地，原因很简单，当地的房租更便宜，资金支持也更有力。同为文化部专家组成员的北京电影学院动画学院院长孙立军最近一年多来也是忙得团团转，各地动漫基地上门来寻求合作的人士络绎不绝。杭州、大连、重庆、河北等地都希望能和动画学院建立合作，只要孙输出人才和创意即可，不需要出一分钱，孙立军称，“老动漫”终于第一次尝到了“从乞丐到国王”的滋味。
    金诚认为，这股一哄而上的“动漫园区”热潮，最直接的后果，就是助长了一些企业的短期行为和投机心理。它们乐于在国内几个动漫基地分别注册，甚至在同一个城市的几个园区分别注册，盲目扩张，以套取“政策利差”。但实际上，作为创意工业的动漫业，需要和城市主流经济一起跳动，动漫公司毕竟不是成衣厂，大量的工作室搬到荒僻的郊外，对创意没有多少好处。而且，没有足够的人才作为支撑，动漫产业的发展只能是空中楼阁。
　　在金诚看来，中国动漫最缺的不是数字，而是质量。由于尚未找到理想的盈利模式，目前，绝大多数企业仅靠播出不足以收回制作成本。政府根据播出情况给予一部分奖励是好事，但这一政策本身具有很大的局限性。此前，广电总局规定，各地动画频道黄金时间不得播放引进动画片，这使得全国每年的动漫播出需求在26万分钟左右，而2006年全国电视动画总产量才82326分钟。这意味着，只要能通过审查，凡是生产出来的动画片，几乎都有机会在电视台露脸，电视台根本没有余地来要求节目质量。这种看似严肃的奖励政策，最后实际上变成了“撒胡椒面”，缺乏足够的科学性，也没有起到应有的激励作用。
　　据了解，管理部门目前已经意识到了这些问题。上月底，文化部专门召集专家组成员在上海召开研讨会，探讨制定动漫产业发展的细则。据与会专家透露，这一细则的重点，就是要规范动漫产业基地的审批和相关财税政策的制定，让各个地方有章可循。文化部文化产业司动漫处处长刘强表示，由于动漫产业牵涉部门比较多，社会期待也较高，文化部将与其他部委协调，尽快取得共识，如果顺利，这项实施细则有望在今年下半年全国动漫产业大会期间正式公布。

Driving Sustainable Design

With Dott 07, John Thackara looks at daily life as a design opportunity and tackles social issues in small doses

by Helen Walters

Despite all the talk of the "power of design" to drive sales, C-suite executives and industrial designers often butt heads when working together. Business leaders complain that designers don't have any idea what it takes to run a successful company; designers promptly counter that those same leaders don't have a clue how to commission or champion the design process. Then there are the environmentalists, getting more air time of late, who fear that neither group is concerning itself with asking the correct questions (is a product really necessary?) or trying to solve the right problems (is a product sustainable?).

Luckily for all three groups, there's John Thackara. Working at the intersection of business, technology, sustainability, and design, the former journalist, educator, and director of the Netherlands Design Institute is in the business of meshing innovations that drive social change with design.

As the director of design futures network Doors of Perception, and program director of Dott 07, an ambitious, year-long initiative to establish a sustainable region in cities throughout the northeast of England, Thackara is at the forefront of the flourishing sustainable design movement. And as far as he's concerned, the right question to be asking is, "What might a sustainable world look like?" with a prompt follow-up, "What sort of design actions can we take to get there?"

Life as Design

Resolutely pragmatic, Thackara champions a down-to-earth approach that requires action and doesn't shy away from either trial or error. This is a man who's interested in talking, for sure—he's lectured in more than 40 countries around the world—but he's also concerned that projects should be rooted in reality, and have a purpose other than high-falutin' idealism.

That's why Dott 07 is so interesting. Organized in collaboration with Britain's Design Council and the regional development agency One NorthEast, it's looking at "daily life as a design opportunity," says Thackara. The program of events tackles issues from health to food, energy to tourism to travel, examining how design principles can be applied to help achieve the goal of sustainable living, or a lifestyle that preserves and protects natural resources.

A number of things are pretty remarkable about Dott 07. For one thing, Thackara centered activities in the struggling, post-industrial northeast of England. It's an area that has been in slow decline for the past 20 or 30 years, since the area's chemical industry slid painfully but inexorably into oblivion. Such willful parochialism is almost unheard of in Britain, where the focus is almost always trained on glamorous London (in the south), or trendy cities such as Liverpool or Manchester, which have embarked on determined, relatively successful rebranding exercises in recent years.

Collaborative Approach

But that's Thackara through and through. He's not interested in what's fashionable, he's interested in making a difference. Nor, rather more surprisingly, is he interested in hyping a designer's role in the process of creating socially responsible, profitable businesses.

"The designer is at the center of things, but not wholly in charge," he said by phone from his home in Ganges, France. "The notion that a designer should tell everyone what to do doesn't make sense and isn't what happens: No real-world project has a designer at the helm. But a designer is good at bringing together different points of view—team building and project assembly is also a design activity." In Thackara's world, the designer can act as a change catalyst, able to spot flaws in the system and visualize creative, inventive solutions. It's a collaborative approach that meshes business with design rather than have them live in separate worlds.

The other remarkable thing about Dott 07 is the cast of characters that has been drawn into its orbit. From London architect Andre Viljoen, with his inventive work on urban agriculture, to British/Norwegian service innovation specialists Live|Work, the disparate group is drawn from all fields, bringing an intentionally radical outlook and spirit to the various projects, while simultaneously remaining committed to obtaining parsable results. There are no stars or "big names" here—this is about genuine collaboration and invention.

"With urban farming, we're looking to see what it would take to grow the food required by a city within those city limits," says Thackara. "Rather than publish some massive plan, we're doing a project with 1,000 people growing food in containers. Then we improve the connections between the people growing the food and those who need to eat it. We're not developing an alternative agricultural system, but in this way we can learn about the practical obstacles to doing this on a wider scale." So where Al Gore took a more alarmist approach to global warming, Thackara has opted to strive for incremental change that he hopes will nonetheless have a huge effect.

Real-Life Action

This network is a natural byproduct of Thackara's other brainchild, the popular, 14-year-old biennial conference Doors of Perception, which premiered in the Netherlands in 1993. Bearing similarities to a conference such as TED (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/12/07, "The Talk of TED"), each Doors event attracts around 1,000 people from the worlds of design, architecture, government, education, tech, and science.

The most recent event was held in New Delhi at the end of February (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/3/07, "Taking on the Global Food Crisis"). Again, the emphasis was on practical analysis, leading to real-life action that happens even after the conference is officially over. Thackara & Co. place themselves at the center of this disparate group of interested parties, many working at a grassroots level, all committed to driving real change.

And while businesses have perhaps been slow or unwilling to embrace sustainability, that's also beginning to change. "In the past 18 months or two years, business around the world has started to move in a dramatic way," says Thackara. "There was a long period of denial—people seemed to hope that the issues would just go away. But the Stern Review [the report on climate change published in October, 2006, by Sir Nicholas Stern, head of Britain's Government Economic Service and former World Bank chief economist] has been a huge catalyst for change.

"This wasn't written by some wild-eyed, hemp-wearing, mystical environmentalist, but by an economist for the Chancellor of the Exchequer [Britain's finance minister]. It outlined that there's a hard-nosed economic justification for doing something about climate change—if you don't want to pay more down the line."

No More Business as Usual

In other words, businesses have realized that they can't hide their heads in the sand any longer. "Businesses are partly about selling products and services, but they're also about managing risk, and the judgment shifted from thinking that sustainability was something unnecessary to the opposite—[the realization that] we have to do something now," Thackara continues. "I'm frankly staggered by the radical nature of the plans and the changes that are not just being talked about but also being implemented. Marks & Spencer, Wal-Mart (WMT), airports and airlines—are all confronting the fact that 'business as usual' is not an option anymore."

Businesses are beginning to pay closer attention to Thackara's ideas, too, as are designers and academics from around the world. "What I love about John is that he is righteous without being self-righteous. He is certainly a tireless preacher but under no illusion that this makes him better than anyone else," says Rebeca Mendez, professor of design and media arts at UCLA, and principal and creative director of Los Angeles design firm RMCD, who heard Thackara speak at an AIGA conference in Seattle in 1994 and was so impressed she immediately booked her ticket for the next year's Doors of Perception conference. "He is never about the world of design, but always about the design of the world."

Going Small Distances

"He has a very comprehensive way of thinking about our entire way of living—and how we can all design a more sustainable life," says Dana Hutt, director, architectural documentation and special projects at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., and co-curator of Open House, a recent exhibition looking at current smart architecture and technology. "For John, it's not about high-tech solutions or for us having to change everything all at once, but to start changing our lives piece by piece."

For his part, Thackara is neither evangelizing a technology-centric approach, nor espousing a return to a more Luddite-inspired, pre-industrial time. "The Internet is a very powerful way to organize the distribution of information and goods," he says. "But it has been used to send things very long distances at a huge environmental cost. That same infrastructure can be used for small distances as well as large. We just have to change the question that we ask of it." Every business, he argues, must reevaluate what and how it operates in terms of sustainability.

And a tip of the green hat simply isn't good enough. "We need clear and explicit benchmarks of where we are now and where we have to get to," says Thackara. "What does sustainable really mean? If one company says it's greener than another, it's still meaningless if both are operating in an unsustainable way." He gives an example: New Zealand farmers claim that their lamb is produced more organically than lamb in Britain. "But if you ship frozen lamb from one side of the world to the other, well, that's very bad," he says. "I'm not unsympathetic, but we have to have objective measures to assess these things." Practical systems must be developed to allow for explicit, clear measurements of sustainability.

Oh, for a Benefactor

It's this pragmatic attitude and this fervent—but not slavish—belief that design can be used to change the world that has made Thackara a force to be reckoned with. That, and his realization that for anything to be effective, the right stakeholders have to be involved. "These can't be merely boutique projects," he says. "Forty percent of our time is spent bringing the right people together, from citizens to government to property developers. For Dott 07, projects are run by local community groups: The mayor's there, public spaces are involved…"

The bottom-up approach certainly keeps Thackara busy while he retains a sense of optimism that change can happen—and change can be good. "He has never lost this deeply held love and hope for humanity," says Mendez. She adds wistfully, "I wish there was a rich old lady who would donate some of her millions to the work that he does with Doors of Perception. Or maybe Al Gore should give him a call. Then we would see some real change."

 

Is Google Too Powerful?

As the Web giant tears through media, software, and telecom, rivals fear its growing influence. Now they're fighting back

It's the year 2014, and Googlezon, a fearsomely powerful combination of search engine Google Inc. (GOOG ) and online store Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN ), has crushed traditional media to bits. Taking its place is the computer-generated Evolving Personalized Information Construct—an online package of news, entertainment, blogs, and services drawn from all the world's up-to-the-minute knowledge and customized to match your preferences. And it's all collected, packaged, and controlled by Googlezon.

This is the future according to EPIC 2014, a faux documentary posted to the Web in late 2004 by young journalists Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan. Thanks to their slightly tongue-in-cheek, Twilight Zone-inspired tone, the short video drew as many chuckles as gasps of dismay from the legions of mainstream media types and Web digerati who viewed it. Today, nobody's laughing. Here it is only 2007, and already EPIC 2014's picture of an online landscape dominated by one ravenous, all-knowing corporation looks to many people like—well, a lot like Google. All by itself.

To the consternation of many of those companies and more, Google is now using that market cap, along with its $11 billion hoard of cash and investments, to storm a wide range of traditional markets. It's selling ads in newspapers, magazines, radio, and, in a trial program, television. In February it fired a torpedo at the software industry with a suite of online office software it is selling for a small fraction of the price of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) Office. It's spooking the telecom industry with fledgling efforts to provide free wireless Internet access. Google's phenomenal ad machine, in short, has the potential to vaporize the profits of any industry that traffics in bits and bytes and to shift the economics to the advantage of Google, its users, and its cadre of partners. "It's Google's world," shrugs Chris Tolles, vice-president of marketing at Topix Inc., which makes money from running Google ads on its news aggregation site. "We just live in it."

Googlezon, GoogleWorld, just plain Google—whatever you call it, it's scaring the wits out of everyone from the power lunchers of Hollywood to Madison Avenue ad moguls to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Now, after years of hand-wringing and thumb-twiddling, some of them are pulling out the heavy artillery and firing one round after another on the Googleplex, the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The latest salvo: On Mar. 22, NBC Universal and News Corp. (NWS ) announced big plans for a rival to Google's enormously popular YouTube video site that will run not only television show clips but even full-length movies on Yahoo! (YHOO ), AOL (TWX ), Microsoft's MSN, MySpace.com, and other partner sites.

JUST THE WEEK BEFORE, Viacom sued Google for a headline-grabbing $1 billion, charging YouTube with willfully infringing on copyrights by allowing users to upload clips of The Colbert Report, South Park, and other TV shows. A couple of weeks earlier, Copiepress, a group representing Belgian and German newspapers, won a copyright case that could sharply limit Google's usefulness if it sets a precedent. And get this: In the Valley and Washington, D.C., there's even cocktail party chatter about whether the search giant's power needs to be reined in by antitrust regulators. It's unlikely to happen but is an indication of rivals' growing trepidation about Google. Says Paul Martino, chief executive of the search service Aggregate Knowledge Inc.: "We're beginning to see the Anything But Google' backlash."

And something bigger. Google is ground zero in a battle among traditional media and tech industry leaders and startups alike for the hearts and minds of the world's consumers—or at least their eyeballs and wallets. To an extent that none of the first generation of dot-coms did, Google has come to represent all our hopes, dreams, and fears about the disruptive promise and dangers of the Internet. As this clash plays out over the next couple of years, the outcome could determine the way we'll entertain ourselves, shop, socialize, and do business on the Internet. The overriding question: Will the vast commercial landscape of the Net, like so many other tech markets in the past, condense to one dominant force for the foreseeable future? Will we just Google everything?

All this might sound crazy given that we're talking about a nine-year-old company that wasn't even publicly traded until Aug. 19, 2004. Let's face it, there's a certain hysteria about Google, a presumption of unlimited power. A year ago, Google was rumored to be going into the personal computer manufacturing business, and last week stories about a Google cell phone ran rampant. Neither was true—nor, says Google, are a number of other assumptions. "We're not competing with newspapers, we're not competing with television stations, and we're not competing with the Viacoms of the world," insists Google Chief Executive Eric E. Schmidt. "We're trying to partner with them."

What's more, some of Google's initiatives, such as those in print and radio ads, have not taken the world by storm. Yet to justify that market cap, Google must expand into more densely occupied markets for continued growth when online advertising matures. "Google needs an Act II," says Jordan Rohan, an Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets (RY ). "Otherwise, the growth is going down to 30%" in the next few years.

The question now: Does the pushback against Google mark that turning point when a successful company's power starts to work against it? Could be. "Ecosystems always organize to curtail entities that get too powerful," notes Geoffrey A. Moore, author of The Gorilla Game: Picking Winners in High Technology and a managing director at corporate strategist TCG Advisors. As a result, Google may need to change some of its more aggressive tactics to ease the fear it engenders. Says Jeremy Crane, director of the search group at Web information service Compete Inc.: "A lot of people are rooting for others to provide alternatives."

But for now those alternatives, whether they be a struggling Yahoo or Microsoft or the new NBC-News Corp. video network, by all accounts pale next to the Google juggernaut. More than anyone else, Google is defining the new architecture of media and commerce in the digital world. The unruly expanse of the Internet and its opportunities cries out for a map, and that's what Google is building out of tens of thousands of server computers around the world that handle quadrillions of bytes of data. With each new search whose data refine that map, with each new business that links its own digital explorations to the search engine, Google gains more knowledge and more power. As a result, it's in a position not only to define what this new world looks like but also to chart where it goes and even determine which will be the prime destinations and which will become backwaters.

This awesome data-gathering capability seriously worries some thinkers. Tech historian George Dyson, author of Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, thinks Google actually might pose a national defense concern at some point simply by virtue of its singularly massive storehouse of data, the crude oil of the Information Economy. "That much money and power concentrated in one place can be dangerous," says Dyson, who sometimes advises the Defense Dept. on potential threats. While he doesn't think Google yet poses such a threat, he raises a more obvious concern: Google's vast network, now a substantial piece of the Internet itself, is "very quickly becoming vital national security infrastructure." Should anything happen to the company, he says—through market forces, terrorist attacks on server farms, or something else—that could compromise national defense.

If this talk of corporate dominance sounds vaguely familiar, it should. As firmly as IBM (IBM ) ruled mainframe computing and Microsoft the personal computer age, so Google has the potential to rule the Internet. To some people, Google's position today, while clearly far from identical to Microsoft's in its heyday, nonetheless shares some striking parallels. "Google feels a lot like Microsoft in the mid-Nineties," says Silicon Valley startup adviser Dave McClure. "Right at the height of its power, getting a little arrogant, and challenged for the first time by some powerful people."

Even mighty Microsoft has been criticizing Google's power and ambitions. CEO Steve Ballmer last fall accused Google of suppressing competition in online ads. As rich as the irony of his accusation is, given Microsoft's own antitrust battles, the charge isn't unique. Google's mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," so charmingly visionary in a startup, now sounds to some people downright predatory in a company of nearly 12,000 employees. Google even worries partners such as Time Warner, whose AOL unit in late 2005 took $1 billion from Google for a 5% stake and the right to run ads on the service. "Obviously, Google has a great deal of power, and it needs to be very careful not to leverage that power to stifle competition," says Paul T. Cappuccio, executive vice-president and general counsel at Time Warner Inc.

Naturally, none of this criticism sits well with Google executives. The company, they note, has a commanding position solely because users and customers like Google's services, not because they're forced to use them. "To say Google is too powerful implies that users are somehow making a wrong choice," says Schmidt, who calls the comparison to Microsoft "absolutely false." Unlike with Microsoft's software, anybody can click instantly to a new search engine if it's better—just as people abandoned AltaVista and Yahoo for Google years ago.

Few people, even Valley leaders who have faced the dominance of Microsoft firsthand, suggest that Google needs to be checked by government regulators. "Does ad-subsidized software threaten legacy businesses? Of course," says Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems (SUNW ), "just like...eBay (EBAY ) threatens Sotheby's (BID ) and Amazon threatens Wal-Mart (WMT ). But last I checked, these are all examples of competition, which we want in America. It's the heart of progress. It's good for consumers." And for Google's partners. Says Marc Benioff, the CEO of one such partner, customer management services provider Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM ): "Google has really stepped up and defined what the future of our industry can be."

MOREOVER, THERE'S LITTLE EVIDENCE that users have any problem with the company's power, even if they don't all take its informal motto, "Don't be evil," at face value. These fans might be excused for tossing back their own question to the whiners: Too powerful at what? Helping me find things, get work done, connect with friends? Bring it on!

For most of us, then, complaints about Google's power might smack of sour grapes, or at least corporate power politics. Fact is, a couple of Stanford University nerds, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, devised a much better way for people to find things online, stealing a march on media and tech companies too busy or too dumb to notice the transcendent power of Internet search. By charging advertisers only when people click on their ads, Google gave advertisers a good chunk of the 50% of ad spending wasted in traditional media. Indeed, a huge swath of small businesses that never could afford to advertise nationally or globally—the majority of Google's customers—now can, through search ads.

Those aren't Google's only friends, either. It enables thousands of small Web publishers to make a living by paying these publishers, to the tune of $3 billion last year, to run syndicated ads. Cincinnati's AskTheBuilder.com pulls in more than $1 million a year, says founder Tim Carter, thanks largely to income from Google's syndicated ads that run on his home how-to site. He understands why Google worries Viacom and others, because when people are looking for almost anything online, "they go to Google first. You bet those companies better be terrified." But as long as folks like Carter get a free lunch from Google, they don't much care if it's eating everyone else's.

Google maintains a glow of goodwill among many for yet another reason: Since its founding at Stanford in 1998, it has become one of those rare icons of the tech business, like Apple (AAPL ) or Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ). Google's success is helping to drive a whole new round of technology innovation and wealth creation, including hundreds of so-called Web 2.0 companies whose business model is revenue from running Google ads. In the process, it confirms the Valley's creation story: Anyone has a chance to change the world and get fabulously rich. "Google, with its Do no evil' mantra, its democratic values, its employee benefits, attention to the culture, and two decent co-founders, is the new HP," says Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "At least in people's dreams."

But Google's dreams are the stuff of nightmares for some folks in the worlds of media and technology. Most of all, they're uncertain about what Google will become next. It doesn't help that Google itself has long fed those anxieties with its lofty aspirations. Indeed, its embrace of the primacy of data over human judgment, in everything from its search algorithm to its attempts to turn hiring into a science, gives some people the creeps. Listen to a talk that Page, Google's co-founder and president of products, gave in 2002 at Stanford. He said Google aims to turn the technology behind its search engine into a true artificial intelligence that could "answer any question, which means you can do basically anything." The audience laughed tentatively, perhaps thinking of the ai in the movie The Terminator that tries to wipe out humanity. If Google succeeds in its mission, Page added with a grin, "then we're doing everything."

The fear factor first came into public view over copyright issues, when Google began digitizing millions of books at various libraries starting in 2004. The company built scanning machines from scratch and hired workers to run them. Still in test mode, Google Book Search, which includes both the library project and separate agreements with publishers, lets users search for words within the books it plans to scan. Searches bring up a table of contents and snippets containing the words; publishers can agree to make sample pages available.

The problem was, Google chose not to ask publishers' permission before it launched the library project, claiming that copying books to provide snippets of text in searches was fair use under copyright law. And it took few pains to ease publishers' concerns: Why would people buy a whole book when all they need is a few paragraphs from a simple search? If that's what potential buyers end up doing, Google destroys their whole economic model. As a result, the Authors Guild and a group of publishers, including BusinessWeek owner The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP ), each filed lawsuits in 2005 against the library scanning project, charging that it violates their copyright. Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice-president for global online sales and operations, concedes that "maybe we didn't realize some people were scared." Google is now making overtures at publisher gatherings.

STILL, GOOGLE, LIKE OTHERS such as Amazon.com Inc. that also are scanning books, contend that their main impact is to expose to the public books they never knew existed, which they believe will prompt more sales, not less. In any case, Google isn't backing down from its position that its scanning is simply creating a digital library. "We're willing to fight for end-users consistent with the way we believe the law is written," says Schmidt.

It's in the advertising business that Google's presence causes the broadest concern. That's because it has been hugely successful in refining the idea of targeted advertising so far beyond conventional media and even direct marketers. What really raises Madison Avenue's hackles is the potential for Google to become Universal Advertising Inc.: a sprawling presence that brokers highly targeted ads across all media. By reading the intentions of hundreds of millions of consumers—not just from its search engine but from, say, cable set-top boxes that can gather similar data—Google could become the most efficient aggregator of ad dollars. The fear is that in the end, a Procter & Gamble Co. (PG ) will simply turn over its annual ad budget to Google, which will dole it out to wherever the most lucrative consumers are. Essentially, Google becomes the nexus of all advertising and media.

THAT FEAR ISN'T ENTIRELY rational, of course. Schmidt insists that Google is neither seeking nor will capture a lion's share of the ad business. "There's always this assumption that somehow Google will now take over all of advertising," he says. "It's clearly false, because if you're an advertiser, you're going to go to all of the people, not just the No. 1 player." But the fact remains that a disproportionate amount of the riches go to the No. 1 player. Says Kevin Lee, executive chairman of Did-It Search Marketing: "Half a million or more Google advertisers are ready to give them more money."

Google's riches are yet another competitive weapon that rivals fear. For startups, Google and its nearly unmatched financial might is the yin and yang of Valley entrepreneurship. The company is an inspiration and a potential buyer. But it also can close down a nascent market niche with the merest rumor that it might jump in.

With that kind of influence, coupled with a lack of an obvious, significant failure to date, it's not surprising that Google and its employees exude an air of arrogance. Yet this posture is also becoming more of a liability. Last fall, for instance, it looked as if the wrangling over commercial clips appearing on YouTube without permission would be quickly solved by Google greasing some Hollywood palms. But according to people close to the talks, potential deals soon broke down on multiple fronts. Those sources say that Google offered several hundred million dollars over five years to license a broad range of content. But Google kept reducing its offer, they say, and insisted on controlling ad sales, including getting a third of the proceeds. Finally, Google refused to filter YouTube for copyrighted content. Google declines to comment on negotiations.

Soured talks may have led to Google's getting left out of the group of initial partners in the new online video network coming from News Corp. and NBC—which NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker calls the biggest new advertising platform in the world. Google may be in the unaccustomed position of having to crawl back to Hollywood with hat and checkbook in hand to get access to the content. A source close to the situation says Google will probably be forced to accept a far smaller cut of advertising revenues than what it initially asked for.

Even some of Google's advertising customers complain that the company sometimes appears cavalier about their concerns. That's partly because of the very technology on which it's built. Its search-ad business runs on a pointedly opaque set of complex mathematical formulas that give high placement to ads based not simply on which marketers pay the most but on how many people click on them and other factors. That prods advertisers to create better ads and more relevant Web pages to which the ads send them. But such a system leaves advertisers to guess which ads work best and how much to pay for top placement, and the ranking can change without warning. "Yeah, they say they're not evil, but you have to trust them," says Anil Kamath, chief technology officer at Efficient Frontier, which helps advertisers run search ad campaigns. "It's difficult for advertisers to figure out what's going on."

The secrecy surrounding the "black box" of search advertising remains particularly galling to some advertisers when it comes to the issue of click fraud. That refers to an array of schemes by which nefarious Web site operators generate fake clicks on Google ads to make money or hurt competitors. Until recently, Google said only that it believed the incidence of click fraud was very low. Some advertisers believe Google ignored their claims. In early March the company released more data on click fraud and said it would offer more tools to combat it.

Between the company's growing power and influence and the perceived attitude problems, Google may face stronger opposition as it expands its horizons beyond search. "Google's power and size and profitability and prosperity have hurt them as they go out and negotiate with these entertainment companies," says Jeff Lanctot, senior vice-president of media and general manager at Avenue A/Razorfish, the ad agency unit of digital marketing firm aQuantive Inc (AQWT ). Perhaps as a result, Google seems to be trying to strike a more conciliatory tone of late. In its most recent earnings conference call with analysts, Schmidt and other executives mentioned the words "partner" or "partnership" more than 50 times. It may be working to some degree. Some TV networks, such as CBS, and other media outlets have found ways to work with Google. It has also sealed deals with Dell Inc. (DELL ) to install Google software on computers and even with sometime rival eBay Inc. (EBAY ) to run ads on the online marketplace.

Ultimately, Google must grapple with the essential paradox it embodies. As a corporation, it's often a cipher, its intentions and methods concealed by algorithms that look impenetrable and impersonal. Yet the search engine and the blockbuster business built atop it utterly depend upon millions of people sharing through searches their most intimate desires, and upon thousands of businesses willing to open their data storehouses to feed Google's voracious digital maw. It may be that the data-driven culture that got Google this far needs to get a little more social in its dealings with the outside world. "It's not just about click-through on an ad," notes Steven E. Marder, CEO of Eurekster Inc., a search services provider that uses online communities to refine results. "It's about humans."

众包：网络时代的集思广益

白天，约翰•莱昂(John Lyon)在美国内华达大学(University of Nevada)工作，晚上，作为一个“科技人”，他为加拿大卡尔加里的Cambrian House软件公司工作，平均每晚一个小时。他在Cambrian的工作与白天的工作有些不同：只有Cambrian喜欢他的工作，他才能得到报酬。

Cambrian迄今已采用了他的一个创意：Jumblelunch。这是一种网络程序，可帮助企业安排午餐会。该公司计划将这个应用软件商业化并进行推广。如果成功，该公司将按照给这个创意确定的“版税点数”向莱昂支付报酬。

如果说这种工作方式看似有风险，莱昂却相当乐观“我将其视为不用承担任何风险就能参与初创的一部分。”

莱昂正在参与“众包”(crowdsourcing)。众包是《连线》(Wired)杂志2006年发明的一个专业术语，用来描述一种新的商业模式，即企业利用互联网来将工作分配出去、发现创意或解决技术问题。

通过网络控制，这些组织可以利用志愿员工大军的创意和能力——这些志愿员工具备完成任务的技能，愿意利用业余时间工作，满足于对其服务收取小额报酬，或者像莱昂那样，满足于未来获得更多报酬的前景。对于某些类型的行业而言，这提供了一种组织劳动力的全新方式。

众包并不局限于软件业。两年前，西雅图的专利律师戴维•布拉丁(David Bradin)开始关注将各种“挑战”张贴在其网络社区上的研发网站InnoCentive。其中一个挑战是寻找丁烷四羧酸(butane tetracarboxylic acid)的有效合成方式。这个问题对于获得有机化学硕士学位的布拉丁来说可谓轻而易举。他把自己的创意用电子邮件发送给了InnoCentive，仅过了1个月，他就获得了4000美元的报酬。

一个挣钱较少但更易于接近的众包者是亚马逊(Amazon)的土耳其机器人(Mechanical Turk)网站，该网站为接受任务的人提供一些名为“人类智能任务”(human intelligence task，HIT)的工作。记者就一台优良的厨房磨刀机应具备哪些特点说了350个词，因此获得了25美分的报酬。

在Cambrian House，外人的创意由公司程序员群体进行投票。在月底的时候，16个最佳创意将进入一场“X-Factor形式的决赛”，获胜者晋级到下一轮，当然下一轮的规则是由公众编写的。(译注：X-Factor是英国知名的电视选秀节目)

Cambrian House首席执行官迈克尔•西科尔斯基(Michael Sikorsky)解释道，每个商业项目有1500个专利点，其中75个授予那些提供原始创意的人。“这些是我们为让人们共享商业利益而提供的普遍保障。”

西科尔斯基表示，尽管这仅占5%，但对于任何一家通过一系列股权稀释融资环节而获得成功的企业而言，这是典型的所有权分享形式。另外，他补充称，如果你为Cambrian House贡献了一个创意，然后你就可以休息，什么都不做，只等别人来开发这个创意，获得他们自己的版税点数。

西科尔斯基表示，Cambrian House的吸引力——除了分享利润之外——在于建立了一种“能大幅减少风险、明显提高效率的秩序。”该公司目前处在第二轮融资环节，希望在未来6个月能创造5万美元的利润。

InnoCentive的模式又有所不同。这是一个位于马萨诸塞州的网络社区，拥有约11.5万成员，其中多数是科学家。它将各个组织希望解决的科学问题张贴在网上。公司首席营销官阿里•侯赛因(Ali Hussein)表示：“我们的多数业务是为《财富》500强(Fortune 500)公司服务。我们为之工作过的企业包括宝洁(Proctor & Gamble)和陶氏化学(Dow Chemical)等。”

客户企业向InnoCentive支付年费（起价10万美元），还需支付一部分向成功解决方案提供的奖金。迄今为止的最高奖金额为10万美元。

侯赛因表示，对公司的主要客户而言，这种想法非常有说服力：“你是在为自己的模式增添一个强大的研发乘数。观察一下方案解决率，你就会知道，解决这些挑战的行业标准比例为12%至18%，而我们的是35%。”

加州大学(University of California)伯克利分校哈斯商学院(Haas School of Business)开放创新中心(Center for Open Innovation)执行主任亨利•切斯布罗格(Henry Chesbrough)表示，众包模式反映了有用知识所在之处的变化。

“我们过去往往对业务进行深入的纵向整合，认为外部知识没什么用。”现在，他认为，企业需要获得外部技能。“开放创新模式认识到，世界上的知识太多，分布太广，有用的知识实际上存在于许多人的头脑中。”

另外几点因素也在引起人们对众包的兴趣。互联网的最新化身Web 2.0，鼓励人们开发志趣相投的社区，而不仅仅是网站。宽带的发展也加速了信息的双向流动，使企业能更容易地以这种方式运作。

同时，随着Linux和维基百科(Wikipedia)的兴起，企业也越来越习惯于分散劳动形式。Linux是由全球志愿编程人员协力创造的开放源软件语言；维基百科是由互联网用户撰写、编辑的在线百科全书。

然而，这种现象引发了关于剥削的问题。如果你以100美元将创意卖给公司，而公司用它创造了1000万美元的销售额，你当然可能会认为自己受到了剥削。

切斯布罗格教授辩称，事实并不一定是这样：“创新和风险有许多额外层面，你需要问问将那个创意转变成有价值的东西，需要多少钱。”为了将那个100美元的创意变成一件产品，可能要花费300万美元，这样给你100美元可能就是公平的。但切斯布罗格教授警告各公司：“你们不应太贪婪。人人都得赚点儿钱。”

亚马逊的土耳其机器人为350字支付25美分的做法，绝对不算慷慨。但再想想，多年来，人们一直免费为亚马逊撰写书评——而顾问还总是拥有否决权。除了一些幸运的例外情况，众包模式不太可能为很多参与者提供全职工作。正如莱昂对Cambrian的描述那样：“我的全部所需都来自白天的工作。这更像是个业余爱好。”

那么，是否所有的组织机构都准备好打开自己的研发大门了呢？可能不是。众包决非普遍适用的模式，而且如果没有有用知识的广泛分布，也不可能良好地运作。例如，核弹头的设计就不太可能利用开放创新模式。同样，许多需要保护商业机密的领域也排除了大众参与的可能。

无论如何，众包的倡导者将他们的眼光放得很高。西科尔斯基表示：“我想要说的是，我们有机会成为全球首家拥有数十亿员工的公司。”

征集大家的创意

■众包使公司得以利用互联网用户的技能和知识，从事间断性工作，产生有价值的新创意或解决特定的业务问题。

■在用户自制内容(user-generated content)潮流中，YouTube和MySpace等传媒网站邀请网络用户免费上传自己的内容。与此不同，为众包公司提供创意或劳动的人，往往能获得少量劳动报酬。对于研发等更专业的工作，报酬可能会高许多。

■众包公司有一系列业务模式。例如，软件公司Cambrian House向创意提供者提供利用其创意开发的未来业务的版权费。研发网站InnoCentive向那些能解决技术问题的人提供奖金。亚马逊的土耳其机器人则为特定工作支付费用。

■为公司带来的好处包括行政开支的降低，这是使用网上劳动力同时风险降低的结果，因为创意是由社区成员想出来的——但公司只给那些它们喜欢的创意付费。然而，批评人士抓住了普通提供者报酬微薄这一点，作为众包公司剥削的证据。

译者/梁艳梅 梁鸥

 

http://www.ftchinese.com/sc/story.jsp?id=001008946&pos=DAILY_NEWS&pa1=feature&pa2=0&loc=DAILY%20EMAIL

2007年Enterprise 2.0十大最红应用预测（上）

2007/01/05　CNET科技资讯网

　  1月4日国际报道 要预测Enterprise 2.0的趋势，可能不太容易。就需求面而言，Enterprise 2.0的驱动力似乎来自多重方面，包括对一连串便捷IT解决方案的需求，以及对高价值、协作式问题解决方案（即所谓tacit interactions“隐含式互动”）的需求。

　　这正是Enterprise 2.0有趣的地方。Enteprise 2.0平台能提供一般用途、形式不拘、自助式（DIY）的工具，有潜力解决与协作、知识管理、服务导向架构（SOA）、自助式IT有关的一箩筐问题，甚至有助于解决多年来困扰IT人员与企业的员工整体生产力问题。

　　Enterprise 2.0以全球信息网（Web）目前运作良好的模式为蓝本，也有帮助。因此，推动Enterprise 2.0的动力，主要来自于简单、有效的软件模型在Web上大受欢迎，从Flickr、 YouTube、del.icio.us等等Web 2.0应用程序的风行可见一斑。这些应用程序通过社交媒体，充分发挥出使用者集体的产出潜能，把IT系统的潜在力量发挥得淋漓尽致。

　　不过，诸如博客（blog）、维基（wiki）等应用程序，只是Enterprise 2.0故事的导言罢了，未来还可根据McAfee SLATES模型（搜索、链接、制作、卷标、延伸和信号）描述的样本和惯例，创造出许许多多其它类型的应用程序。有别于电话、电子邮件乃至于即时通讯（IM），Enterprise 2.0式的信息与协作不具干扰性，而且富有高度的杠杆性。

　　但这些工具本身以及这些工具鼓励的行为，例如分享、协作和大规模参与，是否能从Web成功转移到性质截然不同的企业环境中，仍有疑问。2007或许会提供这个问题的解答，并决定这股Web 2.0分支现象的命运。

　　且让我列出2007年Enterprise 2.0发展的十大预测，依重要性倒序排列：

　　10. 博客与维基仍会是2007年Enterprise 2.0领域最红的应用。

　　这两种由在线使用者控制的社交媒体模型，知名度最高、最经过验证也最易于了解。这不是说混合型应用（例如Itensil的维基式Team Activity Manager）就没有进展的空间，只是据我猜测，部落格与维基会是2007年大多数Enterprise 2.0测试计划赖以建构的基础。

　　9. 一些Enterprise 2.0计划的报酬率会低于预期，主要因为过度的组织架构和低度的社会互动使然。

　　大多数企业wiki产品提供某种整理使用者上传数据的方式，以便撷取。但过度的、upfront式的组织结构，正是Enterprise 2.0力图避免的，而且今天大多数软件的组织结构仍然过于繁复。这为什么重要？因为任何琐碎的使用障碍，都可能大大地降低使用者参与贡献的意愿。在社交方面，务必让使用者的“行为足迹”更明显，并且让使用者不论从技术层面和文化层面而言，都容易在社交媒体平台发表评论，攸关计划的成败。

　　里德定律（Reed''''s Law）也指出，就网络效果而论，社交网络是目前为止最强大的，正因为如此，Enterprise 2.0应用程序的社交功能若是降低，就会阻止某种应用在组织内部产生病毒式的普及化。

　　建议：让必要的组织结构自然兴起，也让使用者以公开、匿名的方式，主动贡献内容，并以评论、标签、评比、评语等方式，让内容更丰富。(未完待续)

 

美机构调查:下一个比尔·盖茨最可能出自中国

来源：网易

    27%的被调查者认为，下一个比尔·盖茨式的高科技资本家将会来自中国
    周三根据最新的调查报告显示，只有21%的美国人认为下一个比尔-盖茨式的高科技资本家，将出自美国。另外27%的被调查者认为，这样的资本家会来自中国，22%的人认为将是日本人。这份报告是由两家位于华盛顿的公司，Zogby International和公共关系公司463 Communications，于本月初对1203位美国成年人进行调查后得出的。
    463的合伙人汤姆-加尔文(Tom Galvin)称，虽然只有1/5的美国人认为下一个微软式企业的创始人将出自美国，但这并不奇怪；因为大多数美国人都已经明白美国正在参与全球竞争，这并不意味着美国的竞争力在下降，而是其他国家正在迎头赶上；美国人对正在面临的竞争有着明确而精细的理解，他认为美国人不是在发泄愤怒，而是想知道如何应对竞争。
    加尔文称，有些令人奇怪的是只有13%的被调查者，选择了印度为下一个盖茨的家乡。这次调查还将被调查者对网络的看法与对其他技术的看法作了比较。当被问及出现什么样的麻烦，如汽车不能启动、不能上网和无法收发邮件等，让你更难工作时，78%的人选择了汽车，而只有10%的人选择了网络。网络的发展速度超过了印刷出版，但当问及哪项发明更伟大时，32%的人选择了互联网，65%的人选择了印刷出版。
    当被问到是平均年龄12岁的人更了解网络，还是美国国会议员更了解网络时，83%的被调查者选择了平均年龄12岁的人，只有10%的人认为议员更了解互联网。加尔文称，两家公司将定期进行类似的调查。此次调查的误差为正负2.9%。

价值中国网将成为全球网站最重要的发展方向之一

作者；戴维  编辑：知识银行和戴维评论

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com,

戴维评论http://davidsun.chinavalue.net,

 

12月18日有幸参加价值中国网的新闻发布会，与来自全国各地专家学者和媒体记者相聚在北京，共同探讨价值中国网的发展前景，感触颇多，在此谈谈自己的认识和想法。

今天在网络靠色情和恶搞吸引眼球的环境下，价值中国网能够创建一个纯粹而专业经济分析研究网络平台需要极大的勇气和战略眼光。林永青先生和他的合作者开创了中国和全球网络发展一些全新思路和商业模式。比如专业化高质量内容、比如博客实名制，比如给博客赠送股份期权，让全国专业人才来共同参与网站的建设。这种开创性的思维方法将成为未来全球最重要的发展方向之一。

原因非常清楚：

一、            专业化和规模化是网络企业最重要的发展方向。

只要我们认真分析一下，今天所有成功的网站都走专业化道路。Google是专业搜索成功的代表；百度是中文搜索的代表；雅虎是全球新闻门户代表；新浪和搜弧是坚持新闻媒体发展方向；阿里巴巴创造了中国电子商务发展模式；携程网成为中国最大的旅游中介服务网等等。在某个专业和行业领域成为最权威的，信息规模最大网站是所有成功网络企业的发展方向。

我的理解价值中国网将成为中国最优秀的、也将是中国最权威的分析研究网络平台。

今天价值中国已经汇聚了一万名经济分析和研究专业人士，可以说已经初步成为了中国最大的原创经济分析评论文章的提供商。

二、            通过股份期权方式吸引专业人才共同创建网络平台将是未来全球最重要发展方向之一。

我们知道网站要成功必须汇聚足够的人气，要留驻访问人群，要与网名互动。而要让来网站的客户热爱你的网站，长期扎根你的网站，最有效的方法是什么？不是色情和恶搞手段，也不是流氓软件的手段，而是给来注册网站的用户带来切实的利益。这就是所有成功网站创建初期几年必须烧钱提供免费服务的原因。

阿里巴巴是从免费服务开始的，Google也是从免费服务开始的，今天淘宝还在提供免费服务、所有大型网站都在提供免费的邮箱和博客空间，为什么？就是要让用户得到实际利益。

然而今天仅仅提供免费服务还不够，能否让重要的用户赚到钱将成为未来网站最重要的发展方向。为什么现在中国专业博客服务网站生存和发展存在严重问题？就是因为一批优秀内容提供者博客们无法与网站分享共同发展的利益。

让专业博客来共同建设网站是价值中国最高明的经营手段之一。价值中国不仅仅是网络企业内部管理人员自己建设的问题，而是由大批全国和全球专业人才共同来建设，这样就可以产生源源不断原创内容和思想智慧。将人才和智慧组合起来就可以产生无限的商业价值。

三、            价值中国网自由开放发展模式可以产生许多延伸扩展的商业机会。

由于这些专业人才来自不同的行业领域，拥有不同的专业特长，等到专业人才聚集到一定程度，不如5万—10万人，将他们兴趣、爱好和专业特长进行自愿自由的组合，就可以产生无数不同行业领域的商业机会。 举个典型的例子江南春的分众传媒靠什么成功？电梯门口安装一个电视屏幕并不是高深的创意，只是一个简单的点子，但是由于江曾经在投资公司工作过，因此他的点子可以得到巨大风险投资机构资金支持。这样他的点子就实现了市场价值。

我们相信价值中国网中的专业人才有更多更好的商业策划，但是每个人往往只有一方面的专业才能，假如几个不同专业才能的人能够结合，那么就可以产生巨大的商业价值。

以上是个人的理解和看法，我相信只要价值中国网能够真正汇聚专业人才的力量，价值中国网一定可以成为未来中国最优秀的网络企业和网络平台。让我们共同努力。

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com,

戴维评论http://davidsun.chinavalue.net,

Foresight89@yahoo.com.cn,

2006年12月21日

作者：知识草民  编辑：先见策划和知识银行和戴维评论

先见策划http://foresight.spaces.live.com, http://foresight.blog.sohu.com,

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank,

戴维评论http://davidsun.chinavalue.net,

 

昨天媒体报道Tom与ebay正式合资成立一个新公司，具体内容如下：

1、合资公司名称：TOM易趣。
2、eBay和TOM在线分别持股49%和51%。
3、eBay投入4000万美元现金，TOM在线则投入2000万美元的财务支持，如经双方同意，还可以追加最高1000万美元投资。
4、易趣纳入合资公司，2007年将推出为中国市场定制的在线交易平台。
5、TOM在线CEO王雷雷将出任合资公司CEO，廖光宇将领导eBay在华运营 。

Ebay为了投资易趣网至今在中国市场至少花了2.5亿美圆，包括收购易趣网费用、广告宣传费用和经营管理费用，而今天Tom网只花了2000万美圆就控制了易趣网，可谓便宜之极。

电子商务网站本身具备清晰的赢利模式，中国已经有许多电子商务网站获得了可观的赢利，其中有阿里巴巴、当当网等等，还有许多个人的小网站。更为有趣的是许多个人小网站都从易趣网起步赚钱，并且逐步扩大和发展。从这些事实证明易趣网是可以下蛋母鸡，然而可惜的是易趣网今天不但没有下蛋，而且还要廉价转让。

出现这种奇怪经营败局不能完全归结为跨国巨头水土不服，因为易趋网创业人本身是中国大陆人才，而且创业前几年经营非常不错，只是到淘宝网出现后易趣网经营才走上了迅速下划道路，中途易趣调整了几次CEO，还是无可奈何，被迫几乎倒贴转让。前两年我们也给易趣网开出医治良方(http://foresight.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!33AB11F4DA10B245!636.entry)，可惜ebay高层没有接受。

Tom网利用易趣网窘境，利用财务杠杆原理，廉价抱得一个病态的美女母鸡，但是能否让它医好这个美女母鸡？能否让她下蛋？并且下出大批优质钱蛋？恐怕决非易事，一定会花费远远超过2000万元资金和精力。

Tom网是一个非常奇特的网络企业，可以说是一个网络另类。虽然Tom有一个门户，但是它的主要业务收入来源与门户和网络几乎没有多大关系，Tom的两大主要收入：一是短信收入，很奇怪Tom的短信收入总金额远远超过了网站流量巨大的新浪和搜弧；二是户外广告，去年有媒体报道Tom好像在转让户外广告业务。

Tom网有两大特色和专长：

一是金融投机，Tom的上市就是抓住了当时网络疯狂发烧的机会，从上市中圈得了巨额现金，然后用这笔资金收购了许多其他业务其中有户外广告。今天Tom又如法炮制用资金杠杆原理收购了易趣，因此我们可以断言，无论今后易趣发展如何，再次卖掉易趣事件完全可能出现。

二是精通中国大陆的商业文化和市场潜规则，李嘉城集团的公司与香港许多特大型企业集团有非常相同的一个特征：就是拥有强大的大陆社会人脉资源，这些公司想在中国大陆争取任何政策支持几乎没有办不成的。精通大陆文化和市场规则对企业来说有一个很大的好处就是容易了解市场用户的真实需求，这也是刚刚从国外回来的中国高级经理人缺乏的能力，更是跨国巨头很难理解的商业文化环境。

即便Tom在大陆有许多优势，然而Tom仍然面对巨大的挑战：首先是淘宝网的巨大挑战，今天的淘宝网与雅虎收购阿里巴巴网之前已经完全不同了，无论在资金上、品牌上和市场运做能力上，淘宝网今天在电子商务领域都远远超过Tom。其次还有数量众多的个人网站占据着巨大的市场分额。

另外一个挑战是Tom没有任何电子商务的经验，Tom的管理层如何迅速熟悉和掌握电子商务市场的需求和运做规律也是巨大的挑战。

无论如何，电子商务在中国发展时间不长，有很大发展潜力，易趣网过去十年已经在中国打下了很好的基础，就看Tom有没有能力将这个生病的母鸡尽快医好，持续生下高质量的钱蛋了。

市场不会等待易趣慢慢恢复，竞争对手更不会让易趋重新壮大起来。

祝Tom好运，祝易趋好运。

 

先见策划http://foresight.spaces.live.com, http://foresight.blog.sohu.com,

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank,

戴维评论http://davidsun.chinavalue.net,

foresight89@yahoo.com.cn,

2006年12月21日星期四

百度主动出击日本市场战略的利弊分析

作者：比尔  编辑：知识银行和先见策划

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank,

先见策划http://foresight.spaces.live.com, http://foresight.blog.sohu.com,

 

近日媒体报道百度决定进入日本网络搜索市场，此新闻宣布之后百度股票立刻上涨。作为一名专业从事市场研究人士，自然对百度这一战略出击非常重视。因为百度是第一家中国人领导的网络企业主动进军发达国家市场。百度此次进入日本市场是否成功不仅对百度自身发展有着决定性的意义，而且会给中国网络企业走向世界发达国家带来重要的参考作用。

本人非常赞同百度这次战略进军日本的举动。然而百度要想在日本市场打败竞争对手非常艰难。

坦率地讲百度能够成功登陆美国纳斯达克市场是撞上了大运，理由非常简单：

第一百度的搜索技术比较Google差距巨大，百度也不是搜索技术的发明者。可以说百度的搜索技术没有任何优势。

第二百度创业者是带着美国风险投资资金进入中国，虽然本人不知道当时他们拿到了多少资金，不过至少有100万美圆，八年前100万美圆在中国可以做许多事情，比较腾讯的创业自己拼凑10万元人民币，百度太幸运了。

第三百度搜索赚钱的手段和方法存在很大争议，百度的手法与3721非常相似，百度在中国网民中的口碑很差。事实上百度现在的流量还是靠大批学生的流行歌曲下载，这种知识产权保护的法律问题如何解决将是百度永远的问题。

第四多次引发的虚假点击法律诉讼暴露出百度的管理和企业诚信存在很大问题。

第五百度比3721运气好是因为坚持到了上市那天，而3721坚持不住，提前卖掉了。

第六百度之所以目前在中国搜索市场占多数分额，是因为一雅虎当初进入中国没有重视中国市场，没有熟悉中国市场的管理团队，二Google进入中国市场太晚给了百度和3721的发展机会。

虽然百度撞大运从美国股市获得了巨额，但是百度并没有认真反思，也没有在管理上进行重要的改进，也没有在技术上有明显的提高，相反还是利用中国市场经济不规范的环境开展原来的业务。

 

因此从积极的意义上讲，这次进军日本市场将给百度带来许多正面的发展机会：

1． 日本市场的法制管理要求远远超过了中国，这样将逼迫百度的内部管理从全面规范的角度来考虑问题，自然就可以提高百度的经营管理水平。

2． 在日本市场百度是后来者，而且没有现成的社会关系网络，面对雅虎和Google的竞争对手，只有从技术、管理和营销各方面迅速提高自己的水平，创建自己真正的核心竞争力才有可能后来居上，战胜对手。

3． 百度进入日本市场前期的投资成本很小，因为硬件只需要一些服务器、电脑和办公室，在日本办公只需要少量的重要人员，大部分后台服务可以在中国本地执行。网络企业的特殊性，给百度投入日本减少了许多资金风险。百度可以花更长的时间去摸索和寻找到合适的市场战略和战术。

 

现在我们分析一下百度进军日本市场不利因素：

1． 假如百度在进入日本市场以后两年内没有成功，美国华尔街的投资人将对百度失去信心，股价就会大幅下跌。

2． 百度进军日本市场必然将调动重要的技术人才去开发日本市场的搜索，而百度目前在中国市场技术就已经落后很多，假如雅虎中国和Google中国抓住这个时机，在中国市场攻击百度的短处，百度有可能失去中国市场的分额。

3． 虽然进入日本市场可以逼迫百度自己来提高技术和管理水平，但是假如百度在日本失败了，可能会引发连锁反映，百度内部人员会全面失去信心，百度也将失去未来发展的方向。

 

然而无论如何，百度发展到今天必须寻找一个战略进行根本性的改进，包括技术改进和管理提升，从而创建自己的核心竞争力，从而彻底改变在网民中的形象和口碑。进军日本是一个好的契机。希望百度能够成功。为中国人争气。

 

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank,

先见策划http://foresight.spaces.live.com, http://foresight.blog.sohu.com,

2006年12月8日星期五

后马化腾时代 腾讯将走向何方

2006/11/28　eNet硅谷动力

　 日前，腾讯公布了2006年第三季度未经审核的财报。财报显示，腾讯该季度总收入人民币7.369亿元，同比增长103.1%，环比增长4.5%；盈利人民币2.826亿元，同比增长263.4%，环比增长5.5%.无论是营收、净利润还是增长速度，腾讯都全面超越新浪、搜狐、网易等第一代登陆纳斯达克的中国互联网诸强——腾讯凭借QQ创造的神话，似乎依旧在强势的延续着。然而，如果仔细审视腾讯每一个涉足的领域，我们或许不得不叹惋，神话似乎正在褪色……

　　一、遭遇政策壁垒的无奈

　　和所有的中国互联网企业一样，政策的壁垒是腾讯神话难以回避之痛。腾讯在无线增值服务领域遭遇的困境就是最好的例子。

　　财报显示，腾讯该季度移动及电信增值服务收入比上一季度下降7.3%，为人民币1.653亿元。按照腾讯的解释，收入下降的原因主要在于中国移动于2006年7月开始在移动梦网平台上推行针对移动增值服务的一系列新措施，造成腾讯的通信类短信服务和2.5G服务的收入下降。这些措施影响了新用户的增长，同时也增加了现有移动增值服务包月用户的流失。

　　而让人更加担心的是，这一下降的势头可能还将延续。新浪CEO曹国伟在新浪第三季度财报发布之后坦言，受政策影响，第四季度新浪无线收入降幅将超过第三季度。目前看来，腾讯似乎也难逃和新浪等SP共同遭遇寒流的命运。如果中移动真的决意用“飞信”取代移动QQ等第三方移动聊天工具，那么腾讯无线增值业务的收入可能将继续大幅缩水。而腾讯移动及电信增值服务的收入，占到了其第三季度总收入的两成以上！

　　二、Q币的阴影

　　如果说中移动的政策让腾讯的移动及电信增值服务前途黯淡；那么人民银行可能对虚拟货币采取的行动，则可能让腾讯一系列增值业务的基础面临着被动摇的危险。

　　Q币的强势使得“Q币是否会冲击人民币”的问题在近日引发了业内激烈的讨论。尤其是Q币与人民币能否互相兑换的问题更是成为了争论的焦点。腾讯宣称，人民币可兑换Q币，但仅为单向兑换，Q币不能兑换人民币。为规避嫌疑，腾讯近日甚至不惜冒着得罪部分用户的风险，禁止用Q币购买游戏币。但是，在Q币业已成为网络小额支付的事实标准的情况下，腾讯真的有能力掌控Q币的走势吗？各大C2C网站上，个体网民间热火朝天的Q币交易告诉我们，答案是否定的。

　　一面是对Q币无可奈何的腾讯，另一面是开始正视“虚拟货币问题”的中国人民银行，夹在两者之间的Q币的命运就值得玩味了。而Q币的“安危”将在大程度上左右腾讯未来的业绩。

　　尽管腾讯一度回避其依靠Q币获利颇丰的现状，但一个毋庸置疑的事实是：Q币是腾讯一系列增值业务的基础。财报显示，互联网增值服务收入达人民币4.900亿元，占腾讯该季度总收入的66.5%.其中，“QQ宠物”和“Qzone”等业务更是持续增长。但是，敢问一句：如果离开了Q币的支持，腾讯这些“赚取人们零花钱”的增值服务还能有这么好的市场表现吗？答案是显然的，没有人能想象离开了Paypal的eBay会怎样，一如没有人能想象离开了Q币的QQ会是怎样。

　　三、跟随者的无奈

　　在构成目前腾讯营业收入主体的移动及电信增值服务和互联网增值服务未来可能遭遇政策瓶颈的情况下，腾讯其他业务的孱弱进一步凸显。

　　马云曾经指责腾讯拍拍网，“所有的东西都是抄来的。”尽管这一说法来自腾讯的竞争对手，但也并非全无道理。马化腾后来居上的策略使得“模仿”成为了腾讯在多样化道路上扩张的必经之路。而借助QQ的平台，腾讯的抄袭战略也有过辉煌的曾经。拍拍网的迅速崛起就是最好的例子（这也是引出马云上文评语的导火索）。然而，“模仿”真的是一种“可持续”的战略？事实告诉我们，答案是否定的。

　　“借鉴”淘宝网“免费策略”的拍拍网，依旧不得不踏上了“收费”道路——尽管腾讯一直辩称，Flash作品存储费不是收费，但是谁都能理解这不过是又一个“”窃书不算偷“的诡辩。和多款韩国泡菜有”异曲同工之妙“的《QQ幻想》在”最高在线人数“几度逼近《魔兽世界》之后，依旧摆脱不了被匆匆遗忘的命运——不信你去各大游戏论坛看看，更多游戏玩家津津乐道的是《魔兽世界》还是《QQ幻想》……

　　“模仿”的确可以让作为跟随者的腾讯规避不少运营的风险，并迅速接近相关领域的领袖企业。然而上述的种种事实表明，并不是所有问题都可以依靠“模仿”、“借鉴”解决的。顺便说一句，腾讯高调宣传的腾讯搜搜仅贡献了其全部广告收入的9%——起码，百度们的搜索技术是腾讯暂时“模仿”不来的……

　　2006年2月15日，腾讯任命原首席战略投资官刘炽平为公司总裁，以后将协助董事会主席兼首席执行官马化腾，负责公司的日常管理和运营。而马化腾今后将更多地集中精力于制定公司的战略发展方向和产品规划。有人把这种人事变动解读为马化腾的“隐退”。在“人治”色彩浓厚的中国，管理层的变动往往会对公司的经营状况产生相当的影响。难道腾讯也不能脱离这一规律的制约吗？

　　不可否认，腾讯在马化腾时代谱写了中国互联网上的一个神话；那么在后马化腾时代，腾讯又将走向何方呢？退居幕后的马化腾究竟为腾讯做出了怎样的规划呢？一切都还是一个未知数。

 

作者：雷中辉　来源：21世纪经济报道

 

　 "我现在创业的冲动非常强烈。"11月8日,仅仅放出这句留言后,微软在线服务集团中国区总经理罗川,宣布将于12月底离开微软。

　　在微软的12年,是罗川职业生涯的全部。从销售代表干起,到成功将微软MSN引入中国, 并快速实现收入。

　　有业界人士分析,罗川的突然去职,不排除与MSN此前在中国所走的"外资互联网第三条道路"有关。

　　本地化诘问

　　2005年,微软的MSN正式进入中国。当时,罗川采取的策略是在国内成立合资公司,并将相关频道出售给本地网站,进行加盟。

　　其后不久,MSN就宣布其9大频道与国内的互联网伙伴进行合作。业界认为,罗川采取此策略的高明之处在于,一方面有效地解决了外资公司在中国经营互联网业务的政策风险;另一方面能迅速获得收入,由于每个频道出售的价格近300万美金,MSN"轻松"地完成了1亿元的广告销售。

　　JP摩根的一位分析师对记者表示,国际互联网巨头在中国可谓蹒跚而行,目前尚没有成功的案例,雅虎、Google、亚马逊、eBay无一例外地遭遇到本土公司的阻击。

　　这些公司不得不转而与本土互联网企业进行合作,或收购本地网站,或进行战略投资,如雅虎与阿里巴巴、亚马逊与当当网、eBay与易趣等。

　　据了解,在微软内部,微软MSN进入中国市场的策略,被认为是除了上述收购本地网站和战略投资之外,国外互联网公司"进入中国的第三条道路"。

　　事实上,这一合作模式也为MSN在中国白领阶层中获得了巨大影响力。来自微软内部的消息称,经过两年的发展,MSN Messenger(即目前的Live Messenger)在中国的用户已近3000万。

　　不过,值得注意的是,随着合作期限的到期,很多当初与MSN进行频道合作的互联网伙伴纷纷选择了退出。

　　目前,MSN的社区频道从猫扑换成了奇虎,交友频道换成了世纪佳缘,汽车频道换成了易车网,游戏频道原来的联众世界离开了,知名企业中唯有淘宝网留了下来。

　　一位与MSN此前进行过频道合作的互联网人士对记者表示,以前借助MSN平台,是希望其能够为公司导入一些高质量用户群的点击率,但是后来发现,这种导入用户点击所带来的流量效果越来越不明显。

　　而这种频道合作的效果,也令其一年之后的商业价值大打折扣,"尽管没有确切的消息,据称是合作价格降了",甚至一些新的频道合作伙伴,如联想、阿迪达斯、摩托罗拉,干脆就把它当成了广告页面。

　　此外,尽管MSN中文网的定位是,中国白领阶层第一门户,但其实际影响力显然不够。"由于它的内容仅限于某个传媒集团,成了传统媒体的在线版,局限性很严重,内容上无法同新浪等新闻门户抗衡。"中国人民大学一位新闻学研究者认为。

　　市场份额之痛

　　就在不久前,罗川还对记者表示,未来在线服务将成为微软整体服务框架中非常重要的部分,并大谈今后在线服务的三条业务——MSN门户、Windows Live Messenger以及Windows Live搜索引擎——的远景发展规划。

　　"不能否认,MSN发展也受到微软在线战略调整步骤的影响。"上述JP摩根的分析师认为,微软Live战略在中国市场的调整始于2005年底,而MSN中国公司正式成立于2005年5月,因此留给MSN正常发展的时间还不到半年。

　　尽管微软相关人士否认罗川离职与在线服务集团中国区业绩直接关联,但在中国即时通信市场,MSN与腾讯的差距,令人不得不将两者联系起来。

　　根据市场调查公司艾瑞提供的数据,在中国即时通信市场,2006年上半年腾讯QQ的用户份额超过了70%,MSN约为15%。

　　尽管在中国25岁到30岁的网民中,MSN用户占到41%,比腾讯更高;从用户受教育程度来看,MSN用户中58%拥有大学本科以上学历,月均网上消费高达127元,也优于腾讯。

　　但值得注意的是,MSN的用户集中在北京、上海、广州、深圳等国内一线城市,在国内的二、三线城市几乎没有市场。

　　而腾讯则依靠70%的市场份额和面向青少年的定位,在今年上半年实现了13.5亿元的收入。而QQ门户网建立不到3年,就已经成为全球访问量第五的门户网站,而相比之下,MSN中文网则知名度相去甚远。

　　尽管微软相关人士拒绝评论与腾讯的竞争,但是分析人士表示,拥有国际大公司背景以及微软操作系统捆绑推广两大优势的MSN,没能在中国市场撼动本土公司,执行层的表现难辞其咎。

　　此外,今年前段时间,MSN还在升级为Live服务的过程中出现大面积断网事件;一些公司还利用MSN木马病毒,胡乱添加用户来宣传自己的产品。这些都使得MSN的安全性和品牌受到质疑。

　　事实上,据记者了解,早在一个多月以前,微软在线服务集团中国区的一个事业部门已整体离职,这个事业部门主管品牌行销策划,人数在5人左右。

 

11月6日消息，《财富》杂志日前刊文指出，在部署新一代互联网协议IPv6方面，中印等国已经将美国甩在了身后。如果美国政府不迎头赶上，那么美国将丧失在互联网技术上的领先优势。

据网络设备制造商Juniper Networks日前公布的一项调查结果显示，86%的美国专家认为，其他国家在IPv6领域的捷足先登将给美国带来巨大的威胁。

当前，国际互联网拥有43亿个IP地址，大约1/3正在使用，另有1/3已被分配。据Frost&Sullivan的调查报告显示，到2010年这些IP地址将全部耗尽。

为此，新一代的互联网协议IPv6便应运而生。当前的IPv4采用32位地址长度，只有大约43亿个地址。而IPv6则采用128位地址长度，几乎可以不受限制地提供地址。

IPv6的主要优势体现在以下几方面：扩大地址空间、提高网络的整体吞吐量、改善服务质量(QoS)、安全性有更好的保证、支持即插即用和移动性、更好实现多播功能。

总之，IPv6将给全球互联网和通信产业带来根本性的变革。例如，包括手机在内的每一款消费电子产品都可以拥有一个独立的IP地址。

而Juniper Networks的调查结果显示，由于中国、印度和欧洲许多国家在部署IPv6设备商远远领先于美国，来自美国政府部门和科技领的专家们对此深感忧虑。

调查结果显示，70%的专家认为，美国在IPv6领域的姗姗来迟将影响到美国在科技领域的领先优势；62%的专家认为，此举将威胁到美国的国家安全；另有58%的专家认为，这有可能使国际互联网的稳定性遭到破坏。

当然，该调查结果也有积极的一面。来自美国联邦、州和地方的政府官员称，到2008年，他们44%的IT开销用来部署可支持IPv6的产品。

由于其他国家已先行一步，这些专家认为，部署IPv6应该是美国的头等要事。以中国为例，由于所分配的IP地址较少，同时互联网市场发展迅猛，因此中国极力倡导IPv6，并正在搭建全球最大的IPv6网络之一。

部署IPv6协议，当前的大部分设备都需要升级或替换。IT管理人员需要接受培训，并对网络进行测试。因此，据调研机构RTI国际预测，在未来的25年内，上述成本将高达250亿美元。

 

作者：戴维  编辑：知识银行和先见策划

知识银行 http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank,

先见策划http://foresight.spaces.live.com, http://foresight.blog.sohu.com/

 

近日谷歌创出全球网络企业的天价---在10月24日收盘时达到了473.31美元/股。谷歌上市至今不过两年左右时间，每股股价却从100多美圆上涨到近500美圆。创造了全球网络企业的神话。

有人说Google股价没有天花板，可以无限上涨。

有人说Google股价太高,有泡末,不值现在的价格。

您的意见呢？

 

为什么Google可以创造全球网络行业天价？

Google的经营思想，商业模式，科技创新，人力资源对您个人和您的企业有什么启发？

今天Google面对的机遇和挑战分别是什么？

请大家深入思考一下，请大家谈谈自己的看法。

 

凭心而论，本人非常欣赏和钦佩Google的原因有两个：

一是Google非常优秀而独特的技术和商业模式的结合能力。搜索引擎并非Google首创，但是Google却通过自己的努力创新，将搜索引擎技术价值发挥到了登峰造极的地步。

二是Google经营管理体制和工作环境。Google的经营管理颠覆了传统企业的管理思路，几乎做到了无为而致的境界。

 

然而本人对Google搜索的结果非常失望，从经济、产业和管理研究信息需求的角度讲，每次从Google的搜索结果非常让人失望，垃圾信息占据了极大比例。这点没有跳出全球搜索引擎的通病。

因为本人对Google中国地区以外的消费者需求特征没有任何研究，单从中国市场而言，自Google中国公司正式开张工作以来，Google中国确实有了明显的进步和变化。但是这种变化和进步还远远无法满足中国客户的需求。

 

本人衷心希望Google能够继续创造奇迹和神话，因为今天的世界需要优秀的榜样企业，一个健康积极的榜样，对推动世界商业经济环境进步改善有着非常重要的意义和作用。

 

假如Google需要，本人愿意贡献一些搜索引擎产业今天和未来市场需求发展方面的策略和方法。帮助Google中国公司再创一个技术和商业的中国神话。

知识银行 http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank,

先见策划http://foresight.spaces.live.com, http://foresight.blog.sohu.com/

foresight89@yahoo.com.cn

2006年10月26日星期四

WR Hambrecht的网络分析师Denise Garcia称，Google正在进入其他的未知领域，这是我们所听到的他们对未来的承诺，除非他们的计划出现瑕疵，否则股价不会停止上涨

 

认为Google股价可达到600美元/股的预言，似乎不再让人觉得那么骇人听闻了。第三季度的惊人业绩和收购视频网站YouTube所激起的乐观情绪，将帮助Google征服一个全新的网络搜索市场。在过去的五天里Google的股票已经上涨了11%，在10月24日收盘时达到了473.31美元/股。

固然人们可以怀疑是什么推动了股价的上涨，以及还有多少上涨空间。毕竟市值达到1450亿美元的Google公司，今年的收入预计只有160亿美元。在10月23日标准普尔的分析师将Google股票等级从‘购买’降为‘持有’，认为市场对公司及股票的热情有些过度。

业务范围

狂热投资者不仅认为Google将继续扩大网络广告市场份额，而且认为该公司能成功进军其他市场如电子商务市场。据调查公司eMarketer估计，今年美国电子商务市场的规模可达到1049亿美元。如果投资者保持这种观点，Google股价的上升空间似乎不会有顶点。

Jefferies & Co.的分析师Youssef Squali认为，到年底时股价可能达到520美元/股，问题是人们对Google业务范围的看法，如果认为它只在网络市场上竞争那就太狭隘了，因为这样看Google的股价就高的离谱，但事实上该公司正在进入传统广告商从未真正涉及的领域。根据eMarketer在10月16发表的报告，Google占据了美国网络广告市场25%的份额，已经处于垄断地位。Susquehanna Financial Group的高级网络分析师Marianne Wolk估计，Google控制了70%左右的搜索广告市场，在这方面微软和雅虎都还无法与之匹敌。

超越核心

Google没有停止脚步的迹象。10月24日Google推出了允许用户定制自己的搜索引擎的工具，从而闯进了其他公司的领地，如Septet Systems公司，就是提供个性化搜索并通过www.pssdir.com站点分享的企业。该公司也通过Google销售广告并分享收入。PSS网站的合作创始人Benjamin Epstein称，对于Google的进入感到非常高兴，因为这能使他的业务更为合法化，他的搜索引擎具有一些Google所不具备的功能，不过总有些担心Google会把他们挤出市场。

但争夺更多的搜索广告市场只是Google网络广告战略的一部分，Google计划提供更多的品牌和多媒体广告。在收购YouTube后将为视频和多媒体广告提供一个现有的平台，通过与新闻集团的MySpace合作，Google将超越文本广告范畴。Google还准备积极打入分类广告市场，计划与eBay合作提供点击呼叫（click-to-call）广告服务。Wolk称，正是这些广告机会推动了股价的上升，使Google更具吸引力的是，它的核心业务已经做的非常好，如果其他领域如视频广告、移动广告和本地广告发展起来，核心业务将获得进一步的发展。

Checkout系统

Google的雄心还不止停留在广告领域，在发布利润报告时公司经理们还谈到软件业务，推出的在线电子表格和其他软件将与微软的Office竞争。同时公司经理对Google Checkout，一个与eBay的PayPal竞争的在线支付系统，也非常乐观。这种产品成为很多Google广告客户的最爱，因为它能帮助广告商通过免费交易赢得消费者的信赖。

TheFurniture.com的首席执行官Alex Spektor称，虽然他同时使用了Checkout 和PayPal，不过相对来说Checkout是更好的在线支付服务；过去他们8-10%的支付业务是通过 PayPal完成的，现在只有3-4%的客户使用PayPal，而8-12%的用户使用了Google Checkout。当然Spektor的乐观是基于一个事实，即很多Checkout交易是免费的，因为他在广告上投入了很多钱。但这并不意味着Google Checkout在任何方面都能与PayPal相比，因为后者不仅局限于eBay的业务，甚至超越了在线支付的范围。而Checkout还只是刚开始。

完美无暇

或许人们会问一个问题，就是按照Google的发展战略它的手是不是伸的太长了。除了搜索外Google还要为其他的业务建造一个家。固然投资者和分析师们都知道Google将进入其他市场，这意味着Google的股票不会受到任何单个市场的限制。WR Hambrecht的网络分析师Denise Garcia称，Google正在进入其他的未知领域，这是我们所听到的他们对未来的承诺，除非他们的计划出现瑕疵，否则股价不会停止上涨。（Tony）

作者：比尔   编辑：快乐创作和知识银行

快乐创作http://singinglife.spaces.live.com/, http://happycreation.bokee.com/

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com/, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank/

 

最近全国各种媒体都在讨论博客采用实名制的利弊得失问题。赞成和反对博客采用实名制的观点截然相反，各有道理。从目前讨论结果看，大多数网民和互联网专业人士都反对博客推行实名制。

在此鄙人从和谐社会建设和互联网产业发展的角度来分析一下， 假如博客采用实名制可能带来问题和产生的结果。

1．  博客实行实名制可以大大方便互联网行政管理机构的监管工作，因为有了实名查询就非常方便了。

2．  可以大大减少博客上所发布的不良信息包括色情、诈骗和造谣等问题，也可以大幅减少来自博客的不同意见和言论。

3．  博客实名制是完全站在行政管理者方便管制的角度考虑问题，却大幅增加了网民和博客的不便。对推广和发展博客产业带来很大阻力和问题。显然一项新的政策如果不能为广大消费者和民众提供方便肯定不是好政策。

4．  博客采用实名制并不能减少网络上的不良信息。原因非常简单：首先实名制不一定能够解决消除不良信息的问题，比如色情和诈骗信息，今天中国网下的色情和诈骗问题严重性远远超过了网上，甚至已经有地方城市提出将网下卖淫服务改成性服务工作；其次从博客上发布的信息少了不等于互联网上发布信息少了，可能还会更多。

5．  博客采用实名制从技术和执行效果分析并不一定能够达到希望的目的。因为中国目前已经有许多领域实行实名制，但是执行效果并不理想。比如一个非常重要的实名制问题，银行存款和贷款的实名问题。假如银行实名制能够得到正确认真的执行，中国就可以从根本上解决诈骗，洗钱、逃税和贪污贿络的资金转移问题。然而今天中国银行还有大量的虚假银行实名存在，每年都造成巨大经济损失。

6．  从网络管理的角度分析，即使现在没有实名制，每个博客都有一个固定的IP地址，要查讯非常方便，除非博客在国外。因此监管好坏不是实名问题。

7．  除了色情和诈骗问题外，假如为了大幅减少博客分布不同的观点和言论。这种做法与现在国家倡导和谐社会做法相背离。人人之间，民众与政府官员之间，阶层与阶层之间只有加强沟通和了解，才能化解矛盾，社会才能和谐。假如网络主管机构不让民众发表意见，没有平等的平台让民众发表自己的看法，那么只能激化社会矛盾。这样做显然不符合立党为公执政为民的做法。

8．  互联网是中国发展最重要的工具和手段之一，我们今天不是要加强管制力度，而是要提高我们的行政机构的管理水平，积极引导互联网产业进行更新创新和发展。美国一个成熟的资本主义国家为什么会在最近20多年焕发出新生机和新的活力？美国的互联网技术和产业的飞速发展起到了极其重要的作用。因此我们相信中国互联网产业能否得到有效发展将对中国经济发展起到很大作用。其中博客群体将是互联网产业创新的最重要力量。

 

因此鄙人认为博客实行实名制不利于和谐社会发展，也不利用互联网发展。至于互联网产业管理完全有更好的方法。

快乐创作http://singinglife.spaces.live.com/, http://happycreation.bokee.com/

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com/, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank/

2006年10月23日星期一

By Catherine Holahan

 

YouTube's New Deep Pockets

The online video star has found a rich parent, but can it ensure that it won't leave Google vulnerable to copyright lawsuits?

YouTube is swiftly adopting Google's informal corporate motto on not doing evil. Google has a lot riding on it—$1.65 billion in stock, to be exact. That's how much the Web search giant is forking over to buy You Tube, the popular online video and social networking service that in just a year and a half has become one of the most visited sites on the Web.

Google (GOOG) executives said the deal would help transform their company into a global media powerhouse and provide new audiences for the targeted advertising that's the lifeblood of Google earnings. Executives plan to keep the company as a standalone service, while continuing to nurture Google's existing video service. "Video is a great medium for advertising and from that point of view we are really excited about YouTube," Google co-founder and chief technology officer Sergey Brin said on a conference call announcing the Oct. 9 deal. "It is hard for me to imagine a better fit for a company."
But if YouTube is to remain a good fit, it will have to keep its new parent free of costly copyright infringement lawsuits, filed by media companies and other content providers concerned their material is being used illegally on the site. YouTube has a history of tangling with music labels and television studios over users' uploading copyrighted music and video clips to its service.
NEW RULES.  YouTube's policy is to remove copyrighted clips once alerted to their existence. Content providers say the company needs to be even more proactive. YouTube was sued on July 14 by Robert Tur, an independent photographer, for distributing his work without permission (see BusinessWeek, 8/7/06, "Whose Video Is It Anyway?"). Universal Music Group weighed whether to sue YouTube over copyright infringement as well (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/18/06, "Sour Musical Notes on YouTube, MySpace").
Todd Dagres, general partner at Boston's Spark Capital, says that Google's large market cap of $130 billion makes it much more vulnerable to lawsuits than a private company such as YouTube. "Once Google starts to apply its monetization machine, there is going to be more money at stake and people are going to go after it," says Dagres. "You cannot monetize other people's content without their approval."
That's just what YouTube is trying to get. Hours before announcing the sale, YouTube executives said they had struck content deals with CBS (CBS), Universal Music Group, and Sony BMG, the partnership between Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann. Each lets YouTube distribute approved copyrighted content from its partners in exchange for a share of advertising revenue. YouTube has similar agreements with General Electric's (GE) NBC and Warner Music Group (WMG).
YouTube is going further to allay copyright concerns. The company is adopting technology that lets it "fingerprint" and block copyrighted videos. Then copyright owners can determine whether to allow the video to circulate and take a share of the advertising revenue or to continue to block the video. YouTube already limits videos to 10 minutes in an effort to keep users from uploading television episodes and movies (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/3/06, "YouTube CTO Outlines Copy Protection Tools").
INITIAL REACTIONS.  Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG's Global Digital Business, says the deal satisfies any copyright issues his company had with YouTube. "I think what this deal does for us is it allows us to actively embrace this phenomenon of viral video communities. It helps us use that medium to connect our artists with their fans, and it also helps us do this in a way that respects our copyright and develops added revenue for the company overall."
During the conference call, YouTube founder Chad Hurley said the Google deal will help the company better police its content to ensure copyright laws are respected. "We have always respected copyright holders' rights. What this deal allows us to do is to focus on that more than before," says Hurley. "It allows us to have the resources to focus on this." Google and YouTube executives also said they will be working to forge more content-sharing alliances with major media companies.
While such deals may decrease Google's ultimate liability for copyrighted content that will inevitably make it onto YouTube, they do not completely shield the enlarged company from expensive lawsuits, says Jason Schultz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It eliminates the threat of these particular copyright owners," says Schultz. "But it is not an absolute get-out-of-jail-free card." Forrester Research's Josh Bernoff agrees. "The problem of copyrighted video remains and is going to be a problem," says Bernoff. "If 80% of the content companies make deals and the other 20% have a problem, that is quite sufficient by itself to cause the end of YouTube."
INEVITABLE LAWSUITS?  To properly protect itself from lawsuits, YouTube will have to ensure that the majority of copyrighted content never makes it onto the service, says Bernoff. That could mean hiring a staff to scan video content in addition to using an automated system. Smaller video-sharing sites such as Revver use this technique. Implementing such a system at YouTube, however, would be significantly more challenging because of the volume of videos. YouTube streams more than 100 million videos a day. Revver has far fewer videos in its database.
David Hornik, a partner with August Capital and a former intellectual property attorney, says lawsuits are a matter of when, not if. "There will be lawsuits," Hornik says. "The question is, Will it be big groups of media companies or small groups of media companies?" Hornik, who's on the board of VideoEgg, another video site that's backed by August Capital, says media companies are getting more savvy about doing partnerships rather than filing lawsuits, and he thinks ultimately such issues will be worked out. But for now, "The law is not evolving quickly enough."
And shunning all evil when it comes to copyrights could have a price too. Part of the site's cool factor, after all, is the hope of seeing at least a little copyrighted material. Others visit YouTube because it allows users to upload videos that are enhanced by copyrighted music or clips.
POSSIBLE LOSSES.  If YouTube's content partners are too aggressive in deciding which videos cannot use their content, or YouTube delays uploading videos until content owners can be briefed, it could lose part of its audience. Spark's Dagres says too aggressive policing could kill the video star. "YouTube is where it is because it was a little bit naughty," says Dagres. "Now they are going to have to remove the naughty. And if they become nice, will people still be as attracted to them?"
To be successful, Google will have to not only attract advertisers to YouTube but also help the company strike a delicate balance between reducing its liability and empowering users. That's a difficult task for a big public company that has to be continually focused on its bottom line and not necessarily on remaining hip, says Dagres. Avoiding that responsibility may be one reason Google did not bid more aggressively for MySpace when it was still a private company. It bought the right to sell advertising for $900 million and left the coolness question to MySpace's parent, News Corp. (NWS). Partnership in this case was riskier because Google didn't want Yahoo! (YHOO) or AOL (TWX) to get the property and both were rumored to have been interested.
If anyone can rise to the challenge of making YouTube both nice and likeable, it's Google. Analysts say YouTube could bring Google between $200 million and $300 million in advertising revenue next year alone. "Google is the master of monetizing content that others didn't see how they would monetize," says Ken Marlin, a managing partner at Marlin & Associates, a New York investment bank that specializes in media and technology. "There are all kinds of new products that can come out of this deal…there is a potentially huge market."
Viewers who want a little copyright evil in their video may just have to look elsewhere.

 

作者：戴维  编辑：知识银行和先见策划

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com/, http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank/

先见策划http://foresight.spaces.live.com/

 

这两天传出易贝易趣网准备撤出中国市场和正在寻找股权转让的消息，当然易趣网真实情况无法知道，然而易趣网更换了新的CEO缺有其事，而且据报道易趣网新闻发言人也表示欢迎与其他机构开展各种形式的合作。

易趣网进入中国已经有七年了，曾经拥有90%的市场分额，为什么今天会走到如此惨痛的地步？  易趣网会不会成为第二个雅虎中国？

易趣网虽然与雅虎中国在业务内容上有本质的不同，然而两者在经营管理的结果上有许多极其相似之处。两个网络从一开始就拥有所有成功的要素，为什么两个网站都遭到残败？一个企业一个网站拥有了所有成功条件，结果却失败了。为什么？

恐怕国内外的经营专家很难理解！  雅虎总部和易贝总部也很难理解！

我们研究和观察雅虎中国和易趣已经很多年，曾经也非常真诚的发函给两家公司，希望能够帮助他们解决困境，可惜他们始终没有认识自己的问题本质，结果造成了巨大损失。这种损失不仅仅是经济上的，而且是品牌信誉上的。由于商业机密问题，在这里我们不谈具体的解决方法，只回答“为什么这两个网站拥有所有的成功条件却遭到了残败？”的一些关键原因。

雅虎中国和易趣网都拥有让其他竞争对手羡慕的巨额资金；  这两个公司可以拥有世界最昂贵的人才； 这两个公司还拥有世界上最优秀的网络技术； 当然他们还拥有丰富的网络经营管理经验。可惜结果缺非常让人失望。

第一个原因就是选人标准问题。

跨国公司在中国市场用人失误案例不胜枚举。特别是中国区的负责人的使用。他们普遍用人准则是一定要有跨国公司重要经历，而且还要欧美国家的经历。凡是学过经营管理的人都知道中国的市场情况与欧美国家的情况完全不同。国外的经历根本无法应付中国市场，要真正了解中国市场至少缺乏3—5年的时间。特别在今天市场竞争已经白热化的环境下。一个没有中国市场经验的跨国公司经理，刚刚来到中国根本解决不了问题。

用人的第二个问题创业型人才和解决困境的人才与守住原有阵地的人才是完全不同的。

第二原因是个人的成功不代表企业的成功。

邵逸波是一个非常聪明的人，他进入中国市场的时间和退出的时间掌握的非常巧妙。他个人成功了。可是他没有让易趣网实现成功，虽然换了几轮CEO还是无法扭转困境。

周鸿亿是个绝顶聪明的人，他用一个被称为“流氓软件技术”创立了3721，他个人得到了雅虎1。2亿美圆转让费，可是3721快消失了，雅虎中国也没有扭转困境。

这两位创业者如此年轻就获得的亿万个人财富，可以说非常成功了。可是个人成了亿万富豪，而企业却失败了。这种现象说明了什么问题？

说明了个人财富和企业效益是可以分离的； 说明了风险投资机构是非常盲目的。这种盲目体现了风险投资的判断体系存在着严重问题。

第三个原因在中国市场要获得胜利最重要的因素不是资金实力。也不是过去的行业经历。

雅虎中国的对手搜狐和新浪网，三者进入中国市场时间都差不多，而新浪和搜狐的起步资金远远小于雅虎，可是新浪和搜狐过去几年却赚翻了天。

淘宝网起步几乎没有花什么钱，淘宝投入的广告费也比易趣网少了很多，但是一个起步晚，资金少的淘宝网今天市场分额却超过了易趣。

非常抱歉，由于咨询业务商业机密问题，我们不再做进一步分析。不过我们再大胆做些预测：

1．  虽然阿里巴巴接管雅虎中国以后做了许多战略调整的努力，然而以目前的网站内容看很难找到扭亏为赢的方法。

2．  易趣网如果现在愿意彻底改变战略思想，完全有机会反败为胜。

 

先见策划http://foresight.spaces.live.com/

知识银行http://knowledgebank.spaces.live.com/ http://blog.163.com/knowledgebank/

foresight89@yahoo.com.cn,

 

2006年9月28日星期四

本报记者 顾建兵 上海报道   来源：南方报业传媒集团-21世纪经济报道

　　“收购的内部协议肯定已经签了。”9月25日，一位接近eBay易趣高层的人士向记者透露，TOM集团将在数日之内宣布全面收购eBay易趣及贝宝在中国的业务。

　　此前，TOM集团旗下的TOM在线已经成为eBay另一项业务——Skype——的中国区总代理。

这个消息我目前没有办法确认。”当记者就此向eBay易趣及贝宝中国首席执行官廖光宇求证时，廖光宇强调目前还没有办法确认。不过，此前一直担任贝宝中国区总经理的廖光宇同时透露，贝宝中国确实一直在寻求中方合作伙伴。

　　而eBay易趣前首席执行官、现任顾问吴世雄的态度则更为暧昧：“现在不方便评论，过一段时间再聊比较合适。”

　　eBay全面撤退

　　“eBay不玩了。”上述接近eBay易趣及贝宝中国高层的人士告诉记者，可以肯定的是，根据协议，eBay将全面出售其中国区业务。

　　“eBay可能觉得中国区业务一直处在下滑的状态，所以才会撤退。”该人士进一步分析说。

　　2002年3月，eBay总裁兼CEO惠特曼出资3000万美元，从比她小13岁的哈佛校友邵亦波手中收购了易趣1/3的股份。当时易趣占有中国C2C市场90%以上的份额。按照双方当时的协议，2003年，eBay以1.5亿美元收购了易趣的剩余股份，从而也正式拉开了eBay进军中国市场的步伐。

　　但让eBay没有想到的是，2003年4月，马云(马云新闻,马云说吧)创立淘宝网，进入原本由易趣一家独大的C2C市场。而马云一开始就采取中国网民更容易接受的免费模式。很快，易趣的客户就开始向淘宝网流失。

　　面对客户的流失，2005年1月，eBay宣布将在中国投资1亿美元，全面狙击淘宝网。但是面对免费的诱惑和淘宝网人气的不断上升，除了一些“骨灰级”的客户坚守之外，eBay易趣的市场份额开始全面下滑。

　　中国互联网络信息中心此前发布的《2006年中国C2C网上购物调查报告》显示，根据购物人数与购物频度计算，2005年度中国C2C购物网站在北京、上海和广州三城市的用户市场份额分别为：淘宝网67.3%，eBay易趣29.1%。

　　实际上，eBay有意撤出中国市场的传言已经不是第一次。记者从阿里巴巴内部人士处了解到，早在阿里巴巴和雅虎商谈股权合作的时候，eBay也曾找过马云，希望将eBay中国区业务出售给阿里巴巴。但是，后来据称由于马云迫切需要搜索业务来支撑其电子商务的发展，最终选择了雅虎。

　　在同马云合作努力失败之后，eBay开始转而同TOM集团商谈合作。“当时都谈得差不多了，但是不知道为什么最后没有对外宣布。”阿里巴巴的这位内部人士表示。

　　除了业务不断下滑之外，eBay在中国也遭遇到其他的一些困难。“中国人民银行正在拟定《支付清算组织管理办法》，规定外资只能持有网上支付企业一定比例的股份。”廖光宇向记者表示，由于此前贝宝的外资持股比例可能不符合中国人民银行的规定，所以一直在寻找中方合作伙伴。

　　TOM集团接盘猜想

　　此前不久，TOM集团首席执行官兼执行董事汤美娟曾对外透露，互联网将是TOM集团下半年收购的重点领域。

　　9月24日，记者曾试图通过电子邮件向汤美娟求证收购eBay中国区业务一事，但是截至记者发稿时止，没有得到汤美娟的回复。而9月25日，TOM集团企业传讯总经理李淑韵则对记者表示，“暂时还没有具体的资料可以公布。”

　　实际上，并购正是TOM集团的起家之宝。仅2000年8月至2002年10月期间，TOM集团就先后参股了25家公司，与合作伙伴成立了9家合营公司，同时收购了12家户外广告媒体。正是通过这些收购，TOM集团才迅速成长为一个包括互联网、户外传媒、出版、体育、电视及娱乐五大业务在内的跨媒体集团。

　　“目前还不清楚是采用类似阿里巴巴收购雅虎中国的模式，还是单纯的现金收购。”前文提及的接近eBay易趣中国高层的人士表示。

　　相比较而言，如果采用类似雅虎和阿里巴巴的收购模式，TOM集团的财务压力较小。而如果采用现金完全收购的方式，TOM集团则将面临巨大的财务压力。毕竟，到现在为止，eBay在中国的投入已经超过了2.8亿美元，“出售的价格应该不菲”。

　　TOM集团的财务资料显示，截至2006年6月30日，其银行存款和现金结余约为17亿元港币，可以使用的银行贷款总额约为21亿元港币。这些就是TOM集团可以用来收购eBay中国区业务的重要“弹药”。

　　据上述接近eBay易趣高层的人士分析，此前几天，廖光宇接替吴世雄担任eBay易趣和贝宝中国首席执行官也是在为收购的过渡做准备，“廖光宇的强项是在金融领域，并不是电子商务，应该是过渡性的”。

　　但是不管最终的收购方式如何，可以肯定的是，TOM集团全面收购eBay的中国区业务将给淘宝网和eBay易趣目前的市场竞争态势带来新的变数。毕竟，TOM集团大股东李嘉诚和第二大股东周凯旋的资源、人脉关系和对内地市场的了解，都要在原来eBay那些美国高管之上。

 

来源：北京商报

   一个是拥有2500万宽带接入用户垄断资源的中国电信；一个是拥有IE浏览器独有资源微软。如果他们在搜索上合作，那么会对整个搜索市场带来什么？
    昨天，中国电信终于推出其酝酿已久的互联网搜索服务，而为其提供搜索引擎的就是微软的live.com。“此举必将改变目前互联网搜索市场的格局。”互联网分析师吕伯望向记者表示。
    据悉，微软将为中国电信的线上服务114搜索提供引擎支持。114原为中国电信的语音查号服务平台，但中国电信已将其全面升级，从语音扩展到互联网搜索。
    中国电信目前是国内最大的ISP，拥有国内互联网服务约70%的市场份额。宽带接入用户数达到2500万户。中国电信希望凭借用户数量方面的优势，推出全新的搜索增值服务，早已经是业内公开的秘密。不过，由于搜索技术门槛较高，也没有运营经验，所以寻找合作伙伴的传闻一直没有断过。
    而微软尽管贵为世界三大搜索商之一，但在中国市场的份额可以用忽略不计来形容。由于没有先发优势，负责推广的微软在线集团也一直在寻找微软搜索的突破口。所以此次合作一拍即合也是顺理成章。
    之前，有消息称微软为了达成与中国电信的合作付出了2100万美元的代价。据了解，微软在线集团总经理罗川与中国电信集团互联网与增值业务事业部总经理杨可可均对合作金额表示沉默。