这个故事足以让大多数做UE设计的同学们兔死狐悲，祈祷自己不要遇到类似的情形。为什么要有一个产品经理？或者说，即使没有“产品经理”的明确职位，也应该有承担产品经理职责的团队成员，负责把握产品的商业需求，深刻理解用户需求、公司利益，并能将设计意图以相关各方容易理解的方式清晰、准确地表达。

闲话少说，大家读故事吧，^_^   （推荐：高巍）

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非设计师谈设计（二）

Published by 承志 7月 2nd, 2007.

刘韧的招聘说明：

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引文读完，下面我再援引几个案例，包括Google、Yahoo、Flickr等企业对产品经理的招聘说明：

一、Flickr

Description:
Flickr’s vision is to be the eyes of the world and we are looking for an individual who can share and drive forward our goal by helping grow a key new aspect of the product.

Specifically, we are looking for someone who can harness the potential of Flickr’s large and growing commercial eco-system to drive product richness as well as increased monetization for Flickr, Flickr’s users, and Flickr partners. If you’ve been thinking about these ideas we want to talk to you.

Some key responsibilities of the position:

• Build a strategy and product requirements for next generation Flickr services
• Help communicate the strategy vis-a-vis the Flickr and Yahoo product portfolio
• Develop a strong understanding of specific sub-sector of the existing Flickr user base as well as a new set of incoming users
• Identify and drive key (internal and external) partnerships to execute against the strategy
• Drive product development and project mange the product implementation
• Provide direction to outbound marketing through existing and new channels (virally, via eco system, etc)

Basic Qualifications:

• BS in Computer Science preferred

Preferred Qualifications:

• MBA or strong business/entrepreneurial preferred
• Marketing, journalism, photography, photo acquisition or editorial experience all strong plusses
• Web technology savvy
• Determination to execute
• Strong relationship building skills
• Skilled communicator
• Understanding of online communities
• A proven track record in product management

二、Google

Mobile Product Manager：Do you have a passion for creating great products? Are you interested in contributing to the success of one of the fastest growing areas for Google? Do you have experience in the mobile industry? Google is looking for flexible, results-oriented, and experienced people to help drive Google’s mobile products. Google Product Managers combine a great instinct for developing compelling products with the technical aptitude to work with a world class engineering team and the business sense to drive local product goals and strategies.

Responsibilities

• Initiate new mobile products and product enhancements to meet existing or anticipated market needs.
• Determine product specifications and document in a Product Requirements Document (PRD).
• Initiate and prioritize projects within engineering; track product development; develop product launch plans.
• Engage closely with the engineering team to help determine the best technical implementation methods as well as a reasonable execution schedule.
• Work with a cross-functional internal team (e.g. sales, client services, marketing, legal, etc.) to gather customer feedback and ensure smooth and successful launches.
• Establish short and long term product goals and strategies.

Requirements

• Computer science degree or equivalent technical experience.
• Demonstrated experience shipping products (concept to launch).
• Strong understanding of local user needs.
• Market knowledge of Internet-related industries.
• Excellent organizational skills including the ability to build effective working relationships.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (must be able to make presentations to large groups to support ideas and technical concepts).

三、Yahoo

1.印度班加罗尔的搜索产品经理

Reporting to: Search Director
Location: Bangalore, India

Yahoo! Web Search is passionate about building the best search platform on the planet. We're seeking a results-oriented product manager to drive our local search efforts for India. The perfect candidate is a strategic thinker who is extremely analytical and detail oriented and great at multitasking and prioritizing, as well. As product manager, you will take end-to-end ownership of the product line, identify market requirements, define the product vision, create preliminary design concepts and drive the implementation of the overall product roadmap. You will work closely with numerous functions both inside and outside Yahoo! and within your office and with U.S. HQ. You will build strong business cases for presentation to senior management and understand the technical requirements driving development.

Responsibilities:

• Effectively collaborate with business, marketing, technical and design teams to develop requirements, prioritize enhancements, translate into MRDs/PRDs and drive projects to completion.
• Develop a functional understanding of the key technological and architectural basis of the Yahoo! Search platform to facilitate decision-making and cross-functional communication.
• Evaluate new technologies for licensing and integration into Yahoo! Search. Define, track and improve key product metrics and develop tests against those metrics.
• Conduct competitive analysis and identify areas for differentiation.
• Build positive relationships and trust over time through strong on-time delivery, high quality, continuous innovation, and exceeding expectations.
• Meticulously think through every aspect of the user experience, putting users' needs and expectations first in the definition of requirements.
• Aggressively identify opportunities for improvement, and incorporate new product features into the Yahoo! Search product on an ongoing basis.

Requirements:

• This position requires a B.A/B.Sc and 7+ years of technical product management experience. A Management Degree will be added plus
• Demonstrated business, communication, leadership and teamwork abilities
• Proven ability to innovate
• Proven ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams in a highly matrixed organization
• An excellent track record of developing, launching, and marketing products.
• Experience with software, online products, search or enterprise platforms are highly desired.

四、Google的高级产品总监

Product Management, Leadership - Beijing
Position based in Beijing, China.

Do you have a passion for creating great products? Google is looking for someone who can lead a team of product managers to accomplish two goals: support global products being developed in regional engineering centers; and define and develop a country-specific strategy and local products.

Responsibilities:

• Establish short and long term product goals and strategies.
• Build and manage a product roadmap to support our goals and strategies.
• Initiate and prioritize projects within engineering; track product development; develop product launch plans.
• Engage closely with the engineering team to help determine the best technical implementation methods and reasonable execution schedules.
• Mentor a group of product managers to build innovative products while creating relationships throughout the organization.

Requirements:

• Strong technical background, CS degree preferred.
• 10+ years of product management experience.
• Several years of experience managing product managers.
• Excellent organizational skills including ability to build effective working relationships.
• Demonstrated experience shipping products (concept to launch).
• Fluency in English (must be able to make presentations to large groups in English).

我的观点和大徐（daxu.net）不太一样。

真正的产品经理首先应该具有passion，能够提出愿景；他追求业务成功与用户满意相统一的创新；他的重视细节和执行力都是为了实现产品愿景，而不是沦为单纯的工具。

刘韧的招聘说明，很实在，但拜托请不要用“产品经理”这个名词。

原作者: Michael Shrivathsan 原文 译者: Sam    推荐并整合原文：高巍

做为一名新进产品经理，甚至一名资深PM，你可能都或多或少对这个职位产生某种迷惑。到底什么是产品经理？这个职位的主要职责是什么？在IT产业的不同领域，甚至在同一领域的不同公司，这个职位的定义似乎都有不同。

作为产品经理，你应该了解下面这5个关于优秀产品设计的技巧：

1. 从用户界面开始（Start With the User Interface）
2. 与UI设计师紧密协作（Work Closely With UI Designers）
3. 关注细节（Pay Attention to Details）
4. 尽量简单（Simpler is Better）
5. 敢于说不（Be Brave）

1. Start With the User Interface

   Right after gathering and prioritizing high-level requirements, get to the User Interface (UI) design. Do this before you complete your MRD or PRD. Yes, before! You may be wondering "Michael, is that not like putting the cart before the horse? Why should I do this?". Wonder no more - here is my answer!

   Because the UI is the only thing your end user sees of your product. The only thing!
   
   Yet, most high-tech companies I know of first create the product. Then they throw together a UI before releasing the product. The UI is an afterthought. And it shows.

   I believe the UI should be the first thought. The most important thought. Remember - the UI is the only thing your user sees. This leads to my Tip #2.

2. Work Closely With UI Designers

   If UI is so important, it follows naturally that Product Managers should work very closely with UI Designers to achieve kick-butt design.

   Yet, in most companies the relationship between product managers and UI designers tends to be an "arms length" relationship. Especially in large companies, these two departments are practically silo'ed. The PM throws the MRD or PRD over the wall. The UI designer creates the UI to fit those requirements.

   I believe this is the wrong model. Actually, exactly the wrong model - if what you want is kick-butt design.

   I'd go so far as to say that you should have PM's and UI Designers under one department. I have tried it. They are under one department in my company. And, it works great!

3. Pay Attention to Details

   Remember the Steve Jobs quote in my last article:

   The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.

   On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time. That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.

   This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. (emphasis mine)

   Want kick-butt design? One absolute pre-requisite is "sweating the details". Without it, kick-butt design is just not possible.

   One common comment I've heard in bug reviews is "But, this is just a cosmetic flaw. It is low priority, and given the time pressures we can't fix it".

   Well, here is my take - no such thing as "low priority cosmetic flaw". Cosmetic flaws are high priority. Very high priority. Often, they are easy to fix to boot.

   Try this next time: Insist that all cosmetic flaws be fixed. It may be a hard sell at first, it certainly was for me. But insist on it nevertheless. It works wonders. Mostly!

4. Simpler is Better

   This is one of the most important tips to achieve kick-butt design. Keep your product, and its design simple - as simple as possible.

   Design for the 80% use case. Do not fall prey to "Featuritis" - more features are not always better. More often than not, more features are worse. Much worse, in fact. Don't believe me? Well - at least believe Kathy Sierra, will ya?!

   Check out my earlier article for further thoughts on this very important idea. It is a simple idea - but not an easy idea. At all. This leads to my last tip.

5. Be Brave

   To achieve kick-butt design you gotta be BRAVE. This is an absolute must. Why?

   Because most folks in your organization would want to water down the design to make it more like competitors'. A superset of features seen in competitive products.

   Be brave - just say "No". Kick-butt products are created by saying "No". More than anything else.

   iPod has no FM/AM radio. No voice recorder either. In spite of the fact that 95% of competitive products do. GMail has no folders, even though every single other email product I know of has folders. Think it was easy for their designers to pull these off? No way - they had to be brave and say "No".

用户体验（User Experience），正在成为判断一个网站或Web应用是否成功的关键标志。通常，对用户体验只能作定性表述，带有比较强的主观色彩。

下面这篇文章勾勒了一个关于用户体验的简易的量化分析模型。可以比较快速、相对客观地对站点的用户体验进行可视化的表示。


正文：

What is the User Experience?

The term "user experience" refers to a concept that places the end-user at the focal point of design and development efforts, as opposed to the system, its applications or its aesthetic value alone. It's based on the general concept of user-centered design.

The user experience is primarily made up of a four factors:

• branding
• usability [1]
• functionality
• content

Independently, none of these factors makes for a positive user experience; however, taken together, these factors constitute the main ingredients for a website's success.

Take, for example, a brilliantly designed site that routinely gives server errors, or times-out. Or imagine a fantastic, database-driven application that, for some reason or other, is never used because it's buried deep within the bowels of the site's information architecture. In both cases, we see that the independent elements of branding, usability, functionality and content structure aren't necessarily indicative of a site's success. Yet, when taken together, these core elements provide the basis for the user experience.

The Need for an Objective Analysis Tool

Say you've got a new lead -- they're unhappy with their Website in its current form and want you to help steer the site in the right direction. If you're like me, the first thing you'll do is take a look at the site and make some cursory mental notes. How then do you convey these ideas and notes back to the client without simply ripping the current site apart?

The problem is that each of our perceptions of how 'good' or 'bad' a Website is, is skewed by our personal backgrounds and specialties within the industry. Asked to evaluate a Website's benefits and constraints, a developer, usability professional, designer or information architect may come up with an entirely different critique.

An objective tool for measurement and analysis helps you provide your clients with fact-based recommendations, as opposed to mere conjecture and opinion. The methodology we'll explore in this article will help you to:

• Remove your personal preferences (subjectivity) from the equation as much as possible.
• Enable persons with different backgrounds (designers, developers, clients) to share a common understanding of the site.
• Create ground rules for comparisons of the site to those of competitors, or past development efforts.
• Provide your clients with a fact-based, visual representation of their site's benefits and limitations.

Measuring the User Experience

As mentioned above, the user experience is made up of four interdependent elements:

• branding
• usability
• functionality
• content

But, how can we quantify and measure these seemingly intangible elements?

The methodology is quite simple. We separate our analysis into four sections -- one for each of the four elements of the user experience. For each of these elements, we create a series of statements or parameters against which the Website in question will be measured. A scale of 1 to X is created for each of the statements; we give each statement a score within this range.

Once you've completed this first part of the analysis, you should have a score for each of the statements in each of the four sections.

In the sample analysis attached to this article, we only used five statements or parameters for each element. Consequently, we work with a 20-point scale, so that the maximum total score of the site is 100. So, if we added an extra five statements or parameters to each element, we'd rate each on a 10-point scale.

Below, find a brief explanation of each of the elements and the statements or parameters used in the sample analysis.

Branding

Branding includes all the aesthetic and design-related items within a Website. It entails the site's creative projection of the desired organizational image and message. Statements used to measure branding can include:

• The site provides visitors with an engaging and memorable experience.
• The visual impact of the site is consistent with the brand identity.
• Graphics, collaterals and multimedia add value to the experience.
• The site delivers on the perceived promise of the brand.
• The site leverages the capabilities of the medium to enhance or extend the brand.

Functionality

Functionality includes all the technical and 'behind the scenes' processes and applications. It entails the site's delivery of interactive services to all end users, and it's important to note that this sometimes means both the public as well as administrators. Statements used to measure a site's functionality can include:

• Users receive timely responses to their queries or submissions.
• Task progress is clearly communicated (e.g., success pages or email updates).
• The Website and applications adhere to common security and privacy standards.
• Online functions are integrated with offline business processes.
• The site contains administration tools that enhance administrator efficiency.

Usability

Usability entails the general ease of use of all site components and features. Sub-topics beneath the usability banner can include navigation and accessibility [2]. Statements used to measure usability might include:

• The site prevents errors and helps the user recover from them.
• Overall page weight is optimized for the main target audience.
• The site helps its visitors accomplish common goals and tasks.
• The site adheres to its own consistency and standards.
• The site provides content for users with disabilities.

Content

Content refers to the actual content of the site (text, multimedia, images) as well as its structure, or information architecture. We look to see how the information and content are structured in terms of defined user needs and client business requirements. Statements used to measure content can include:

• Link density provides clarity and easy navigation.
• Content is structured in a way that facilitates the achievement of user goals.
• Content is up-to-date and accurate.
• Content is appropriate to customer needs and business goals.
• Content across multiple languages is comprehensive.

In most instances, I use from 10-20 separate statements for each of these four elements. I suggest you use the statements above as a basis for creating your own analysis. Remember that if you add more statements, you must also refine the 20-point scale so that each element's total score is 100. For example, if you used 10 statements for each element, then your rating scale would be 1-10. If you used 20 statements for each element, your scale would be 1-5.

For a example of this style of analysis download this sample Excel file [3].

Displaying Your Results

Once you've completed your analysis and have values for each of the statements or parameters, it's time to put this data into a clear, communicative format.

The first thing we want to do is add up all the values for each element. Because we've set the point scale to provide with a maximum score of 100 for each element, what we really have is a percentage score. Once we have these percentage values, what I've found works best is to create a Spider chart to visually represent them. Microsoft's Excel or Open Office Calc both work well here, although any spreadsheet program with graphing capabilities will do.

Using your spreadsheet program, you can generate a host of visual representations of the data. See the sample file you downloaded above for more examples.

Get Creative with Your Analysis

The great thing about the analysis and methods described in this article is that they can be catered to your specific client or project needs.

There's no reason why you couldn't add a fifth category to the analysis to describe accessibility or business metrics. For example, say you've got a government client that needs to adhere to Section 508 regulations (for the U.S.). You could easily create a set of statements or parameters that deal exclusively with the accessibility element, modifying your charts to display accordingly. Likewise, it would be very easy to create a category that deals exclusively with your client's important business metrics, for example, ROI, click-through rates, conversions, or repeat customers.

Alternatively, this platform of analysis can enable you to add greater weight to particular elements of your choice. Say you have a client who's a luxury goods manufacturer, and is heavily focused on branding and look and feel. There's no reason why you couldn't create a modified measurement system that gave greater weight to the branding elements and less to, say, the usability elements.

Practical Uses

I've incorporated this analysis into a number of different projects on which I've worked. Often, I include a 'quick and dirty' analysis as an appendix to a new client proposal, to provide the prospective clients a snapshot view of where their site stands vis-à-vis the competition.

Providing this kind of review also gives you an excellent chance to display your professionalism. Chances are that other firms bidding on the RFP in question will not include such 'free' consulting services -- and your inclusion of this report in your proposal may be a decisive factor in your favor.

In other instances, I've had clients pay for an in-depth analysis of their site complete with recommendations. This type of report includes, for each of the statements or parameters, several descriptive paragraphs complete with examples or screen shots. If I'm ultimately hired to follow through on my recommendations, I often schedule another evaluation six months after the launch of the site as a means of showing improvement, while at the same time reinforcing the value of my services.

This type of analysis can also serve as a gateway project that leads to further business. If you price the analysis well, it can be a great tool for getting your foot in the door and showing the new client the benefits of your services.

还记得那本《男人来自火星，女人来自金星》吗？

你必须得承认，哪怕这个结论让人沮丧，人和人就是不一样的，我们和另外一些人在彼此看来都仿佛是陌生星球的访客。直面现实的做法就是，试着去了解、去走近对方，希望这篇文章可以帮助你和那些技术怪客们打交道。

正文：

Understand your nerd’s relation to the computer. It’s clichéd, but a nerd is defined by his computer, and you need to understand why.

First, a majority of the folks on the planet either have no idea how a computer works or they look at it and think “it’s magic”. Nerds know how a computer works. They intimately know how a computer works. When you ask a nerd, “When I click this, it takes awhile for the thing to show up. Do you know what’s wrong?” they know what’s wrong. A nerd has a mental model of the hardware and the software in his head. While the rest of the world sees magic, your nerd knows how the magic works, he knows the magic is a long series of ones and zeros moving across your screen with impressive speed, and he knows how to make those bits move faster.

The nerd has based his career, maybe his life, on the computer, and as we’ll see, this intimate relationship has altered his view of the world. He sees the world as a system which, given enough time and effort, is completely knowable. This is a fragile illusion that your nerd has adopted, but it’s a pleasant one that gets your nerd through the day. When the illusion is broken, you are going to discover that…

Your nerd has control issues. Your nerd lives in a monospaced typeface world. Whereas everyone else is traipsing around picking dazzling fonts to describe their world, your nerd has carefully selected a monospace typeface, which he avidly uses to manipulate the world deftly via a command line interface while the rest fumble around with a mouse.

The reason for this typeface selection is, of course, practicality. Monospace typefaces have a knowable width. Ten letters on one line are same width as ten other letters, which puts the world into a pleasant grid construction where X and Y mean something.

These control issues mean your nerd is sensitive to drastic changes in his environment. Think travel. Think job changes. These types of system-redefining events force your nerd to recognize that the world is not always or entirely a knowable place, and until he reconstructs this illusion, he’s going to be frustrated and he’s going to act erratically. I develop an incredibly short fuse during system-redefining events and I’m much more likely to lose it over something trivial and stupid. This is one of the reasons that…

Your nerd has built himself a cave. I’ve written about The Cave elsewhere, but here are the basics. The Cave is designed to allow your nerd to do his favorite thing, which is working on the project. If you want to understand your nerd, stare long and hard at his Cave. How does he have it arranged? When does he tend to go there? How long does he stay?

Each object in the Cave has a particular place and purpose. Even the clutter is well designed. Don’t believe me? Grab that seemingly discarded Mac Mini which has been sitting on the floor for two months and hide it. You’ll have 10 minutes before he’ll come stomping out of the Cave — “Where’s the Mac?”

The Cave is also frustrating you because your impression is that it’s your nerd’s way of checking out, and you are, unfortunately, completely correct. A correctly designed Cave removes your nerd from the physical world and plants him firmly in a virtual one complete with all the toys he needs. Because…

Your nerd loves toys and puzzles. The joy your nerd finds in his project is one of problem solving and discovery. As each part of the project is completed, your nerd receives an adrenaline rush that we’re going to call The High. Every profession has this — the moment when you’ve moved significantly closer to done. In many jobs, it’s easy to discern when progress is being made: “Look, now we have a door”. But in nerds’ bit-based work, progress is measured mentally and invisibly in code, algorithms, efficiency, and small mental victories that don’t exist in a world of atoms.

There are other ways your nerd can create The High and he does it all the time. It’s another juicy cliché to say that nerds love video games, but that’s not what they love. A video game is just one more system where your nerd’s job is to figure out the rules that define it, which will enable him to beat it. Yeah, we love to stare at games with a bazillion polygons, but we get the same high out of playing Bejeweled, getting our Night Elf to Level 70, or endlessly tinkering with a Rubik’s Cube. This fits nicely with the fact that…

Nerds are fucking funny. Your nerd spent a lot of his younger life being an outcast because of his strange affinity with the computer. This created a basic bitterness in his psyche that is the foundation for his humor. Now, combine this basic distrust of everything with your nerd’s other natural talents and you’ll realize that he sees humor is another game.

Humor is an intellectual puzzle, “How can this particular set of esoteric trivia be constructed to maximize hilarity as quickly as possible?” Your nerd listens hard to recognize humor potential and when he hears it, he furiously scours his mind to find relevant content from his experience so he can get the funny out as quickly as possible.

This quick wit is only augmented by the fact that…

Your nerd has an amazing appetite for information. Many years ago, I dubbed this behavior NADD, and you should read the article to learn more and to understand what mental muscles your nerd has developed.

How does a nerd watch TV? Probably one of two ways. First, there’s watching TV with you where the two of you sit and watch one show. Then there’s how he watches by himself when he watches three shows at once. It looks insane. You walk into the room and you’re watching your nerd jump between channels every five minutes.

“How can you keep track of anything?”

He keeps track of everything. See, he’s already seen all three of these movies… multiple times. He knows the compelling parts of the arcs and is mentally editing his own versions while watching all three. The basic mental move here is the context switch, and your nerd is the king of the context switch.

The ability to instantly context switch also comes from a life on the computer. Your nerd’s mental information model for the world is one contained within well-bounded tidy windows where the most important tool is one that allows your nerd to move swiftly from one window to the next. It’s irrelevant that there may be no relationship between these windows. Your nerd is used to making huge contextual leaps where he’s talking to a friend in one window, worrying about his 401k in another, and reading about World War II in yet another.

You might suspect that given a world where context is constantly shifting, your nerd can’t focus, and you’d be partially correct. All that multi-tasking isn’t efficient. Your nerd knows very little about a lot. For many topics, his knowledge is an inch deep and four miles wide. He’s comfortable with this fact because he knows that deep knowledge about any topic is a clever keystroke away. See…

Your nerd has built an annoyingly efficient relevancy engine in his head. It’s the end of the day and you and your nerd are hanging out on the couch. The TV is off. There isn’t a computer anywhere nearby and you’re giving your nerd the daily debrief. “Spent an hour at the post office trying to ship that package to your mom, and then I went down to that bistro — you know — the one next the flower shop, and it’s closed. Can you believe that?”

And your nerd says, “Cool”.

Cool? What’s cool? The business closing? The package? How is any of it cool? None of it’s cool. Actually, all of it might be cool, but your nerd doesn’t believe any of what you’re saying is relevant. This is what he heard, “Spent an hour at the post office blah blah blah…”

You can be rightfully pissed off by this behavior — it’s simply rude — but seriously, I’m trying to help here. Your nerd’s insatiable quest for information and The High has tweaked his brain in an interesting way. For any given piece of incoming information, your nerd is making a lightning fast assessment: relevant or not relevant? Relevance means that the incoming information fits into the system of things your nerd currently cares about. Expect active involvement from your nerd when you trip the relevance flag. If you trip the irrelevance flag, look for verbal punctuation announcing his judgment of irrelevance. It’s the word your nerd says when he’s not listening and it’s always the same. My word is “Cool”, and when you hear “Cool”, I’m not listening.

Information that your nerd is exposed to when the irrelevance flag is waving is forgotten almost immediately. I mean it. Next time you hear “Cool”, I want you to ask, “What’d I just say?” That awkward grin on your nerd’s face is the first step in getting him to acknowledge that he’s the problem in this particular conversation. This behavior is one of the reasons that…

Your nerd might come off as not liking people. Small talk. Those first awkward five minutes when two people are forced to interact. Small talk is the bane of the nerd’s existence because small talk is a combination of aspects of the world that your nerd hates. When your nerd is staring at a stranger, all he’s thinking is, “I have no system for understanding this messy person in front of me”. This is where the shy comes from. This is why nerds hate presenting to crowds.

The skills to interact with other people are there. They just lack a well-defined system.

Advanced Nerd Tweakage

If you’re still reading, then I’m thinking that your nerd is worth keeping. Even though he’s apt to vanish for hours, has a strange sense of humor, doesn’t like you touching his stuff, and often doesn’t listen when you’re talking directly at him, he’s a keeper. Go figure.

My advice:

Map the things he’s bad at to the things he loves. You love to travel, but your nerd would prefer to hide in his cave for hours on end chasing The High. You need to convince him of two things. First, you need to convince him that you’re going to do your best to recreate his cave in his new surrounding. You’re going to create a quiet, dark place here he can orient himself and figure out which way the water flushes down the toilet. Traveling internationally? Carve out three days somewhere quiet at the beginning of the trip. Traveling across the US? How about letting him chill on the bed for a half-day before you drag him out to see the Golden Gate Bridge?

Second, and more importantly, you need to remind him about his insatiable appetite for information. You need to appeal to his deep love of discovering new content and help him understand that there may be no greater content fire hose than waking up in a hotel overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice where you don’t speak a word of Italian.

Make it a project. You might’ve noticed your nerd’s strange relation to food. Does he eat fast? Like really fast? You should know what’s going on here. Food is thrown into the irrelevant bucket because it’s getting in the way of the content. Exercise, too. Thing is, you want your nerd to eat healthily so that he’s here in another thirty years, so how do you change this behavior? You make diet and exercise the project.

For me, exercise became the project ten years ago after a horrible break-up. When the project was no longer the Ex, I dove into exercise every single day of the week. There were charts tracking my workouts, there were graphs tracking my weight, and there was the exercise. Every single day for two years until the day I passed out in a McDonald’s post-workout after not eating for a day. Ok, so time for a new project. Yeah, nerds also have moderation issues. That’s another essay.

Significant nerd behavioral change is only going to happen if your nerd engages in the project heart and soul, otherwise it’s just another thought for the irrelevant bucket.

People are the most interesting content out there. If you’ve got a seriously shy nerd on your hands, try this: ask him how many folks are in his buddy list? How many friends does he have in Facebook? How many folks are following him on Twitter? LiveJournal? My guess is that, collectively, your nerd interacts with ten times more people than you think he does. He can do this because the interaction is via a system he understands — the computer.

Your nerd knows that people are interesting. Just because he can’t look your best friend straight in the eye doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to know what makes her tick, but you need to be the social buffer — the translation layer. You need to find one common thread of interest between your nerd and your friend and then he’ll engage because he will have found relevance.

The Next High

As you discovered when you were the project, your nerd’s focus can be deliciously overwhelming, but it will stop. Once a nerd believe he fully knows how a system works, the challenge to understand ceases to exist and he moves on in search of The Next High.

While I don’t know who you are or why in the world you chose a nerd for your companion, I do know that you are not a knowable system. I know that you are messy, just like your nerd. Being your own quirky self will be more than enough to present new and interesting challenges to your nerd.

Besides, it’s just as much a nerd’s job to figure you out and maybe someone somewhere is writing an article about your particular quirks. Good news, he’s probably reading it right now.

编译：高巍

下图揭示了Web项目团队的9个角色：
战略层：用户调研、站点战略、技术战略和内容战略。
战术层：项目管理、详细设计、技术实现和内容生成。
介于战略和战术之间的是概要设计。

正文：

1. User Research: User-centered design means understanding what your users need, how they think, and how they behave — and incorporating that understanding into every aspect of your process. User research provides the raw observations that fuel this insight into the people your site must serve.

2. Site Strategy: Defining your own goals for the site can be surprisingly tricky. Arriving at a common understanding of the site’s purpose for your organization, how you’ll prioritize the site’s various goals, and the means by which you’ll measure the site’s success are all matters of site strategy.

3. Technology Strategy: Web sites are technologically complex, and getting more intricate all the time. Identifying the technology strategy for the site — platforms, standards, technologies, and how they can all interoperate — is essential to avoiding costly mistakes.

4. Content Strategy: Content is often the reason users come to your site. But what content can you offer to meet your users’ expectations? How much content is appropriate, and what form should it take? What style or tone should it have? Before you can produce that content, you need to answer fundamental content strategy questions such as these.

5. Abstract Design: Information architecture and interaction design translate strategic objectives into a conceptual framework for the final user experience. These emerging disciplines addressing abstract design are increasingly recognized for their value in the Web development process.

6. Technology Implementation: Building technical systems involves a lot of hard work and specialized knowledge: languages and protocols, coding and debugging, testing and refactoring. The more complex your site, the more important a competency in technology implementation becomes.

7. Content Production: Knowing what content you need isn’t enough. You also need to know how you’ll produce it. Gathering raw information, writing and editing, and defining editorial workflows and approvals are all part of content production.

8. Concrete Design: Before the abstract design can become a fully realized user experience, you must determine the specific details of interfaces, navigation, information design, and visual design. This realm of concrete design is essential to creating the final product.

9. Project Management: The hub that binds all the tactical competencies together as well as the engine that drives the project forward to completion, project management requires a highly specialized set of skills all its own. Neglecting this area often results in missed deadlines and cost overruns.

互联网行业的公司斥巨资作电视广告的不多，淘宝网算是一个特例。而广告既达到效果又不让人反感，应该也是淘宝网一贯注重用户体验的表现。

1.淘宝网，淘我喜欢

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE5Njc2Njg=_rss.html
不怕你淘不到，只怕你想不到。

2.天下无贼版

贺岁片《天下无贼》中傻根憨厚的笑脸现在在网上和电视上又开始见到，一款名为《天下无贼》的广告片日前由华谊兄弟公司和淘宝网推出。

由于广告片《天下无贼》由电影《天下无贼》的原班人马葛优、傻根、范伟、冯远 征出演，并由他们原声配音，因此有人戏称广告片是电影的“续集”。据悉这部“续集”在原先电影精彩片段的基础上又增拍了一些镜头，不过导演不是冯小刚，而 是华谊兄弟公司的总裁王中军亲自操刀制作，但总体风格依然会延续“冯氏幽默”。

与电影《天下无贼》的4500万元投资相比，淘宝网为 几分钟的广告片投资了1000万元，也可谓是“大成本”的广告片了。广告片与电影在剧情上最大的不同是“傻根”在广告片里不但不傻，相反早就掌握了网络科 技的最新事物———“支付宝”，他早就通过“支付宝”将其6万元钱打回了家，而且也免掉了邮局汇款“可以买一头驴”的手续费。正如片中台词所说“用支付 宝，天下无贼”，黎叔再度因空手而归表示很“生气”，同样由于“傻根”的聪明，避免了发生电影中刘德华为保护“傻根”的钱而牺牲的悲剧。

淘宝公司表示，华谊兄弟和淘宝早在电影《天下无贼》中就有过合作，相信很多观众对电影中尤勇拿着的那面“淘宝网”小旗的场景印象深刻，而《天下无贼》中 的所有明星道具也都是指定淘宝网作为唯一拍卖网站。据悉，淘宝网在电影《天下无贼》的合作中一共投入了1000万元。对于此次拍广告片的片酬，华谊兄弟公 司表示不方便透露，而淘宝方面则表示“片酬不是重要的，但首先这部广告片由国内最多男明星担纲，算是开了一个先河，其次这也是国内第一部完美结合了电影宣 传的广告。也算是广告上的一个新创意吧。”

3.武林外传版
http://bbs.yaochen.org/viewthread.php?tid=12086&extra=page%3D1

http://bbs.yaochen.org/redirect.php?tid=12056&goto=lastpost#lastpost

http://bbs.yaochen.org/viewthread.php?tid=12076&extra=page%3D1

“郭 芙蓉”的这则淘宝网广告，无处不在爆料着《武林外传》式的幽默和趣味。就连广告的主题也是相似的。但这个模仿确实能够吸引人的眼球，因为它有趣。同时广告 也在搞笑的表现中诠释了淘宝网使用的一些信息和方法，对“易如反掌”进行内容诉求。这或许也就是网络品牌在大众传媒做广告都在使用的一种方式，无论是用幽 默的，还是简单重复的方式阐述，其品牌产品的使用，和功能必然是首要的诉求重点。而相对了比起现在很多在电视上出现的滥用动画的网络品牌广告，这则无疑是 能打动消费者心理的广告。

About.com. After being launched in 1997, Web guide service About.com was picked up by The New York Times company in 2005 for nearly $700 million. About's still kicking, and serving up a large variety of content, both written and video.

AltaVista was one of the first big search engines for the Web. After launching in late 1995, the service gained popularity before parent company Digital Equipment Corporation was sold to Compaq in 1998. It then changed hands three more times to fall under Yahoo's control, who still uses its technology in its Web search.

Amazon.com. Founder Jeff Bezos' 1995 e-marketplace baby survived the dot-com bust and quickly began to turn a profit selling a huge array of products. It's snatched up over a dozen other high-profile sites including the Internet Movie Database, Alexa Internet, and on Thursday Audible.com.

AOL started out as a video games-by-telephone modem service before nearly going under in the early 1980s. It turned into an ISP beginning in the 1990s, and continued to grow massively until competition made the company change its focus to content. It later merged with Time Warner in 2001. The company continues to be known for its instant-messaging service, portal news site, and as an Internet service provider.

Ask Jeeves has been around since 1996 and was formerly known for its cartoon mascot of a smarmy concierge-type who would answer search queries. Jeeves was nixed 10 years later when the company re-branded as Ask.com. Ask continues to compete in the search world, but trails behind the popularity of larger search behemoths like Google and Yahoo.

Buy.com was founded in 1997, and like Amazon.com it began with relatively few types of items for sale before expanding to cover nearly every product in every category. The company went public in 2000, but stock values tanked. Company founder Scott Blum bought back control of Buy.com and took it private, and it continues to sell goods online.

CBS MarketWatch, now known simply as MarketWatch, was partially owned by Viacom until News Corp.-owned Dow Jones snatched it up in early 2005. The media company continues to provide written and video content, both on the Web and on TV.

CMGI (College Marketing Group Information) was founded in the mid-1980s, and had an IPO in 1994 as CMG Information Services. The venture capital company continued to grow, and stock prices soared up until the dot-com bubble burst, taking the company with it.

CNET Networks, parent of News.com, started out producing TV shows about technology and later expanded into creating online content, ranging from video games to a technology news service and blog network. The company has expanded into several major global markets both in China and the U.K. Recently, a group of investors led by Jana Partners announced an intention to try to take over a majority of seats on its board of directors.

CompuServe is one of the better known dot-com pioneers, and also one of the oldest. It's best known for its role as an ISP, which brought it popularity in the early 1990s before tanking due to customer dissatisfaction with bad modem hardware and poorly written software. It was quickly snatched up by Worldcom in 1998 before getting flipped to AOL only 24 hours later. CompuServe remains an ISP with a news portal serving up stories from Netscape.com.

E*Trade. This financial services company started from a company called TradePlus before moving its operations onto the Net in 1991 under the E*Trade brand. The company went public five years later and managed to survive the dot-com bubble burst. But it has struggled as of late, along with many companies in the financial industry.

EarthLink is another ISP that managed to survive the dot-com burst. The company started out in 1994 providing dial-up service, and continues to offer it and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) phone services using DSL, satellite and cable. The company's also managed to branch out into telephone services with its popular MVNO Helio.

eBay. A pioneer in online auctions, eBay is now a more diverse company--and it also faces growing competition from Amazon.com, along with what one analyst calls "buyer fatigue" following years of revenue leaps. In January, longtime CEO Meg Whitman said she'd soon be handing the reins to John Donahoe, head of eBay Marketplaces.

Excite@Home was the result of one of the largest mergers of the dot-com era: the popular portal Excite.com and broadband infrastructure builder AtHome. The plan was to create a company that provided the pipes and the content (similar to AOL), but combining two successful companies turned out to create one dud and Excite@Home sold off the Excite portal in 2001.

Expedia was one of the first Web services to offer travel arrangements for airfare. It was created by Microsoft in 1996 before branching off as its own company three years later. In 2001 came a purchase by InterActiveCorp (then USA Networks), which holds a handful of travel and entertainment sites. The site continues to be one of the best-known online travel services.

Games.com is best known for its various handoffs, including one between Atari and Games Inc. for over a million dollars. The site now serves as a portal to AOL's gaming offerings, many of which are casual, and can be played in a Web browser free of charge.

iVillage was created as a media company providing content aimed mostly at women. Created in 1995 by some former America Online employees, the company continued to grow. Four years later, the company went public. Despite share prices soaring in the beginning, they quickly bottomed out. After merging with Women.com in 2001, iVillage's offerings began to thrive again, and in mid-2006 NBC Universal picked it up for $600 million.

Lycos is best known for its search engine roots. Now a Web portal too, Lycos underwent huge growth after its launch in 1994. It was enough to attract the attention of Spanish company Terra Networks, who snatched it up in 2000. Four years later, Daum Communications became the new (and current) owners. Lycos continues to roll out new services like Mix.

Monster.com shares a similar title with Craigslist in serving up classifieds for jobs. The service launched in 1999 as a merged solution from two former job classifieds competitors, the Online Career Center and the Monster Board, from which Monster.com gets its moniker. It has localized sites for nearly 40 countries.

Netscape offered one of the first Web browsers that completely dominated the browser market in the mid-1990s before getting dominated by Microsoft's in-house browser, Internet Explorer (which came as the default browser in every copy of Windows). It was purchased by AOL in 1998 and now resides as a content portal and social news service that was later spun off from the Netscape brand and into Propeller. The last traces of the famous Netscape Navigator browser now reside in a customized variation of Mozilla Firefox, whose support is slated to be discontinued next month.

Overstock.com has always played second cousin to competitor Amazon.com. The service was founded in 1997 as D2: Discounts Direct, but the brand didn't stick and was later changed to Overstock. It may be best known among investors for its IPO failure and subsequent loss in sales, but consumers are likely to associate it with the company's ads featuring spokesmodel Sabine Ehrenfeld. The company continues to sell a wide range of goods, though it has yet to turn a profit.

Pets.com was a vertical of the Amazon.com model, focusing purely on pet goods and known well for its sock puppet mascot. Despite the killer advertising campaign, the company had bad timing with the burst of the dot-com bubble, and couldn't stay afloat.

Priceline.com offers discount travel services including airfare, hotels, and cars. After launching in 1998, the site expanded into several other areas, including long-distance calling, home loans, and car sales before re-focusing on travel. The company is well known for its mascot, William Shatner, who played James T. Kirk in the Star Trek TV series and movies. Priceline continues to do well, with a recovering stock price and profits from licensing its purchase technology to eBay.

Shockwave.com is a games site that's been offering casual games since 1998. The site merged with the Atom Corporation in 2001, and was later picked up by MTV (by parent company Viacom) for $200 million. Despite the Shockwave moniker, most of the games utilize Adobe Flash.

Webvan. Flush with millions of dollars raised from venture capitalists, Internet-only supermarkets like Webvan spent huge sums to build high-tech warehouses and flashy Web sites, and to hire armies of deliverymen. In the end, the wild spending broke them. The concept lives on, though, with established supermarket chains and online companies like NetGrocer.com.

News.com's Scott Ard, Elinor Mills, Greg Sandoval, and Jon Skillings contributed to this report.

作者：高巍

在 http://www.wespoke.com/ 看到的淘宝网招聘研发职位：

1. 搜索

也许很少的人知道淘宝是中文网站里面除了百度最大的搜索引擎，而实际上淘宝的搜索却是要求更高，更加准确的搜索。数以亿计的商品在货架上，而这些商品每时每刻都在上架、下架、价格在调整。这一切要求淘宝的搜索要及时和准确，每一次搜索和后一秒的同样的搜索的结果都会因为商品的价格和上下架而不一样。淘宝的搜索每天处理着大约3亿次以上的请求，创造着数亿的交易额。

2. 分布式计算

这是一个交易型网站，每天处理着数百万级别的商品图片和商品信息，每天处理着数百万级别的订单，这一切都要求安全、稳定、快速。数千台服务器在有条不紊的处理着各种信息，这些海量的数据还在以惊人的速度在增加，每天处理日志的服务器已经接近百台。

3. 数据挖掘

你也许知道，你在淘宝上的每一个页面上都有推荐商品，这些商品是根据你的过往行为实时分析后进行商品推荐的。在一个每天有2~3亿访问量的网站上，每天数百万订单和数亿的交易额的基础上，数据挖掘已经不是教科书上的算法，而是实实在在的能够引导顾客消费的一个重要来源。

竞争分析

Google的Product Search：http://www.google.com/products?hl=en 一直做得不愠不火，搜索结果的相关性和准确程度都有待改善，在整个Google的产品线中相比gmail、reader、gmap等，也是中下游的水准。

淘宝的产品搜索不是全网、非结构化文本的搜索，而是基于内部产品数据库、半结构化的搜索。yahoo中国最近的改革动作之一，就是yahoo中国的购物搜索直接转到了淘宝。

1. Communication Skills 沟通技能
2. Leading Without Authority 无权威领导
3. Learning Skills 学习能力
4. Business Acumen 商业敏感度
5. Love for Products 对产品的热爱
6. Eye for Details 关注细节
7. Routine Product Management Skills 正常的产品管理技能

Communication Skills

Successful product managers are excellent communicators.

This is the most common characteristic shared by all excellent product managers I've worked with - written and oral communication skills. Why is this important?

At most companies, a critical role product managers play is acting as a communication hub on product-related matters - as shown in the figure below.

This means - a successful product manager not only has the ability to communicate effectively with different roles, but also has the ability to:

• Communicate with different personality-types.
  • For example, majority of engineers tend to be "introverted", while majority of sales/marketing folks tend to be "extroverted".
• Speak different "languages" when communicating with different roles.
• To communicate effectively, it is important that you speak the "language" of your target audience. This means you have to use a "different language" while communicating to marketing personnel, as opposed to engineers. Likewise, when communicating with executive management, you must focus more on "forest level" than "tree level" - this is a mistake I see many product managers make

Leading Without Authority

Successful product managers are excellent leaders, even when they have no formal authority.

At most companies, product managers are expected to play "leadership role" in several areas. These include leading project teams, leading product strategy and roadmaps, leading cross-functional product initiatives, etc.

Yet, in most of these situations product managers don't have any formal authority. This means, you have to be really good at "leading without authority" to be a successful product manager.

How do you lead without authority? I'd say - using a combination of influencing, negotiating, relationship building and other similar skills.

Is it possible to lead without authority? My thought on this is summarized well by the question Tom Peters, the popular management author, asks:

How much formal authority did Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have?

Learning Skills

Successful product managers have the ability to learn fast - even in relatively new areas.

In most segments of the high-tech industry, markets change fast. New technologies are always right around the horizon. What is a "differentiated product" today becomes a commodity within 6 months. Sometimes even faster.

A successful product manager must have the ability to learn fast - even in areas that are relatively new to them. If a product manager has this ability - it is relatively easy to manage products in new markets.

One mistake that I think most companies make when hiring product managers is - they look for "strong subject matter knowledge". For example, if a company makes security software - they look for product managers with "5+ years experience" in security software. I think this is a misguided approach. A far better approach is to look for a product manager with experience in the software industry, and the ability to learn quickly. This approach has worked well for me - some of the best PMs I've hired had no "subject matter knowledge" prior to hiring!

Business Acumen

Successful product managers have a good understanding of the fundamentals of business.

They understand how to identify market opportunities, importance of competitive differentiation, creating winning product strategy, pricing and promotion, partnerships, analyzing P&L statements, and so on.

This doesn't mean they need an MBA. As a matter of fact, most of the successful product managers I've worked with don't have an MBA - but all of them have a strong grasp of business fundamentals.

Love for Products

Successful product managers have an inherent love for products.

They delight in kicking the tires of new products in the market - as many as they can get their hands on. They sign up for a ton of "betas", check out the latest web sites, download trial versions of software just to check them out, and so on.

They delight in well-designed products - even if not made by their own company. They loathe poorly-designed products - even if made by their own company.

Above all, they love creating great products - whether it is a brand new product, or enhancements to existing products.

Eye for Details

Successful product managers have an eye for details.

Focus on details is an essential pre-requisite to creating great products - as I mentioned in my previous article and Steve Jobs mentions in the following quote:

The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.

On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time. That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.

This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. (emphasis mine)

Successful product managers focus on details not only when it comes to product features - but also in competitive analysis, project plans, and in pretty much every major activity that they are responsible for.

Routine Product Management Skills

Successful product managers have good "routine product management skills".

These are the skills needed to perform the routine tasks of a product manager job. They include writing MRDs & PRDs, performing competitive analysis, creating product roadmaps, creating presentations that communicate product features & benefits, defining user interfaces, and so on.

This set of required skills varies from company to company. I put this characteristic last, since I think most of these skills are easily learnable by product managers who possess the six earlier skills.

在拷贝可以大规模、零成本地进行的时代，你必须提供无法被复制的“生钱要素”，以回答那个问题：

用户为什么要购买可以免费获得的东西？

简单地说，在网络经济中钱不会跟着拷贝走，而是跟着注意力走。注意力有自己的路径。在免费拷贝的世界里无法靠沿用分销技能而取得成功，因为天幕之下的巨大拷贝机（互联网）已经能做到了。有关知 识产权和版权的法律技能快没有用武之地了。囤积居奇也不管用了。这8大生财要素要求人们理解到产品的丰富如何催生了共享的精神状态，慷慨大方如何成为商业 模式，培养和哺育无法通过点击一下鼠标就能复制的商业要素有多么重要。

即时享用 ── 无论你想要什么，迟早你都会得到免费拷贝。但是它一旦被发布，或者更进一步，刚被其制造者生产出来的瞬间就放到你的收件箱里，就成了一个生财之道。很多人 在首映日到电影院去看电影，他们肯花一大笔钱去看今后能通过出租或者下载而免费或近乎免费地看到的电影。精装书贵是因为它的即时性，而不是因为硬书壳。同 样商品中排在头位的经常会有溢价。作为一种可销售的特质，即时享用有多种层次，包括能获得beta版。“粉丝”（fans）被带到生成过程本身之中。 Beta版通常不值钱，因为是还没完成的产品，但它同时也有能被销售的生财要素。即时享用是相对而言的，这是其成为生财要素的原因。它必须切合产品和用 户。Blog和电影或汽车比起来时间感是不同的，但即时性在所有媒体中都能找到。

个性定制 ── 一份普通的演唱会录音可能是免费的，但如果你想要一份根据你的客厅而调校出来的完美拷贝，听起来就像在你的房间里演奏一样，你可能愿意出大价钱。一本书的 免费拷贝可以被出版商定制以反映你过往的阅读背景。你买的一部免费的电影可以按你需要的分类级别剪辑（无暴力镜头，可以讲脏话）。阿司匹林是免费的，但按 照你的DNA定制的阿司匹林会非常昂贵。正如很多人注意到，个性定制要求创作者和消费者之间、艺员和粉丝之间、生产商和用户之间的持续沟通。这是一个很深 入的生财因素，因为它是循环往复的，还很花时间。你无法拷贝由关系代表的个性化。市场营销人员称之为“粘性”，因为这意味着关系的双方被粘在（投资于）这 一生财因素之中，不情愿发生变化和重新来过。

专业解读 ── 就像一个老笑话说的：软件，免费；手册，$10,000。但这不是笑话。有些知名公司，如 Red Hat，Apache 等，就是这么赚钱的。它们为免费软件提供收费服务。代码的拷贝，仅仅是比特数据，是免费的，而且只有通过技术支持和指导才对你有价值。我怀疑许多遗传 (genetic)信息是由这种途径传递的。目前获得你自己的DNA拷贝会非常昂贵，但很快就不是这样了。事实上，不久制药公司将给你钱来得到你的基因序 列。因而你的基因序列的拷贝将是免费的，但对其含义的解读、知道能对它做些什么、知道如何应用它，也就是说你的基因的操作手册，将是昂贵的。

权威认证 ── 你或许能免费获得一份关键的应用软件，但即使你不需要操作手册，你也可能需要确认它是没有编程错误的、可靠的、有保证的。你会愿意为认证付费。我们身边有 近乎无数的Grateful Dead乐队风格的变种，从这个乐队自身处买一个权威版本将确保你得到你想要的东西，或保证是该乐队演唱的。艺术家们早就为解决这个问题头疼了很久。照片 和版画这类图片在复制时，常常会有艺术家的印章（签名）来保证权威性并提升其价格。数码水印和其他的签名技术将无法作为防止拷贝的措施（记得吗，拷贝就像 超导流体？），但在对其在意的人那里，它们能提升权威性这一生财因素。

触手可得 ── 所有权是麻烦事。你需要保持你的东西整洁、持续更新，对数码材料还要备份。在这个流动的世界里，你还得一直带着它们。很多人，包括我，很乐意用订阅方式让 别人来照管这些东西。我们愿意付钱给Acme Digital Warehouse，让它照管音乐、电影或照片（我们自己的或其他摄影者的）。同理适用于书和blog。Acme备份每份东西，付钱给创作者，并按我们的 需要提供给我们。我们用电话、PDA、手提电脑或大屏幕设备随处访问到这些内容。相比于我们自己照料、备份、添加、组织这些内容（的麻烦），随着时光流 逝，能够免费获得大部分内容这件事会变得越来越没有吸引力。

虚拟成真 ── 数码拷贝的核心是没有实体。你可以得到一件作品的免费拷贝并显示在屏幕上。但也许你更想在大屏幕上看高分辨率的版本，也许还想要3D？PDF文件很好，但 有时将同样的内容印在雪白的纸上、用皮面装订起来就更美妙了。这种感觉真好。与35个其他人一起在你最喜欢的免费游戏中同处一室又是什么感觉？在虚拟成真 方面能做的几乎没有尽头。确实，对今天来说的高分辨率尽管还能吸引人买票去大剧院观赏，可能明天就能移植到家庭影院，但总会有新的、好得离谱的显示技术是 一般消费者不能拥有的，比如说激光投影、全息显示，甚至Star Trek里面模拟舱(holodesk)！任何事情的虚拟成真都比不上音乐由真人进行的现场演奏。音乐是免费的，真人演奏却很贵。这种模式很快就成为普遍性的，不光对音乐家，作家也是如此。书是免费的，但真人朗诵是昂贵的。

慷慨解囊 ── 我相信观众愿意付钱给创作者。粉丝喜欢给艺术家、音乐家、作家等回报来表示他们的赞许，因为这允许他们联系在一起。但只有在付款非常容易、定价合理以及他 们确信钱会直接让创作者获利的时候，他们才会解囊。Radiohead乐队最近那个引人注目的让粉丝们愿意给多少都行的试验，很好地显示了资助的力量。那 种粉丝与他们所欣赏的艺术家之间微妙的、无形的联系是物有所值的。Radiohead的事例中每次下载的付费是$5。还有很多观众仅仅出于感觉良好而付钱 的其他例子。

脱颖而出 ── 上面的那些生财要素都是有关于创造性的数字作品的，而“脱颖而出”属于由许多作品积累起来的更高层次。把一件作品定价为零无助于吸引到直接的注意，而且实 际上还可能产生反效果。然而，不管定价如何，如果人们看不到，作品就毫无价值。没被发现的杰作一钱不值。市面上有数以百万计的书籍、歌曲、应用软件等等， 大多数是免费的，都想吸引我们的注意力。因而，能被人发现是有价值的。

Amazon和Netflix这种巨型聚合商(aggregator)靠的就是帮助用户找到他们喜爱的作品而赚钱。他们给“长尾”现象带来福音，把 利基用户和利基产品联系到一起。但不幸的是，长尾只对于巨型聚合商以及更大的中层聚合商，比如出版商、制片商和唱片公司才有好处。长尾对于创作者自身无关 痛痒。但由于“脱颖而出”只能在系统层面上才真正起作用，创作者离不开聚合商。这就是为什么出版商、制片商和唱片公司（合称PSL）不会消亡的原因。它们 的存在不是需要用它们来传播拷贝（互联网会做这件事），而是需要通过它们把用户的注意力传回到作品上。它们在无穷的可能性当中发现、培育、精炼出那些它们 认为会被粉丝们接受的创作者的作品。其他的媒介，比如批评家和评论家，也能引导注意力。粉丝们依靠这些多层次的发掘工具从无数作品中找到有价值的作品。发 现天才就是生财之道。许多年来，在纸上印刷发行的《电视指南》赚的钱比它所“指南”的3大电视网加起来还要多。这份杂志把观众引导到每周的精彩节目上。节 目仅靠免费对观众并没有价值。很少有人怀疑，除了那些巨型聚合商，许多PSL也能在这个免费的世界里通过销售“脱颖而出”的机会，结合其他的生财要素而赚 钱有道。

细心的读者会注意到一个明显的遗漏。我一直没有提到广告。广告被广泛认为是对付免费困境的近乎唯一的解决方案。我见到的大多数对付免费的方案都会多少涉及到广告。我认为广告只是注意力会走的途径之一，长期看来，广告只是通过销售免费产品赚钱的新方式的一部分。

但那是另一个故事了。

在广告的空洞表层之下，上述8大生财要素能给无所不在的免费拷贝增添价值，使它们值得被做广告。这些生财要素适合所有数字拷贝，也适合那些拷贝的边际成本近乎零的所有产品（参见我 Technology Wants to Be Free 一文）。甚至生产实体产品的行业也发现复制成本趋向于零，所以它们也会像数字拷贝那样行事。地图刚刚跨过了这道门槛，基因图谱也快了。小型数码设备、小电 器（如手机）也正走向这个方向。制药业早就如此，但他们不想让人知道，生产一颗药丸几乎不花钱。在药品上，我们是为权威认证和即时享用付钱。终有一天，我 们会为个性定制付钱。

摘编：高巍