金學堂英語的部落格

Google Uses Its Social Network to Get Nosy

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Plus, the company’s social network, is like a ghost town. Want to see your old roommate’s baby or post your vacation status? Chances are, you’ll use Facebook instead.

But Google isn’t worried. Google Plus may not be much of a competitor to Facebook as a social network, but it is central to Google’s future — a lens that allows the company to peer more broadly into people’s digital life, and to gather an ever-richer trove of the personal information that advertisers covet.

Once you sign up for Plus, it becomes your account for all Google products , so Google sees who you are and what you do across its services, even if you never return to the social network itself.

Google says Plus has 540 million monthly active users, but almost half do not visit the social network.

“Google Plus gives you the opportunity to be yourself, and gives Google that common understanding of who you are,” said Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product management for Google Plus. “It’s about you showing up at Google and having a consistent experience across products so they feel like one product, and that makes your experiences with every Google product better.”

Plus is now so important to Google that the company requires people to sign up to use some Google services, like commenting on YouTube . Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, tied employee bonuses companywide to its success and appointed Vic Gundotra, a senior Google executive, to lead it.

The value of Plus has only increased in the last year, as search advertising, Google’s main source of profits, has slowed.

“The database of affinity could be the holy grail for more effective brand advertising,” said Nate Elliott, an analyst at Forrester studying social media and marketing.

Google says the information it gains about people through Google Plus helps it create better products — like sending traffic updates to cellphones or knowing whether a search for “Hillary” refers to a family member or to the former American secretary of state — as well as better ads.

Plus has 29 million unique monthly users on its website and 41 million on smartphones, with some users overlapping, compared with Facebook’s 128 million users on its website and 108 million on phones, according to Nielsen.

The way Google is tying its search engine, which dominates the market, with a less popular product in Plus has set off antitrust concerns. The United States Federal Trade Commission raised the issue during its recent antitrust investigation of Google, according to two people briefed on the matter. That investigation closed without a finding of wrongdoing.

Google declined to comment on this issue.

In the meantime, while some Google users have been turned off by the push to sign up for Plus, few have actually fled.

“If people want to use your platform enough,” Mr. Elliott said, “you can get away with quite a lot.”

中譯

網路搜尋龍頭谷歌的社群網站Google Plus有如廢棄的鬼鎮。想看老室友的小貝比或撲上你的假期狀態嗎？你多半會用臉書。

不過谷歌並不擔心。以社群網站而言Google Plus可能不是臉書的對手，然而它卻攸關谷歌的前途：它有如透鏡，使谷歌得以更廣泛探見人們的數位生活，同時蒐集廣告商垂涎的更多個人資料。

一旦你登錄成為Google Plus的會員，它就會成為你個人使用谷歌全部產品的帳戶，使谷歌得以知道你是誰，以及你在它提供的各項服務範圍內做些什麼，即使你從未回到這個社群網站亦然。

谷歌說，Google Plus有5.4億名每月經常用戶，然而近半數從未造訪本站。

Google Plus產品管理副總裁霍洛維茨說：「Google Plus使你有機會做你自己，同時使谷歌得以知道你是誰。要點是你進入谷歌，對產品累積持續的經驗，使它們感覺有如一件產品，讓谷歌各項產品給你的經驗都變得更好。」

如今Google Plus對谷歌非常重要，促使它要求網友須先登入才能使用部分服務，例如在YouTube留下評語。谷歌執行長佩吉把公司全體員工的紅利與它的成功綁在一起，同時指定谷歌資深主管甘杜特拉主其事。

Google Plus的價值到去年才提升，因為谷歌主要利潤所繫的搜尋廣告已經減少。

佛瑞斯特公司分析師艾略特專門研究社群媒體與行銷。他說：「有關親合性的資料庫，可能正是提高品牌行銷效率的聖杯。」

谷歌表示，透過Google Plus蒐集的網友資訊可用以設計並推出更好的產品，例如向手機傳送最新的交通狀況，或者知道搜尋「希拉蕊」究竟指的是某家族成員，或者專指美國前國務卿希拉蕊‧柯林頓。如此還可幫助它設計更好的廣告。

尼爾森公司統計，Google Plus網站擁有2900萬名每月用戶，手機用戶約4100萬人，其中部分重疊。相較之下，臉書的網站用戶約1.28億人，手機用戶也有1.08億人。

谷歌把它獨霸市場的搜尋引擎與Google Plus中一種較不受歡迎的產品綁在一起，引起有關反托辣斯的關切。兩名知情者透露，美國聯邦貿易委員會最近對谷歌進行反托辣斯調查時，提到這個問題。該委員會最後並未裁定谷歌違法。

谷歌拒絕針對此事置評。

另一方面，谷歌部分用戶的確因為無法忍受登錄為Google Plus會員的催促而乾脆與它保持距離，不過真正離它而去的並不多。

艾略特說：「只要人們使用你所提供平台的意願夠強，你就會收獲豐碩。」