????去年7月份，政治新聞和評論網站Talking Points Memo（簡稱TPM)自豪地宣布，它“很高興地宣布平板電腦和智能手機用戶現在可以通過Flipboard閱讀TPM內容。”面向移動設備的Flipboard是一款頗受歡迎的雜志風格的新聞閱讀應用程序。

????然而上周，TPM創始人喬什?馬歇爾通知讀者，該網站內容不再繼續出現于Flipboard或Google Currents應用上。他寫道，這些應用“基本上欺騙了出版商”。

????出版商的態度為什么會發生如此徹底的改變呢？因為Flipboard整篇整篇轉載了許多出版商的文章，而且在許多情況下（這些出版商也包括TPM），但基本上沒有給這些出版商任何回報。

????至少馬歇爾是這樣解釋這種情況的。而從目前的情況來看，他基本上說的沒錯。但Flipboard 首席執行官（CEO）邁克?麥克庫伊表示，馬歇爾的說法有些草率，顯然不了解Flipboard現在的運營模式，也不了解它不久的將來會如何運作。麥克庫伊表示，他倆從來沒有說過話，盡管他的公司曾數次試圖聯系馬歇爾。馬歇爾對《財富》雜志（Fortune）提出的置評請求也沒有作出回應。

????Flipboard以雜志的格式呈現雜志、報紙、博客和社交媒體網站的內容，讀者通過在手機屏幕上滑動手指來“翻閱頁面”。對于大型出版物而言，每隔幾頁就會顯示整版廣告。內容和廣告的顯示方式在一些方面都遠遠優于在互聯網和許多獨立應用程序上的內容和廣告，而且在某些方面甚至優于閱讀報紙和雜志。據麥克庫伊稱，Flipboard上的廣告價格比普通互聯網上的廣告高出許多。 他說：“從一開始，我們就采取了印刷品中經過檢驗而可靠的各種原則，并且將它們運用于在線平臺。”

????但對于陷于困境的出版業而言，這未必是一個解決方案，至少目前還不是。Flipboard上的每份出版物都必須銷售自己的廣告，至少目前如此（Flipboard確實會提供一些支持）。許多較小的出版商都沒有能力這樣做。很多出版商和廣告客戶還不適應Flipboard的廣告格式，盡管這家公司目前還沒有設立多少標準。對于能夠銷售廣告的大型出版商而言，進駐Flipboard通常會比網絡廣告更加合算；對于小型出版商而言，與Flipboard合作要么“不存在”營收，要么營收很低，以至于出版商獲得的唯一真正繁榮好處就是他們獲得的“曝光。”

????而正是“曝光”這個角度激怒了馬歇爾。發表了最初那篇有點粗野的博客文章的幾天之后，他通過一系列的修改和補充，進一步闡述了他不滿的原因。馬歇爾承認，有關Flipboard欺騙出版商的說法可能措辭不當（雖然他確實再次使用了這個詞），但他堅持認為，Flipboard對出版商不利，因為它向他們這些出版商網站提供的只是“影響范圍”和“品牌知名度”。在Flipboard上閱讀TPM內容后，用戶就不會再訪問TPM網站。雖然網站廣告收入很低，但對于出版商來說至少是一筆收入。他寫道：“‘影響范圍’不能當飯吃，而我們也無法用‘品牌知名度’來支付員工工資。”他承認，“沒有人逼迫TPM或其他網站與這些服務平臺合作，而且那些服務平臺也沒有真的在毫不隱諱地說謊。”

????很難知道他認為他們可能以隱含的方式說些什么謊。沒有任何跡象表明Flipboard對自己做了不準確的描述。麥克庫伊說，他理解馬歇爾的不滿，但他也表示，與Flipboard合作很可能幫助（而不是損害）TPM，因為每月只有約三萬的讀者。不知道TPM的廣告銷售價格是多少，但很可能是每千次展現量不到1美元。而且通過Flipboard閱讀TPM內容的用戶未必意味著他們現在正在閱讀TPM網站。已有部分用戶留言，明確表示不會訪問TPM網站。因此，就算只是為了“影響范圍”，TPM可能也值得繼續留在Flipboard上。

????In July of last year, the political news and opinion site Talking Points Memo proudly declared that it was "excited to announce that tablet and smartphone users can now read TPM on Flipboard," a popular, magazine-style news-reading app for mobile devices.

????Last week, TPM founder Josh Marshall informed readers that the site's content no longer appears on either Flipboard or on the competing Google Currents (GOOG) app. The apps "are basically scams against the publishers," he wrote.

????Why the total change of heart? Because Flipboard takes whole articles from publishers and -- in many cases, including TPMs -- gives those publishers essentially nothing in return.

????At least, that's how Marshall interprets the situation. And as things stand for now, he's essentially right. But Flipboard CEO Mike McCue says Marshall jumped the gun, and that he apparently doesn't understand how Flipboard works, or how it will work in the near future. The two have never spoken, McCue says, despite his company's several attempts to reach out to Marshall, who also has not responded to Fortune's requests for comment.

????Flipboard displays the content of magazines, newspapers, blogs, and social media sites in a magazine-like format. Readers flip through the pages with a swipe. For bigger publications, full-page ads appear every few pages. Both the content and the ads are in a format that is in several ways vastly superior to reading on the web and many standalone apps -- and in some ways even better than reading a magazine or newspaper. The ads sell for considerably more money than web ads sell for, according to McCue. "From the beginning, we have taken the tried-and-true principles of print and applied them online," he says.

????But it's not necessarily a solution for the troubled publishing business, at least not yet. Each publication on Flipboard must sell its own ads, at least for the time being (the company does offer some support). Many smaller publications are not equipped to do so. And the ads are in a format that many publishers and advertisers are not yet used to dealing with -- there are few standards yet. For bigger publications that can sell ads, a presence on Flipboard might often be a much better deal than web ads are. For smaller ones, revenues are either nonexistent or so small that the only real benefit for publishers is the "exposure" they get.

????The exposure angle is what irked Marshall. In the days after his initial, somewhat churlish blog post, he expanded on his complaint through a series of edits and additions to the original piece. Marshall acknowledged that "scam" might have been an ill-chosen word (though he did use it again), but he stuck to his assertion that Flipboard is "bad for publishers" because all it offers sites like his is "reach" and "brand awareness." People who read TPM on Flipboard aren't reading it on his site, where the ad revenues are feeble, but at least they're revenues. "You can't eat 'reach' and we can't pay salaries with 'brand awareness'," he wrote. He did acknowledge that "no one forces TPM or other sites to work with these services, and [those services are] not really explicitly lying."

????It's hard to know what he thinks they might be implicitly lying about. There's no indication that Flipboard has misrepresented itself. McCue says he understands Marshall's complaint, but he also says that TPM's presence on Flipboard probably helped more than hurt the publication, since TPM only had about 30,000 monthly readers on the service. It's not known how much ads on TPM sell for, but it's probably less than a buck per thousand impressions. And the fact that someone had been reading TPM on Flipboard doesn't necessarily mean they are now reading the website. Some commenters have explicitly said they wouldn't. So maybe it was worth being there just for the "reach" after all.