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The ad business: How TikTok broke social media
廣告業：TikTok如何打破社交媒體
Whether or not it is banned, the app has forced its rivals to adopt a less lucrative model.
無論TikTok是否被禁止，這一應用程序都已迫使其競爭對手采取利潤較低的商業模式。
Is TikTok's time up?
TikTok的時間結束了嗎？
As the social-media app's chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, was getting ready for a grilling before Congress on March 23rd, after The Economist went to press, TikTok's 100m-plus users in America were fretting that their government was preparing to ban the Chinese-owned platform because of security fears.
3月23日，在《經濟學人》付印后，社交媒體應用TikTok的首席執行官周受資正準備接受國會盤問，美國1億多的TikTok用戶因為政府出于安全考慮準備禁止這一中國社交平臺而感到焦躁不安。
Their anguish contrasts with utter glee in Silicon Valley, where home-grown social-media firms would love to be rid of their popular rival.
他們的痛苦與硅谷的幸災樂禍形成了鮮明對比，在硅谷，美國本土社交媒體公司很樂意擺脫這個受人歡迎的競爭對手。
With every grumble from Capitol Hill, the share prices of Meta, Pinterest, Snap and others edge higher.
從國會山上每發出一聲抱怨，Meta、Pinterest、Snap等其他公司的股價就會小幅上漲。
TikTok's fate hangs in the balance.
TikTok的命運懸而未決。
But what is already clear is that the app has changed social media for good--and in a way that will make life harder for incumbent social apps.
但已經很清楚的是，這款應用已經永遠改變了社交媒體--而且在某種程度上，這將讓現有社交應用的日子更加難過。
In less than six years TikTok has weaned the world off old-fashioned social-networking and got it hooked on algorithmically selected short videos.
在不到六年的時間里，TikTok讓世界脫離了老式社交網絡，轉而沉迷于由算法篩選的短視頻。
Users love it.
用戶喜歡TikTok。
The trouble for the platforms is that the new model makes less money than the old one, and may always do so.
但這個平臺的麻煩之處在于，新模式比舊模式賺的錢更少，而且情況可能永遠都是如此。
The speed of the change is astonishing.
變化發生的速度令人震驚。
Since entering America in 2017, TikTok has picked up more users than all but a handful of social-media apps, which have been around more than twice as long.
自2017年進入美國以來，TikTok吸引的用戶超過了除少數幾個應用之外的所有社交媒體應用，而這幾個應用存在的時間是TikTok的兩倍多。
Among young audiences, it crushes the competition.
在年輕觀眾中，它完全碾壓了競爭對手。
Americans aged 18-24 spend an hour a day on TikTok, twice as long as they spend on Instagram and Snapchat, and more than five times as long as they spend on Facebook, which these days is mainly a medium for communicating with the grandparents.
18-24歲的美國人每天使用TikTok的時間為一個小時，是Instagram和Snapchat使用時間的兩倍，也是Facebook使用時間的五倍多，如今Facebook主要是與爺爺奶奶進行交流的媒介。
TikTok's success has prompted its rivals to reinvent themselves.
TikTok的成功促使其競爭對手重塑自我。
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has turned both apps' main feeds into algorithmically sorted "discovery engines" and launched Reels, a TikTok clone bolted onto Facebook and Instagram.
擁有Facebook和Instagram的Meta，已將這兩款應用的主要推送轉變為由算法整理的"發現引擎"，并推出了Reels，這是綁定在Facebook和Instagram上的TikTok的翻版。
Similar lookalike products have been created by Pinterest (Watch), Snapchat (Spotlight), YouTube (Shorts), and even Netflix (Fast Laughs).
其他類似的產品也被Pinterest(Watch)、Snapchat(Spotlight)、YouTube(Short)，甚至網飛(Fast Laughs)推出。
The latest TikTok-inspired makeover, announced on March 8th, was by Spotify, a music-streaming app whose homepage now features video clips that can be skipped by swiping up.
受TikTok啟發的最新改版由音樂流媒體應用Spotify于3月8日宣發，其主頁現在主打視頻片段，可以通過向上滑動而跳過。
(TikTok's Chinese sister app, Douyin, is having a similar effect in its home market, where digital giants like Tencent are increasingly putting short videos at the centre of their offerings.)
(TikTok的中國姊妹應用抖音在其本土市場也產生了類似影響，騰訊等數字巨頭正越來越多地將短視頻置于其產品的中心地位。)
The result is that short-form video has taken over social media.
結果是短視頻已經占領了社交媒體。
Of the 64 minutes that the average American spends viewing such services each day, 40 minutes are spent watching video clips, up from 28 minutes just three years ago, estimates Bernstein, a broker.
經紀公司伯恩斯坦估計，美國人平均每天用于瀏覽社交媒體的64分鐘中，有40分鐘是用來觀看短視頻的，而三年前這一數字還只是28分鐘。
However, this transformation comes with a snag.
然而，這種轉變帶來了一個麻煩。
Although users have a seemingly endless appetite for short video, the format is proving less profitable than the old news feed.
盡管用戶似乎對短視頻有著無窮無盡的胃口，但事實證明，這種形式的利潤不如老式的新聞推送。
TikTok monetises its American audience at a rate of just $0.31 for every hour the typical user spends on the app, a third the rate of Facebook and a fifth the rate of Instagram.
普通美國用戶每使用TikTok一小時，該應用僅能賺取0.31美元，是Facebook收入的三分之一，Instagram的五分之一。
This year it will make about $67 from each of its American users, while Instagram will make more than $200, estimates Insider Intelligence, a research firm.
研究公司"內部商情"估計，今年TikTok將從每個美國用戶身上獲得約67美元的收入，而Instagram獲得的收入則超過200美元。
And it is not just a TikTok problem.
這不僅僅是TikTok的問題。
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive, told investors last month that "Currently, the monetisation efficiency of Reels is much less than Feed, so the more that Reels grows…it takes some time away from Feed and we actually lose money."
Meta的首席執行官馬克·扎克伯格上個月向投資者表示，"目前，Reels的變現率遠遠低于Feed，隨著Reels業務增長，這一情況更甚...…Reels搶走了Feed的時間，我們實際上是賠錢的。
The most comforting explanation for the earnings gap is that TikTok, Reels and the other short-video platforms are immature.
對于這種收入差距，最能給人安慰的解釋是TikTok、Reels等短視頻平臺還不夠成熟。
"TikTok is still a toddler in the social-media ad landscape," says Jasmine Enberg of Insider Intelligence, who points out that the app introduced ads only in 2019.
"在社交媒體廣告領域，TikTok還只是個蹣跚學步的孩子，" 內部商情公司的賈斯敏·恩伯格說。她指出，TikTok直到2019年才推出廣告。
Platforms tend to keep their ad load low while getting new users on board, and advertisers take time to warm to new products.
平臺在吸引新用戶時往往將廣告量保持在低水平，廣告商也需要時間來讓新產品升溫。
"You can't really wave a magic wand and declare that your new ads are 'premium' without any performance history to back it up, so they start at the end of the line," says Michelle Urwin of Skai, an ad-tech firm.
"你不能揮舞一下魔杖，然后就宣稱你的新廣告是'高級'的，而沒有任何之前的表現來支撐這種說法，所以廣告是最后才開始的。"廣告技術公司Skai的米歇爾·厄溫說。
