沃西茨：廣告滲透在谷歌的DNA里
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????雖然蘇珊?沃西茨管理著谷歌最能生錢的部門，不過她本人的知名度卻并不高，至少肯定比不上谷歌的共同創始人謝爾蓋?布林或拉里?佩奇。沃西茨1998年租出了她的車庫，作為谷歌公司的第一個總部。而且作為負責廣告部的高級副總裁，沃西茨為谷歌這家互聯網巨擎的成功立下了汗馬功勞。在她的帶領下，谷歌推出了搜索廣告平臺AdWords，這也是谷歌賺錢最多的一項服務。而且沃西茨還在2006年推動了谷歌對YouTube的并購。 ????在《連線》（WIRED）雜志舉辦的設計顛覆創新商業大會（Disruptive by Design business conference）上，沃西茨談到了幾個話題，其中包括拉里?佩奇的重組努力。其中一條“新政”的創意來自紐約市長邁克?布隆伯格。拉里?佩奇要求每周五召開一次高管會議，會議的名字就叫“執行會”。 ????“每個高管各自在一座大樓里。我想拉里希望做的事情之一，就是把所有的高管聚在一起。如果某個人有什么問題的話，我們就可以立刻當場解決它。” ????她還回憶了AdWords初期的日子。當谷歌一開始決定打造自己的廣告系統的時候，公司里還只有二三十人，而現在谷歌已經擁有大約20000名員工。考慮到谷歌當時的實力，沃西茨承認，在搜索引擎之外再打造一個完善的廣告系統，在當時不啻于一個瘋狂的點子。 ????雖然當時他們的需求急劇上升，但是這也沒有起多大幫助。公司建議廣告提供商給每個主題都做一個廣告。谷歌的廣告可以用40種不同語言呈現，而且可以以不到一秒的時間上傳。（沃西茨表示，當時廣告商平均每次活動會做五個廣告。）理論上講，這意味著如果一個書商有10萬個不同作者的作品，就應該有10萬個不同的廣告。 ????“我們走訪了所有的廣告提供商”，沃西茨回憶道：“每個人都說‘不’……所以我們內部進行了一番爭論。有些人認為我們可能會破產，有些人認為我們可能會生錢。結果后者成為現實——我們果然可以生錢。”沃西茨這番話說得很謙虛。據估算，去年谷歌的營收為293億美元，而沃西茨的部門的產品（包括AdWords在內）至少占了其中的96%。 ????著眼未來，谷歌的一個大問題仍然擺在眼前：谷歌的社交戰略究竟是什么？谷歌高調發布了Wave和Buzz等一批產品，然而都以失敗告終，這使有些批評人士深信，谷歌的DNA里就沒有“社交”這個基因。最近谷歌又推出了“+1”鍵，相當于Facebook“喜歡”（Like）按鈕的翻版。“+1”目前只進行了有限的發布，而且目前只能應用于搜索結果。不過它最終將允許廣大用戶都來對搜索結果進行推薦。 ????沃西茨表示：“我以前就聽過這種話。有人說廣告不在我們的DNA里，也有人說顯示廣告不在我們的DNA里，這都不是真的。這是一個急劇變動的市場，每個公司都需要能夠更快地做出反應，適應這個市場。我們會這樣做的。” ????譯者：樸成奎 |
????Though she's responsible for Google's biggest moneymakers, Susan Wojcicki isn't a recognizable face, certainly not like co-founders Sergey Brin or Larry Page, who rented out her garage in 1998 to serve as Google's first headquarters. But as Senior Vice President of Advertising, her work has been instrumental to the Internet giant's success: Wojcicki spearheaded the advertising platform AdWords, Google's biggest moneymaker, and pushed for the acquisition of YouTube in 2006. ????At WIRED's Disruptive by Design business conference yesterday, Wojcicki covered several topics, including Page's reorganization efforts. One of his mandates, inspired by Mayor Mike Bloomberg efforts, are new weekly executive meetings every Friday dubbed "execute." ????"Every executive is in a big building, and I think one of the things Larry wanted to do was bring all the executives together," she says. "If somebody has an issue, we can resolve it right then and there." ????She also reflected on the early days of AdWords. When the company first decided it needed its own ad system, the company was just 20 or 30-strong, a far cry from the 20,000 or so currently employed there. Given Google's then-status as a David versus larger Internet Goliaths, she admits it was a crazy idea to build a full-fledged ad system in addition to a search engine. ????It also didn't help that they had steep demands. The company asked ad providers for ads for every topic, available in 40 different languages, and loaded in sub-second time. (At the time, Wojcicki says ad providers offered some 5 ads per campaign.) In theory, that meant for a bookseller, if there are 100,000 different authors, there should be 100,000 different ads. ????"We went to the all ad providers," she recalls. "Everybody said 'no.' … So we had all these debates internally. Some thought we could go bankrupt. Some people thought we could make money. It turns out that it was true -- we could make money." She's being modest: it's estimated that Wojcicki's products, including AdWords, were responsible for at least 96% of Google's $29.3 billion revenues last year. ????Moving forward, one of the biggest question remains: What is Google's social strategy? High-profile product releases (and failures) like Google Wave and Google Buzz come to mind, leading some critics to believe that "social" just isn't in Google's DNA. Much more recently, it launched the "+1" button, the equivalent of Facebook's Like button. "+1" is currently in limited release and only applies to search results at the moment, but will eventually let users to give the thumbs-up to search results, too. ????"I've heard that before," Wojcicki says. "I've also heard advertising isn't in our DNA. That's not true. Or that display advertising isn't in our DNA. That's also clearly that's not true. This is such a fast moving market and every company has to be able to move quickly and adapt, and we will." |
