[2006.09.21][China]Face value: China’s pied piper中国网络先锋

Mr Ma has also led the charge into online communities and social networking, both now booming areas. In 2003 he added a consumer auction site, Taobao, that allowed instant-messaging—a feature later added to his business sites. In contrast with eBay’s relative anonymity, Taobao lets buyers and sellers get chummy through messaging and voicemail, and by posting photographs and personal details on the site. Turning e-commerce into a community of “friends” has been critical in a country beset by a lack of trust. And with 70% of China’s web users aged under 30, Taobao’s informal, blog-like format struck a chord—attracting more than 20m users. Many have now gone professional, buying goods wholesale on Alibaba and reselling them on Taobao. The story goes that, shortly after visiting Alibaba’s offices and seeing Taobao, Meg Whitman, eBay’s boss, bought Skype, an internet-telephony start-up, for its instant-messaging.
马云同时还涉足于网络社区(online communities )和社交网络(social networking)，这两个渐渐兴盛起来的领域。03年他新增了个人消费者的竞拍网站，淘宝网，并引进即时交谈(instant messaging)功能，随后将此功能也运用在其商业站点上。与Ebay的匿名交易不同的是，淘宝网让买家和卖家在网上张贴照片和个人资料，通过互发信息和音频交谈等方式相互熟悉起来。将电子商务转换为社区“老友”的办法，在当今的中国来说是相当重要的，因为中国人之间普遍缺失信任感。超过70%的中国网民年龄在30岁以下，淘宝网的这种非正式，类似于博客形式的论坛符合他们的胃口—吸引了超过2千万的用户。很多人以此为生。他们在阿里巴巴进行批发，然后转手到淘宝网进行销售。据说，eBay的老板梅格·惠特曼参观阿里巴巴的办公室并注意到了淘宝网后，，不久即买下了一家提供网络电话服务的新公司Skype，作为其提供网上即时通讯的工具。

Alibaba has also outflanked the opposition in online payments. Aware that most Chinese do not have credit cards, Mr Ma introduced AliPay, a system that keeps cash in escrow until goods arrive. That trick for getting round settlement risk was later adopted in China by eBay. China’s powerful banking regulator has a hawkish eye on AliPay, which is, in effect, an online bank with thousands of credit histories (something mainland banks crave). Taobao’s success has been startling. Its market share jumped from 8% to 59% between 2003 and 2005, while eBay China’s slid from 79% to 36%. Mr Ma trumpets that it is “game over” for eBay China. Many industry watchers expect eBay to retreat and sell out to a local outfit such as Tencent (a rising star in auctions) or Alibaba itself—as Yahoo! China did.
阿里巴巴在网上支付的领域又棋胜一筹。考虑到大多数的中国人没有信用卡，马云推出了支付宝系统，此系统的原理是货物到达之前将所付金额交由第三方保管，以此规避交易产生的风险，后来被eBay中国所采用。中国强大的银行监督机构正密切关注着支付宝，这种事实上的网上银行，存有成千的交易信用记录（这也是国内银行梦寐以求的信息）。淘宝网取得了出人意料的成功。从03年到05年，市场占有率从8%跳到59%，而同期eBay中国则从79%下滑到36%。马云宣布了“eBay中国的灭亡”。很多业内观察人士认为eBay应退出中国市场，将它转卖给腾讯（竞拍网站的后起之秀）或是干脆象雅虎中国那样卖给阿里巴巴本身。

Mr Ma is also at the forefront of the trend to integrate paid search with e-commerce. Alibaba’s takeover of Yahoo! China last October gave the firm a search engine just as Google was demonstrating the huge potential of paid search, and the deal anticipated eBay’s link-ups with portals (Yahoo! in America, and Google elsewhere). Baidu, China’s main search engine, is a strong rival. But online advertising is surging in China and small firms are the biggest users of paid search, giving Alibaba an edge.
马云同样也是将收费搜索纳入电子商务的倡导者。正如Google目前显示的具有巨大潜力的收费搜索市场，阿里巴巴去年10月收购了雅虎中国，进入搜索领域。EBay也与雅虎美国及Google其他国家的网站结盟。百度，作为中国的主要搜索引擎，是强有力的竞争者。网络广告在中国迅速发展，而小企业是收费引擎最大的使用者，这又是阿里巴巴的优势所在。

Keep it simple
简单为王

Mr Ma seldom mentions technology. Whereas most internet entrepreneurs are geeks (think of Yahoo!’s or Google’s founders), Mr Ma first touched a computer in 1995 on a trip to Seattle. “Someone as dumb as me should be able to use technology,” he says. He insists on simplicity. A new feature is rejected unless he can understand and use it. Mr Ma’s approach to running the company is similarly independent. He reads neither business books nor case studies, and ascribes Alibaba’s survival and success to the fact that he “knew nothing about technology, we didn’t have a plan and we didn’t have any money.” In truth, Mr Ma had powerful backers early on, including Goldman Sachs and Softbank. Yahoo!’s Jerry Yang—who joined Mr Ma at the Alifest—is also a longtime friend. In any case, he has money aplenty today: as part of its takeover by Alibaba, Yahoo! paid $1 billion for a 40% stake in the company.
马云很少谈及技术。不象其他的互联网公司的创始人是技术发烧友（想想雅虎和Google的创始人），马云在1995年去西雅图的一次旅行中才首次接触电脑。“像我这样迟钝的人也应该能用高科技。”他说。所以他坚持产品的易用性。直到他理解并会用以后，才会推出一项新的功能。马云管理公司的方式同样我行我素，他从来不阅读商业书籍和案例分析，而将阿里巴巴的成功归结于“不懂技术，没有计划和没有资金”。事实上，马云在早期有强大的支持者，包括高盛和软银。雅虎的杨志远（后在Alifest网络商业大会与马云见面）也是马云的老朋友了。不管怎么说，如今马云已经有了充裕的资金——作为阿里巴巴收购雅虎中国的一部分，雅虎支付了10亿美金以获得该公司40％的股份。

Only one thing is missing: profits. As the boss of a private company in no rush to join the stockmarket, Mr Ma is relaxed. Revenues should double to more than $200m this year. But Alibaba has so far pursued market share rather than revenue. The global business site charges its users, but Taobao does not; an attempt to do so this year failed. Mr Ma says it is too early: only 30m of China’s 120m online users have bought anything online. He wants to help the market grow—creating 1m jobs in China in the next three years—not stifle it with charges. He will have to tackle profitability if he is really to call the tune.
唯一被遗漏的事：利润。作为私营企业的老板，马云过的很轻松，并不急于将公司上市。今年公司的收入将翻倍，超过2亿美元。但阿里巴巴更关注市场份额。全球网上交易的网站（译注：指alibaoba.com）是收费的，而淘宝网则免费（今年试图收费，但失败了）。马云说目前时机还不成熟，在1亿2千万的中国网民中，只有3千万在网上有过购物经验。他要是市场份额的扩大，在后3年中创造出100万个就业机会。市场的发展不能因为收费而停滞不前。如果他当真想成为市场的主宰，那他就将不得不考虑赢利的问题。