雅虎收购案凸显科技业力量格局转变

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雅虎收购案凸显科技业力量格局转变

天之聪教育 2013-05-21 天之聪教育 271次

雅虎收购案凸显科技业力量格局转变

DJ Yahoo Deal Shows Power Shift

Yahoo Inc. YHOO has agreed to pay $1.1 billion for Tumblr, a six-year-old company with more than 100 million users but very little revenue, a deal that highlights the shifting balance of power in the technology business.

        雅虎(Yahoo Inc.)同意斥资11亿美元收购博客网站Tumblr。这桩收购案凸显出科技业不断转变的力量平衡格局。Tumblr成立六年时间，用户多达1亿多人，但收入非常少。

        Veterans like Yahoo have shown they have staying power─and they have cash to spend. But companies like Yahoo's target, a blogging site, have something valuable as well: the rapt attention of fast-growing communities of users. That has pushed up the price tags as more established companies fear getting left behind as people's online habits evolve.

        像雅虎这样的老牌公司显示出它们具有持久的力量，也有雄厚的资金可供投资。但像雅虎的收购目标这样的公司也具备一些有价值的东西：迅速增长的用户群体的热切关注。随着更老牌的公司担心用户的网络习惯变化可能使它们落于人后，收购价格也水涨船高。

        Yahoo's board has approved the all-cash deal to buy Tumblr, people familiar with the matter said Sunday. Tumblr's board also has approved the deal, one of the people said. A deal could be announced as soon as Monday, the person said.

        知情人士周日透露，雅虎董事会已经批准全现金收购Tumblr。上述知情人士中的一位说，Tumblr董事会也批准了该交易。这位人士说，收购案最早可能于周一公布。

        Spokeswomen for Yahoo and Tumblr didn't respond to a request for comment.

        雅虎和Tumblr的发言人均未回复记者的置评请求。

        The transaction would add Yahoo to the list of established Internet companies, including Google Inc. GOOG and Facebook Inc.that have spent $1 billion or more apiece to buy startup companies in hopes of gaining an edge in growth. Facebook, for instance, last year paid cash and stock initially valued at about $1 billion to buy revenue-free Instagram, a popular photo-sharing service.

        该收购案将使雅虎跻身一系列每笔斥资10亿美元甚至更多收购初创公司以期获得增长优势的老牌互联网公司之列。此类公司还包括谷歌(Google Inc.)和Facebook Inc.。举例来讲，Facebook去年用最初估价约10亿美元的现金和股票收购了未创收的热门照片分享服务Instagram。

        Google famously paid $1.65 billion in stock seven years ago for YouTube, the online-video behemoth. In a smaller deal, in dollar terms, but one that reflects the appetite among old-line Internet companies for fresh blood, AOL bought Huffington Post for $315 million in 2011.

        众所周知，七年前谷歌用价值16.5亿美元的股票收购了网络视频巨头YouTube。2011年，美国在线(AOL)斥资3.15亿美元收购了《赫芬顿邮报》(Huffington Post)。尽管美国在线的收购案以美元计算规模较小，但却反映出老牌互联网公司对新鲜血液的强烈渴求。

        Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's deal for Tumblr would give Yahoo, one of the original big Internet companies, a fast-growing Web service that could fill one of its many holes─namely, the lack of a thriving social-networking and communications hub. Tumblr is popular with many younger adults, in contrast with Yahoo's older customer base. Tumblr is also growing more quickly on smartphones than Yahoo.

        雅虎首席执行长梅耶尔(Marissa Mayer)收购Tumblr的交易将给雅虎带来一个迅速增长的网络服务，填补雅虎很多空白之一──即缺乏一个蓬勃发展的社交网络和通讯中心。雅虎是成立最早的大型互联网公司之一。Tumblr深受很多年轻人的喜爱，而雅虎的用户年龄更大。Tumblr在智能手机领域也比雅虎增长的要快。

        Yahoo would be paying a premium for the company. When Tumblr last raised money, in late 2011, the $85 million venture-capital investment it received valued the company at $800 million.

        雅虎对Tumblr的收购价将高于市场价。2011年底Tumblr最近一次筹资时，它获得了8,500万美元风险投资，对应的公司估值为8亿美元。

        The acquisition would be a big bet for Yahoo, given Tumblr's financial performance so far. But Yahoo needs the growth. Its annual revenue has been stuck for years around $5 billion, and the company's big presence on personal computers hasn't translated well to mobile devices, where it lacks the advantage of Apple Inc.'s AAPL -0.30% coveted hardware or Google's ubiquitous smartphone operating software, Android.

        鉴于目前为止Tumblr的财务表现，这桩收购案对雅虎来说将是一次豪赌。但雅虎需要在这个领域的业务增长。多年来，该公司年收入一直徘徊在50亿美元左右，在个人电脑市场上所占的巨大份额一直没有很好地延伸至移动设备。在移动设备领域，雅虎缺乏优势，它既没有苹果公司(Apple Inc.)那样令人艳羡的硬件，也没有谷歌那样应用广泛的智能手机操作系统安卓(Android)。

        Meanwhile, Facebook and Google have demonstrated that a vast audience for free content can bring in significant advertising revenue.

        与此同时，Facebook和谷歌显示出，免费内容的庞大用户群能够带来巨额广告收入。

        New York-based Tumblr, founded in 2007, has 175 employees, more than 108 million blogs and, according to comScore Inc., SCOR +3.85% had nearly 117 million unique users world-wide in March. That is up from around 58 million a year ago.

        据comScore Inc.的数据显示，成立于2007年的纽约公司Tumblr有员工175人，管理着1.08亿个博客，截至3月全球独立用户有近1.17亿人。而一年前用户还只有约5,800万人。

        Tumblr built that following by making it easy for people to create blogs and post writings, photos and videos. Tumblr users can follow other people's updates the way Facebook users follow friends─and easily share their work. With these features, Tumblr lowered the bar for online publishing and effectively merged blogging with social media.

        人们可以轻松地在Tumblr上创建博客，发布文章、照片和视频，大批用户随之蜂拥而至。Tumblr用户可以像Facebook用户关注朋友一样关注其他人的更新信息，并轻松进行分享。有了这些功能，Tumblr降低了网络发布的门槛，实际上将博客与社交媒体合二为一。

        In a pattern typical of young Internet companies, Tumblr CEO and founder David Karp has focused on growing his site's users base while placing a lower priority on making money. The company didn't begin placing ads on its service until last year. In recent news reports, Mr. Karp, who once told the Los Angeles Times he was 'pretty opposed to advertising,' said Tumblr generated $13 million in revenue last year.

        Tumblr首席执行长、创始人卡普(David Karp)一直专注于扩大网站的用户基础，而将赚钱摆在一个较次要的位置。这也是年轻的互联网公司的一种典型模式。该公司直到去年才开始在其服务中投放广告。卡普最近在诸多新闻报道中说，Tumblr去年实现收入1,300万美元。他曾对《洛杉矶时报》(Los Angeles Times)说，他非常反对广告。

        Yahoo plans to allow Mr. Karp to continue to be run the site, and operate largely separate from the rest of Yahoo, people familiar with the matter said.

        知情人士说，雅虎计划让卡普继续负责Tumblr的运营，Tumblr的运营从很大程度上将独立于雅虎其他业务。

        Yahoo believes it could help Tumblr bring in more money by selling ads─boosting its own revenue in the process, people familiar with the matter said. Tumblr potentially offers personal data on millions of individual users, and an ability to help Web content go 'viral' as friends share popular posts. Data is at the heart of Yahoo's ability to sell online advertising across its sites, based on what it knows about its people's interests.

        知情人士说，雅虎认为，它能够帮助Tumblr通过销售广告获得更多资金，同时提振自己的营收。Tumblr有能力提供数百万用户的个人数据，并拥有通过在Tumblr上分享受热帖疯狂传播网络内容的能力。在雅虎通过旗下网站销售在线广告的能力中（基于对用户兴趣的了解），数据处于核心位置。

        Ms. Mayer, recruited to lead Yahoo last summer after a 13-year career at Google, became interested in Tumblr a couple of months ago, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Its sleek aesthetic fit with her vision for Yahoo, another person said. Last week, All Things Digital, which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.'s NWSA +1.10% Dow Jones & Co., reported that the two companies were in talks.

        梅耶尔去年夏天被任命为雅虎的首席执行长，此前，她在谷歌工作了13年。一名知情人士说，梅耶尔两个月之前对Tumblr产生了兴趣。另一名人士说，Tumblr线条明快的美感与她对雅虎的愿景相符。All Things Digital上周报道说，这两家公司正在谈判。All Things Digital与《华尔街日报》同为新闻集团(News Corp.)旗下的道琼斯公司(Dow Jones & Co.)所有。

        There are several risks for Yahoo. A popular venue for teens, Tumblr includes many Web pages of racially insensitive, pornographic and other sexually oriented content. Such pages wouldn't be attractive to advertisers. There is also the risk of diminishing Tumblr's appeal among some users with too-aggressive a push to bring in advertising revenue. Writing on his Tumblr blog Saturday, John Saroff, a former Google executive, estimated Tumblr could generate $108 million or more a year based on the rates advertisers generally are willing to pay for graphical ads online.

        雅虎面临着几个风险。Tumblr在十几岁的青少年中很受欢迎，它包含许多带有种族歧视意味以及淫秽色情内容的网页。这类网页对广告客户不会有吸引力。此外，还有一个风险是，由于过于激进地推动广告收入，Tumblr在部分用户中的吸引力可能下降。前谷歌高管萨罗夫(John Saroff)上周六在其Tumblr博客中说，按照广告客户通常愿意支付的在线图片广告的费率计算，Tumblr每年有望实现1.08亿美元甚至更多的收入。

        But he said Tumblr was 'correct' to resist filling its site with advertising since doing so could upset its core audience. He added that Tumblr, as a blogging platform, would likely have to get permission from Tumblr blog writers like him before it could place ads on the blogs and share revenue. He compared the business model to that of Google's YouTube video site, where the company shares revenue with video creators.

        但他说，Tumblr反对在其网站上铺天盖地打广告是正确的，因为这样做可能引发核心用户的不满。他还说，作为一个博客平台，Tumblr可能必须首先获得像他一样的博客作者的同意，然后才能在博客上投放广告，并与博主分享广告收入。他将这一业务模式与谷歌的YouTube视频网站的模式进行了类比。YouTube与视频创建者分享广告收入。
        'It requires product vision, engineering talent, business development work and account management skills that took Google/YouTube years to grow with many fits and starts,' Mr. Saroff wrote.

        萨罗夫写道，这需要产品愿景、工程人才、业务发展和账户管理技能，谷歌的YouTube断断续续地花费了多年时间才实现增长。

        Facebook, concerned about alienating users, has yet to place ads in Instagram. Google also moved carefully in placing ads on YouTube, but the video site has since become a significant revenue generator. Google doesn't break out YouTube's financial information, but Morgan Stanley MS +2.48% recently estimated that YouTube is on track to generate more than $700 million in operating income on about $4 billion in sales.

        由于担心会疏远用户，Facebook目前尚未在Instagram上投放广告。谷歌在YouTube上投放广告也非常谨慎，但YouTube现已成为该公司一个重要的创收来源。谷歌通常不披露YouTube的财务信息，但摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)最近估计，YouTube有望实现逾7亿美元的营运利润，约40亿美元的销售收入。

        Ms. Mayer has made a number of moves to expand Yahoo's presence on mobile devices, freshen up its sites and boost revenue. She has pursued partnerships to get more of Yahoo's content preinstalled on devices such as Apple's iPhone and iPad, people familiar with the matter said.

        梅耶尔采取了若干措施扩大雅虎在移动设备市场的业务，调整网站令其人目一新，并拉动营收。据知情人士说，她一直在寻求达成若干合作协议，以便使更多的雅虎内容预装在苹果iPhone和iPad等设备上。

        She has tried to break up the company's Web-search and search-advertising partnership with Microsoft Corp. MSFT +2.32% in favor of pursuing a similar, more lucrative deal with rival Google or reviving the company's own long-dormant search technology, according to other people familiar with the matter. She also has been revamping the look of Yahoo's existing Web services, from its Yahoo.com Home Page to Yahoo Mail, and creating new apps for mobile devices such as Yahoo Weather.

        据其他知情人士说，她一直试图结束雅虎与微软(Microsoft Corp.)在网络搜索和搜索广告方面的合作关系，更倾向于与竞争对手谷歌达成更有利可图的类似交易，或重振雅虎自己长期陷入停滞的搜索技术。她还一直在改进雅虎现有网络服务（从Yahoo.com主页到雅虎邮箱）的外观，为移动设备设计新的应用，比如雅虎天气。

        Acquisitions, however, have long been expected to be part of Ms. Mayer's strategy. While she has continued to engage in early-stage deal talks with a wide range of video, social-networking, and advertising-technology companies, according to people familiar with the talks, to date, she has bought only small companies for their engineering and product-management talent. Yahoo recently pulled out of a roughly $200 million deal to buy a controlling interest in the video website Dailymotion, owned by France Telecom SA, because the French government said it would object to the deal, people familiar with the matter have said.

        不过，外界长期以来一直预计收购将是梅耶尔战略的一部分。据知情人士说，尽管她仍在继续与各种视频、社交网络和广告技术公司展开初期谈判，目前为止，她仅收购了几家拥有优秀工程及产品管理人才的小公司。据知情人士说，雅虎最近退出了一桩斥资约2亿美元收购法国电信(France Telecom SA)旗下视频网站Dailymotion的控股权的交易，原因是法国政府说它会驳回该交易。