????斯科特?蘭姆于2007年加入BuzzFeed。那時，這家公司只不過是一家怪癖的用戶生成型鏈接分享網站而已。如今，它已成為了病毒式內容業界的巨擎。目前，這家公司斬獲了4,630萬美元的風投資金，聘請了150名記者，每月吸引的獨立訪問者超過了1.3億。去年，BuzzFeed開始了海外擴張之旅。這對于其它任何數字刊物來說，除了阿里安娜?赫芬頓（阿里安娜?赫芬頓是新聞博客網站《赫芬頓郵報》的聯合創始人——譯者注）所運營的刊物之外，還真是件新鮮事。BuzzFeed目前的出版語言有法語、葡萄牙語和西班牙語，而且其俄羅斯和中東等地區的記者和自由作者在穩步增長，此外還在倫敦和悉尼新開設了區域辦事處。

????《財富》雜志采訪了于去年成為公司國際業務副總裁的蘭姆，向他詢問了巧妙的工作申請對BuzzFeed國際業務增長的促進作用，為什么說GIF（圖形交換格式）是通用語言，以及，法國人為什么不分享貓的照片？

????為什么BuzzFeed決定向海外擴張？

????去年我們在倫敦開設了第一家辦事處。當時我們在大舉擴張，而且一直在思考該向哪些領域擴張。有一位非常不錯的申請人申請了夜間編輯，而且他常駐倫敦。可以想象的是，這樣的簡歷我們收到了很多，而且它們都像“你應該聘請我的23個原因”那樣程式化。但是他（盧克?路易斯）確實讓我們眼前一亮，要做到這一點并不容易。

????是什么讓它如此之吸引人？

????它本來就是一個不錯的、有趣的榜單。很多人的搞笑GIF格式圖片都只局限于90年代。從這一點來看，對于這些人來說，門檻是非常高的。但是他的笑話不但很有特點，而且跟他本人的聲音也很接近。里面的信息量很大，也讓我們詳細了解了他是什么樣一個人。

????如今，公司在不同的國家都有記者，而且國際版是以三種語言發行的。如何進行分類呢？

????我們的外國記者遍布開羅、伊斯坦布爾，而且很快內羅畢也將有一位女記者加入我們。這是公司成長過程中非常特別的組成部分。他們都向外國編輯米瑞姆?埃爾德匯報。這是因為我們想做一些國際報道的緣故。可以算是另一種推送。

????【當我們設立新辦事處時】，我們會先組建一個小團隊，僅有三個人，而且我們讓他們專心做可于社交媒體上共享的內容。他們會編出共享率非常高的榜單和小測試。這是第一次推送，也是開展業務的自然起點。這是BuzzFeed業務的核心。如果這個舉措奏效了——如果在新市場中，人們分享內容的積極性跟美國讀者是一樣的——然后我們會擴張，思考我們應在哪一方面予以進一步推送。

????能解釋一下，公司利用Doulingo（一種語言學習應用）將BuzzFeed內容翻譯成不同的語言的做法嗎？

????我們與Duolingo建立了合作關系，他們的用戶會為法語、西班牙語和葡萄牙語網站而翻譯BuzzFeed的部分內容。但是我們也知道，翻譯的幫助是有限的。我們在紐約有兩個編輯（他們負責運行我們的法語和西班牙語網站），而且在所有這些國家都有自由作者。

????Buzzfeed本身并不是一個搞笑網站，但是我們的很多業務都基于幽默。人們很難翻譯幽默或笑話。其它語言的笑點不一樣，這也是我們非常傾向于招聘和開發本土人才，并讓他們進行嘗試并了解相關業務的部分原因。BuzzFeed巴西與BuzzFeed美國將有很大的差別。

????Scott Lamb joined BuzzFeed in 2007, when the company was more of a goofy user-generated link-sharing site than the viral powerhouse it is today. Now, the company, backed by $46.3 million in venture funding, employs 150 journalists who attract more than 130 million unique visitors per month. Last year, BuzzFeed began overseas expansion, a rarity for any digital-first publication that's not run by Arianna Huffington. BuzzFeed now publishes in French, Portuguese, and Spanish, and has a growing stable of correspondents and freelancers in countries like Russia and the Middle East, as well as newly opened regional offices in London and Sydney.

????Fortune spoke with Lamb, who last year became the company's VP of international, about how BuzzFeed's international growth was spurred by a gimmicky job application, why GIFs are the universal language, and how the French don't share cat photos.

????Why did BuzzFeed decide to expand internationally?

????The first office we opened was in London last year. We were expanding a lot and trying to figure out which areas to expand in. We had a really great applicant for a night editor who was based in London. It was one of those kinds of applications we get a fair amount of, as you'd expect, like "23 Reasons You Should Hire Me." But he (Luke Lewis) really blew it away, and that's not an easy thing to do.

????What made it so good?

????It was just a good, funny list. A lot of people just make 90s GIF jokes. The bar for those is pretty high at this point. But his was both idiosyncratic, and it really felt like his voice. It was really informative and told us a lot about who he was.

????So now you have correspondents in different countries, as well as international editions that you translate into a three different languages. How does that break down?

????We have foreign correspondents in Cairo, Instanbul, and Moscow and starting soon, a woman in Nairobi, and that is a very particular part of our growth. They're all reporting to Miriam Elder, who is the foreign editor. That came out of us wanting to do some international coverage. That was a bit of a separate push.

????[When we launch new offices], we start with a very small team, just three people, and we have them focus on the social shareable content. They make the lists and quizzes that people share at a really high volume. That's the first push and the natural place to start. It's core to what BuzzFeed does. If that is working -- if people in this new market are really sharing the content the same way that readers in the U.S. do -- then we expand and figure out which venues we want to push more in.

????Can you explain how you're working with Doulingo (an app for learning languages) to translate BuzzFeed content into different languages?

????We have a partnership with Duolingo where their users translate some of BuzzFeed's content for the French, Spanish, and Portuguese sites. But we also know translations will only take us so far. We have two editors in New York (who run our French- and Spanish-language sites) and freelance writers in all those countries.

????Buzzfeed is not a humor site per se, but a lot of what we do is based in humor. You really can't translate humor or jokes. They don't hit the same way in other languages, which is partly why we're so interested in hiring and developing local talent and letting them experiment and figure it out. BuzzFeed Brazil is going to be very different than it is in the U.S.