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外刊双语:马斯克如何改造推特?

2022-11-07 12:35 作者:自由英语之路  | 我要投稿

原文标题:
Twitter
Singing for its supper
Elon Musk’s priority is to keep his social network solvent
推特
干活来获取回报

埃隆·马斯克的首要任务是保持推特的偿付能力

Will people pay $8 a month for Twitter?
Elon Musk swaps ads for subscriptions
人们会购买推特8美元的月费服务吗?
埃隆·马斯克用广告换取订阅

[Paragraph 1]
TWITTER IS NO longer a public company, but it is being run in a more public way than ever before.

推特不再是一家上市公司,但它仍然以公开方式运营。


Elon Musk, who took the social network private on October 27th at a cost of $44bn and immediately installed himself as its temporary chief executive, has been developing his plans for the firm through the medium of tweets at all times of day and night.
埃隆·马斯克于10月27日斥资440亿美元将社交平台推特私有化,并立即任命自己为该公司的临时首席执行官。他一直通过推文为自己的公司制定计划。

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[Paragraph 2]
Mr Musk, who said he was buying Twitter to protect free speech in “the de facto public town square”, tweeted on his first full day in charge that the company would set up a “content moderation council”.
马斯克表示,他购买推特是为了保护这个“实际上的公共城市广场”的言论自由,他在接管推特的第一天就发推表示,公司将成立“内容审查委员会”。

Outsourcing moderation dilemmas to an independent board, as Facebook has since 2020, would be no bad thing.
将审查问题外包给独立董事会并不是坏事,脸书从2020年开始就是如此操作

One of the chief concerns about Mr Musk’s ownership of Twitter is that the platform could be leant on by anyone with leverage over his other, larger businesses.
马斯克接管推特引发了大众的担忧,担忧之一就是任何人都可以利用这个平台来控制其他更大的企业。

[Paragraph 3]
Yet the focus of Mr Musk’s first week in charge was not moderation but money.
然而,马斯克上任第一周的工作重点不是处理审查制度问题,而是处理资金问题。

His acquisition was funded with about $13bn of debt. Interest rates are rising and the ad market, which provides nearly all of Twitter’s revenue, is falling.
这桩收购中马斯克借了130亿美元资金。利率正在上升,广告市场正在下降。而广告业务几乎是推特全部收入来源。

Some advertisers are especially nervous of the new Musk-owned Twitter: IPG Mediabrands, a giant media buyer, recommended on October 31st that clients pause their spending on Twitter while the dust settled.
一些广告商对马斯克接管的新推特甚是焦虑:10月31日,媒体巨头IPG 盟博建议客户在尘埃落定之际暂停在推特上的广告投入。

[Paragraph 4]
To cut costs Mr Musk appears to have started a round of lay-offs, which is probably overdue.
为了削减成本,马斯克已开始了一轮裁员。其实早就应该裁员了。

Last year Twitter had 1.5 employees for every $1m in revenue, compared with 0.6 at Meta, Facebook’s owner.
去年,推特平均每1.5名员工创造100万美元的收益,而脸书的这个数字是0.6名员工。

At the same time he hopes to bring in more users with features including the resurrection of Vine, a decade-old app that beat TikTok to the short-video craze but which Twitter allowed to wither.
与此同时,他希望重新启用Vine等功能吸引更多用户。Vine是一款拥有十年历史的应用程序,它在TikTok之前就引领短视频热潮,但推特的忽视使其衰弱。

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[Paragraph 5]

The most radical plan, though, is to boost revenues by weaning Twitter partially off ads and onto subscriptions.

尽管如此,最激进的计划是终止部分推特广告业务,转而通过付费订阅来增加收入。

Users will be able to pay $8 a month (or another amount depending on their whereabouts, see chart) to see half as many ads, post long audio and video clips and get priority for their own tweets in other people’s replies and search results.
用户可以每月支付8美元(或根据他们的所在地支付费用,见图表),享受的服务包含有:少看一半的广告;发布长音频和视频片段;在他人的回复和搜索结果中有优先排名。

[Paragraph 6]
Mr Musk characterised this as a democratic alternative to the “lords & peasants system”, in which Twitter awards blue badges verifying the identity of “notable” tweeters.
马斯克将其称为“领主和农民制度”的民主替代方案,推特通过这个制度标注蓝V,为推特用户认证“名人”身份。

Increasing the number of verified users may help reduce spam. But prioritising tweets that are paid for, over ones that are good, may worsen the user experience.
增加认证用户的数量可能有助于减少垃圾邮件的骚扰。但优先考虑付费推文,而不是好推文,可能会导致糟糕的用户体验。

And charging audiences risks driving them to other social platforms that are free.
而且向用户收费可能会使他们转向其他免费的社交平台。

As Stephen King, a blue-badged novelist, tweeted in an exchange with Mr Musk: “Fuck that, they should pay me.”
正如蓝V小说家斯蒂芬·金在与马斯克发推特交流时所说:“额,他们应该付我钱。”

[Paragraph 7]
Subscriptions may kick off another argument.
订阅可能引发另一场争论。

Among users who subscribe via the Twitter app, a cut of ongoing monthly fees will go to the app store in question: 15% in the case of Google and up to 30% in the case of Apple.
如果用户通过推特APP付费订阅,他们有一部分月费将被相关应用商店抽成:谷歌为15%,苹果为30%。

Companies that rely on subscriptions, like Spotify, or in-app purchases, like Epic Games, have long complained about this app-store tax.
靠订阅赚钱的公司如Spotify,或应用内购买的公司如Epic Games,他们对这种应用商店税怨气冲天。

In Mr Musk, Apple and Google face another opponent—one who is armed with the world’s loudest megaphone.
苹果和谷歌面临另一个对手—马斯克,他手持扩音器,是世界上发声最大的人。

(恭喜读完,本篇英语词汇量604左右)
原文出自:2022年11月5日《TE》Business版块

精读笔记来源于:自由英语之路
本文翻译整理: Irene

本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】(来自于网络)
埃隆·马斯克以440亿美元收购推特,各银行为这笔交易提供130亿美元的资金。根据纽约证券交易所的退市通知,上市9年的推特于当地时间10月28日从纽约证券交易所退市。纳斯达克交易所官网显示,标准普尔道琼斯指数宣布将推特移出标普500指数。当前推特股票处于停牌状态。

Vine是微软公司开发基于地理位置的SNS系统,类似于Twitter服务。2012年10月10日,Twitter收购了Vine。2016年10月28日,Twitter周四宣布将关闭该公司旗下视频分享移动应用Vine。2022年11月消息,马斯克已经要求推特工程师着手研发 Vine 的全新版本,计划在2022年年底重新推出。

《Lords & Peasants》是一款中世纪的即时战略和城市建设游戏开发的模拟游戏。领主和农民有单人和多人两种模式,最多支持16名玩家。Lords & Peasants游戏中,玩家开始作为一个小村庄的主人,并发展成为一个繁荣的城市。经营你的城市,治理农民。结成联盟恐吓敌人,招募军队征服大地创造你的王国。

【重点句子】(3 个)
Yet the focus of Mr Musk’s first week in charge was not moderation but money.
然而,马斯克上任第一周的工作重点不是处理审查制度问题,而是处理资金问题。

To cut costs Mr Musk appears to have started a round of lay-offs, which is probably overdue.
为了削减成本,马斯克已开始了一轮裁员。其实 早就应该裁员了。

The most radical plan, though, is to boost revenues by weaning Twitter partially off ads and onto subscriptions.
尽管如此,最激进的计划是终止部分推特广告业务,转而通过付费订阅来增加收入。

自由英语之路


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