F
acebook Inc.日益壮大的雄心正在重新划分硅谷的战线。在加大招聘力度并为其社交网站添加新功能之际，这家创建七年的公司也打乱了雅虎公司（Yahoo Inc.）和谷歌公司（Google Inc.）等老牌公司的业务，并向更多的互联网公司发出了警告。
Facebook拥有6亿多用户，在最近一轮融资中获得了500亿美元的估值，公司正在从雅虎、Myspace和其他公司抢夺在线广告。在电子支付领域，该社交网站是eBay公司旗下PayPal的潜在对手，而Facebook与智能手机制造商伙伴关系的日益加强为其在手机服务领域与苹果公司（Apple Inc.）和谷歌的竞争做好了准备。
与此同时，Facebook正在与谷歌和微软公司（Microsoft Corp.）争夺顶尖工程师。
结果，许多硅谷公司不得不日益面对这样一个抉择，到底是将Facebook当做朋友并借助其影响力和用户数据促进自身增长，还是将其当做一个会具有破坏力的敌人。
加州Bessemer Venture Partners 风险资本家考恩（David Cowan）说，在硅谷，Facebook既是强大的竞争对手又是一个施惠者；任何想吸引年轻互联网用户注意的人都必须与Facebook在这一领域的主导地位竞争；另一方面，他们也创造了大量机遇。
Facebook高管毫不顾忌地说出了自己的抱负。首席运营长桑伯格（Sheryl Sandberg）说，我们认为每个行业都会围绕社交参与而被重构。
桑伯格说，Facebook已经帮助催生了一大批围绕好友互动设计的视频游戏公司；新闻、健康、金融、购物和商务，我们认为所有这些都将由与我们合作的公司重建，将社交置于核心。
迄今为止，Facebook的核心战场一直是在线营销。
据研究公司eMarketer统计，短短两年时间，Facebook 2010年在美国的在线展示广告市场占有率就由2.9%升至13.6%，达到88.8亿美元。
Facebook的成长是以雅虎和美国在线（AOL Inc）等公司为代价的，同时还可能正在拿走报纸和电视等传统媒体的广告费。
雅虎已经停止试图与Facebook直接竞争，转而将Facebook的功能整合到其旗下网站，希望借此阻止用户每月使用雅虎时间的流失。
和雅虎一样，Myspace也与Facebook达成了一些合作关系，Myspace拒绝置评。
Myspace和《华尔街日报》同属新闻集团（News Corp.）。
美国在线广告业务总裁莱维克（Jeff Levick）说，他认为Facebook的崛起具有互补性，因为美国在线和Facebook经营的业务大相径庭。
他说，美国在线主要着力于将Facebook用户分享的内容变成钱。
莱维克说，我们生产的高质量内容越多，分享得越多，流量就会回到我们这里。他说，与美国在线和Facebook同时合作的顶级广告商每个季度在美国在线的消费更多。
据知情人士说，Facebook去年的收入可能在19亿美元至20亿美元之间。
Facebook最近推出了新的广告形式，将用户好友网络──甚至包括他们的姓名、照片和帖子──嵌入广告。
Facebook还将目光转向了本地广告市场，将团购网站Groupon Inc.和商业评论服务Yelp Inc.等网站的元素结合起来，推出了自己的位置签到服务和优惠服务。
Groupon和Yelp均拒绝置评。
Facebook营造的这个互联网平台可能会得罪更多公司。利用这个平台，其它网站、手机甚至是汽车都能为自己的产品宣传造势，人们可用这些产品联系朋友，并表达喜好。
迄今为止，已有大约250万个网站利用Facebook这个平台，在该平台上发布博客、新闻报道、产品清单及其它网页，旁边有Facebook提供的“喜爱”键。
凭借这个平台，Facebook开始把自己定位成甚至包括谷歌在内的其它高科技公司的合作伙伴。Facebook允许YouTube用户与其Facebook上的好友分享视频。
Facebook业务合作与平台营销部副总裁罗斯(Dan Rose)说，平台之所以成为平台，其核心基础是人们愿意在这上面搭建业务，因为这里有等价交换。
尽管如此，罗斯说，Facebook有意参与通过使用这个平台所产生的新业务。
例如，首批利用Facebook平台发现巨大增长机遇的公司之一、游戏开发商Zynga Game Network Inc.如今已开始缴税。
Facebook上月说，将要求在其平台上运作的所有游戏开发商使用内部“信用点币”，即一种在游戏中可用来买东西的虚拟货币。Facebook从信用点币的销售额中提成30%。Zynga拒绝置评。
Facebook以后可能会将其“信用点币”系统扩展至其他商业领域，包括实体商品，有可能会成为网络公司贝宝(PayPal)和亚马逊公司(Amazon.com Inc.)的竞争对手。
罗斯并未排除这一可能性，但他说，眼下Facebook并无此计划，目前该公司的重点放在虚拟商品上。
贝宝总裁汤普森(Scott Thompson)淡化了与Facebook的任何竞争。
汤普森说，贝宝与Facebook是伙伴关系，用户可利用贝宝为Facebook的“信用点币”付账。他说，虽然Facebook开始深入参与付费业务，但贝宝将受到良好的保护。汤普森说，付费业务做起来的确很难。
不过，硅谷很多公司对于Facebook控制其平台的举措保持警惕，并已开始搬离这个平台。
提供网上相亲服务的公司Zoosk Inc.在2007年成立时是Facebook的一个应用软件，在这里该公司的用户数量实现了飞速增长。但2008年中期，Zoosk联合创始人扎德(Shayan Zadeh)决定，应扩大该公司的业务至Myspace和该公司自身网站等其它平台。于是，他们开始向自己在Facebook上的用户索要真实的电子邮箱地址，这样就不用仅仅依赖Facebook作为其交流媒介。
扎德说，他担心的是，Facebook业务模式或平台战略出现的一些转移可能会造成Zoosk业务不稳。他说，一个公司若要保持长期知名度，就要有一个直接联络的方式。如今，Zoosk有约1,500万至2,000万个月度活跃用户，其中只有约20%的新用户是通过Facebook发展来的。
此外，Facebook高管还将目光锁定在智能手机上，他们希望进一步参与手机的软件业务。和记黄埔有限公司(Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.)旗下的INQ Mobile上周发布了一款面向英国市场的手机，其突出特点是可共享手机用户在其Facebook账户里的联系人、照片和其它数据。
更多此类合作安排有望很快问世。
Facebook的这种业务行为使其日益朝着与谷歌、苹果和其它正在做手机广告的公司撞车的方向前进。罗斯说，Facebook可能最终会通过广告和“信用点币”从移动业务中赚钱，但目前并没有任何这方面的打算。
谷歌拒绝对Facebook置评，但其首席执行长施密特(Eric Schmidt)去年接受采访时曾说，两家公司竞争的是人才，而不是广告收入，并说Facebook的用户是使用谷歌服务最多的一类用户。施密特还说，你在猜想是否会出现Facebook赚钱而谷歌吃亏的情况，但赢家往往表现都很棒。
Geoffrey A. Fowler
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
Facebook Inc.'s growing ambitions are redrawing battle lines in Silicon Valley.
As the seven-year-old company ramps up its hiring and adds new features to its social network, it is disrupting the businesses of established companies like Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. and putting even more Internet firms on notice.
Facebook, which has more than 600 million users and was valued at $50 billion in a recent funding round, is grabbing online-advertising from Yahoo, Myspace and others. The social network is a potential rival in electronic payments to eBay Inc.'s PayPal, while partnerships Facebook is cementing with smartphone makers set the stage for competition with Apple Inc. and Google in mobile services.
Meanwhile, Facebook is tussling with Google and Microsoft Corp. for top engineers.
As a result, many Silicon Valley companies increasingly have to decide whether to treat Facebook like a friend whose reach and user data can help propel their own growth, or a foe that can become a destructive force.
'Facebook is both a great competitor and a benefactor here in Silicon Valley,' said David Cowan, a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif. 'Anyone who's trying to get the attention of the young Internet user now has to compete with the dominant position that Facebook has there. On the other hand, they have opened up a lot of opportunities.'
Facebook executives aren't shy about their aspirations. 'We think every industry is going to be rebuilt around social engagement,' Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said.
Facebook already helped spur a new crop of videogame companies designed around interacting with friends, Ms. Sandberg said, adding, 'News, health, finance, shopping and commerce -- we think similarly, all of these things will be rebuilt by companies that work with us to put social at the core.'
So far, Facebook's key battleground has been in online marketing.
In just two years, Facebook's share of online display ads has surged to 13.6% from 2.9% of the U.S. market, which reached $8.88 billion in 2010, according to research firm eMarketer.
Facebook's growth comes at the expense of companies such as Yahoo and AOL Inc., and the site is also likely taking ad money away from traditional media like newspapers and TV.
Yahoo has stopped trying to compete directly with the social network and instead integrated Facebook features into its sites, hoping to halt a slide in the time its users spend on Yahoo each month.
Myspace, which like Yahoo has struck some partnerships with Facebook, declined to comment.
Myspace and The Wall Street Journal are owned by News Corp.
Jeff Levick, the president of AOL advertising, said he viewed the rise of Facebook as 'complementary' because the companies are 'running two very very different businesses.'
AOL, he said, focuses on monetizing the content that Facebook users share.
'The more high quality content we produce and is shared, the traffic comes back to us,' Mr. Levick said. The top advertisers who are working with both companies are spending more with AOL each quarter, he said.
Facebook likely had revenue of $1.9 billion to $2 billion last year, mostly in advertising, one person familiar with the company has said.
Facebook has recently introduced ad formats that incorporate users' networks of friends -- even their names, photos and postings -- into the ads.
And Facebook has also turned its attention to the local advertising market, launching its own location check-in and deals services that bring together elements of sites such as coupon site Groupon Inc. and business reviews service Yelp Inc.
Groupon and Yelp declined to comment.
Facebook is likely to tread on more toes as it builds out what's known as a platform for the Internet, which other websites, cellphones and now even cars can use to build their own offerings to allow people to take their friends and preferences with them.
Some 2.5 million websites have so far tapped the platform, which lets them populate blog posts, news articles, product listings and other pages with Facebook's 'Like' button.
With its platform play, Facebook is positioning itself as a partner to other tech companies -- even Google, which allows YouTube users to share videos with their Facebook friends.
'The foundation of a platform is one where people want to build on top because there is equal value exchange,' said Dan Rose, Facebook's vice president of partnerships and platform marketing.
Still, Mr. Rose said Facebook intends to participate in new businesses that emerge from the use of its platform.
One case in point: Game developers such as Zynga Game Network Inc., among the first to find massive growth on Facebook's platform, now have to pay a kind of tax.
Last month, Facebook said it would require all game developers on its platform to use its in-house Credits, a virtual currency for buying things in games. Facebook takes a 30% cut from all Credit sales. Zynga declined to comment.
Facebook could later extend its Credits system to other areas of commerce, including physical goods, potentially making it a competitor to PayPal and Amazon.com Inc.
Mr. Rose didn't rule that out, but said the company had no current plans to do so and was focused on virtual goods for now.
PayPal President Scott Thompson plays down any rivalry with Facebook.
He said his company partners with Facebook, which lets people pay for Facebook Credits with PayPal. Even if Facebook gets deeper into payments, he said PayPal will be well-protected. 'Payments is really, really hard to do,' he said.
Yet many Silicon Valley firms are wary of Facebook's control over its platform and have turned elsewhere.
Online-dating service Zoosk Inc. launched in 2007 as an application on Facebook, where it experienced fast user growth. But in mid-2008, co-founder Shayan Zadeh decided Zoosk needed to expand to other platforms such as Myspace and its own website. It began to ask its Facebook users for their real email addresses, instead of just relying on Facebook as a means of communication.
Mr. Zadeh said he was concerned that some shift in Facebook's business model or platform strategy could destabilize Zoosk. 'If you want to be a long-term established business, you have to establish a direct communication line,' he said. Today, Zoosk has about 15 million to 20 million active monthly users; only about 20% of new users come through Facebook.
Facebook executives also have their sights set on smartphones, where they hope to become more integrated in the software on the handsets. Last week, INQ Mobile, owned by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., unveiled a handset for the U.K. that prominently features contacts, photos and other data from users' Facebook accounts.
More such arrangements are expected soon.
Such activity increasingly puts Facebook on a collision course with Google, Apple and others in mobile advertising. Mr. Rose said Facebook could eventually make money off its mobile efforts through ads and Credits, but doesn't have any plans for it at the moment.
Google declined to comment on Facebook, but in an interview last, year Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the two companies compete for talent but not for ad dollars and that Facebook users use more Google services than any other users. He also said that 'you're assuming that if they do well we do poorly,' but 'winners tend to all do well.'
Geoffrey A. Fowler
本文涉及股票或公司
As the seven-year-old company ramps up its hiring and adds new features to its social network, it is disrupting the businesses of established companies like Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. and putting even more Internet firms on notice.
Facebook, which has more than 600 million users and was valued at $50 billion in a recent funding round, is grabbing online-advertising from Yahoo, Myspace and others. The social network is a potential rival in electronic payments to eBay Inc.'s PayPal, while partnerships Facebook is cementing with smartphone makers set the stage for competition with Apple Inc. and Google in mobile services.
Meanwhile, Facebook is tussling with Google and Microsoft Corp. for top engineers.
As a result, many Silicon Valley companies increasingly have to decide whether to treat Facebook like a friend whose reach and user data can help propel their own growth, or a foe that can become a destructive force.
'Facebook is both a great competitor and a benefactor here in Silicon Valley,' said David Cowan, a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif. 'Anyone who's trying to get the attention of the young Internet user now has to compete with the dominant position that Facebook has there. On the other hand, they have opened up a lot of opportunities.'
Facebook executives aren't shy about their aspirations. 'We think every industry is going to be rebuilt around social engagement,' Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said.
Facebook already helped spur a new crop of videogame companies designed around interacting with friends, Ms. Sandberg said, adding, 'News, health, finance, shopping and commerce -- we think similarly, all of these things will be rebuilt by companies that work with us to put social at the core.'
So far, Facebook's key battleground has been in online marketing.
In just two years, Facebook's share of online display ads has surged to 13.6% from 2.9% of the U.S. market, which reached $8.88 billion in 2010, according to research firm eMarketer.
Facebook's growth comes at the expense of companies such as Yahoo and AOL Inc., and the site is also likely taking ad money away from traditional media like newspapers and TV.
Yahoo has stopped trying to compete directly with the social network and instead integrated Facebook features into its sites, hoping to halt a slide in the time its users spend on Yahoo each month.
Myspace, which like Yahoo has struck some partnerships with Facebook, declined to comment.
Myspace and The Wall Street Journal are owned by News Corp.
Jeff Levick, the president of AOL advertising, said he viewed the rise of Facebook as 'complementary' because the companies are 'running two very very different businesses.'
AOL, he said, focuses on monetizing the content that Facebook users share.
'The more high quality content we produce and is shared, the traffic comes back to us,' Mr. Levick said. The top advertisers who are working with both companies are spending more with AOL each quarter, he said.
Facebook likely had revenue of $1.9 billion to $2 billion last year, mostly in advertising, one person familiar with the company has said.
Facebook has recently introduced ad formats that incorporate users' networks of friends -- even their names, photos and postings -- into the ads.
And Facebook has also turned its attention to the local advertising market, launching its own location check-in and deals services that bring together elements of sites such as coupon site Groupon Inc. and business reviews service Yelp Inc.
Groupon and Yelp declined to comment.
Facebook is likely to tread on more toes as it builds out what's known as a platform for the Internet, which other websites, cellphones and now even cars can use to build their own offerings to allow people to take their friends and preferences with them.
Some 2.5 million websites have so far tapped the platform, which lets them populate blog posts, news articles, product listings and other pages with Facebook's 'Like' button.
With its platform play, Facebook is positioning itself as a partner to other tech companies -- even Google, which allows YouTube users to share videos with their Facebook friends.
'The foundation of a platform is one where people want to build on top because there is equal value exchange,' said Dan Rose, Facebook's vice president of partnerships and platform marketing.
Still, Mr. Rose said Facebook intends to participate in new businesses that emerge from the use of its platform.
One case in point: Game developers such as Zynga Game Network Inc., among the first to find massive growth on Facebook's platform, now have to pay a kind of tax.
Last month, Facebook said it would require all game developers on its platform to use its in-house Credits, a virtual currency for buying things in games. Facebook takes a 30% cut from all Credit sales. Zynga declined to comment.
Facebook could later extend its Credits system to other areas of commerce, including physical goods, potentially making it a competitor to PayPal and Amazon.com Inc.
Mr. Rose didn't rule that out, but said the company had no current plans to do so and was focused on virtual goods for now.
PayPal President Scott Thompson plays down any rivalry with Facebook.
He said his company partners with Facebook, which lets people pay for Facebook Credits with PayPal. Even if Facebook gets deeper into payments, he said PayPal will be well-protected. 'Payments is really, really hard to do,' he said.
Yet many Silicon Valley firms are wary of Facebook's control over its platform and have turned elsewhere.
Online-dating service Zoosk Inc. launched in 2007 as an application on Facebook, where it experienced fast user growth. But in mid-2008, co-founder Shayan Zadeh decided Zoosk needed to expand to other platforms such as Myspace and its own website. It began to ask its Facebook users for their real email addresses, instead of just relying on Facebook as a means of communication.
Mr. Zadeh said he was concerned that some shift in Facebook's business model or platform strategy could destabilize Zoosk. 'If you want to be a long-term established business, you have to establish a direct communication line,' he said. Today, Zoosk has about 15 million to 20 million active monthly users; only about 20% of new users come through Facebook.
Facebook executives also have their sights set on smartphones, where they hope to become more integrated in the software on the handsets. Last week, INQ Mobile, owned by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., unveiled a handset for the U.K. that prominently features contacts, photos and other data from users' Facebook accounts.
More such arrangements are expected soon.
Such activity increasingly puts Facebook on a collision course with Google, Apple and others in mobile advertising. Mr. Rose said Facebook could eventually make money off its mobile efforts through ads and Credits, but doesn't have any plans for it at the moment.
Google declined to comment on Facebook, but in an interview last, year Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the two companies compete for talent but not for ad dollars and that Facebook users use more Google services than any other users. He also said that 'you're assuming that if they do well we do poorly,' but 'winners tend to all do well.'
Geoffrey A. Fowler
本文涉及股票或公司
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