扎克伯格密友擔(dān)綱主演Facebook路演大戲
????本周,F(xiàn)acebook IPO路演正在如火如荼地進(jìn)行,不過,絕大部分讀者都肯定無緣目睹馬克?扎克伯格的精彩推銷。本次路演只對(duì)少數(shù)特權(quán)派開放——投資銀行家及其高端客戶,這些人將能以發(fā)行價(jià)購入Facebook股票。 ????對(duì)其余人來說——至少是對(duì)此事關(guān)注的人——仍有一個(gè)好消息,現(xiàn)在Facebook的路演視頻已經(jīng)出爐,大家可以先睹為快。 ????我一般不推薦去看IPO路演視頻。它們只是一些枯燥無味的陳述,隨著幻燈片的翻過,首席執(zhí)行官和首席財(cái)務(wù)官開始喋喋不休地闡述公司業(yè)務(wù)。不過,F(xiàn)acebook的路演視頻完全不同。這部僅有31分鐘的電影制作非常精美,兼具谷歌(Google)超級(jí)碗廣告的制作精良與蘋果(Apple)產(chǎn)品介紹的精心策劃。 ????不過,影片中的主講人并非扎克伯格,他只是很好(但有些乏味)地總結(jié)了Facebook的歷史、解讀Facebook的使命,并描述了其產(chǎn)品。扎克伯格的代理人、對(duì)Facebook廣告業(yè)務(wù)了解甚多的首席運(yùn)營官雪莉?桑德博格也不是主講人,雖然她對(duì)演說可謂輕車熟路。(當(dāng)然,“聰明伶俐”的Facebook首席財(cái)務(wù)官戴維?伊斯博曼也不是合適人選,雖然他談起商業(yè)運(yùn)作來滔滔不絕,但想必沒人愿意首席財(cái)務(wù)官在路演影片中大出風(fēng)頭。) ????影片的主角是Facebook產(chǎn)品副總裁克里斯?考克斯。考克斯現(xiàn)年29歲,是扎克伯格長期的心腹,2005年時(shí)放棄了斯坦福大學(xué)(Stanford)的研究生課程,毅然加入Facebook,他是Facebook的終極說客。科技界記者對(duì)考克斯頗為熟悉,他曾多次接受有關(guān)產(chǎn)品推介的采訪,而對(duì)于參加過Facebook年度F8大會(huì)的開發(fā)者而言,考克斯想必也已耳熟能詳。不過,對(duì)于外界而言,考克斯仍是神秘人物,但現(xiàn)在,他馬上就要出名了。 ????在影片中,考克斯和扎克伯格聯(lián)袂介紹了Facebook的產(chǎn)品和平臺(tái)。此舉非常明智。考克斯彌補(bǔ)了扎克伯格的不足,并推動(dòng)影片向前發(fā)展。考克斯非常輕松而扎克伯克稍顯呆板;考克斯收放自如而扎克伯克有點(diǎn)照本宣科;考克斯充滿激情而扎克伯格有些局促。Facebook的時(shí)間軸顯示在屏幕上,上面布滿了可愛的寶寶照片,以及紀(jì)錄小朋友蹣跚學(xué)步的視頻。考克斯在一旁解說道:“您的生活非常有意思,如果您把它講述出來,許多人都會(huì)非常感興趣。每個(gè)人都有自己的故事。” ????喬布斯以用辭擴(kuò)張著稱,而考克斯頗有其風(fēng)范,大家預(yù)計(jì)他可能會(huì)在本周的實(shí)地路演中露面。我曾試圖統(tǒng)計(jì)考克斯在影片中究竟說了多少次“令人驚訝的”,不過最終被“非常好的”、“有趣的”、“難以置信的”等其它類似詞語打斷。考克斯既具有喬布斯式的雄辯,又有著雷鬼樂團(tuán)成員的調(diào)皮笑容,以踩著RipStick滑板在Facebook總部飛奔而聞名(RipStick是一種奇特設(shè)備,我的同事杰西?亨佩爾稱其為“一種更酷的滑板”)。 |
????The Facebook IPO roadshow is in full swing this week, but most readers will not get a chance to see Mark Zuckerberg pitch his company. The roadshow is reserved for the privileged few -- investment bankers and their well-heeled clients who will get a shot at buying Facebook shares at the offering price. ????Good thing, then, that for the rest of us -- at least those of us who care -- there's the video version of the roadshow. ????Now, I would not normally recommend watching an IPO video roadshow. They tend to be dreadfully dull presentations where CEOs and CFOs drone on about their businesses as PowerPoint slideshows flip through chart after chart. Facebook's video roadshow is an entirely different thing, though. It's a slick, 31-minute movie that mixes the production qualities of, say, a Google (GOOG) Super Bowl ad with the careful choreography of an Apple (AAPL) product introduction. ????But the master pitchman in this movie is not Zuckerberg, who does a good, if pedestrian, job of summarizing Facebook's history, explaining its mission and describing its products. And it is not even his deputy, COO Sheryl Sandberg, an exceedingly accomplished presenter, who details Facebook's ad business. (And no, it is not Facebook's whip-smart CFO, David Ebersman, who talks up the business -- but then again, you weren't expecting a CFO to steal the show.) ????The star of this show is Chris Cox, Facebook's VP of product. A longtime Zuckerberg confidant who dropped out of a graduate program at Stanford to join Facebook in 2005, Cox, who is 29, is Facebook's ultimate storyteller. He is an already a familiar face to the tech reporters who cover product introductions and to the developers who attend Facebook's annual F8 conference. While he is largely unknown in the outside world, that's about to change. ????In this movie, Facebook's paired him up with Zuckerberg to explain product and platform. It's a smart move. Cox balances out Zuck and keeps the presentation moving along. He is as loose as Zuck is stiff, as spontaneous as Zuck is scripted, as passionate as Zuck is restrained. "Your life is an amazing story that a lot of people would be interested in if you told it," Cox says, as Facebook timelines scroll on the screen replete with cute baby pictures and the video of a toddler taking his first steps. "And each person has a story," he adds. ????Cox, who is expected to be part of the real-live roadshow this week, has a Jobsian penchant for hyperbole. I tried to count the times he said "amazing" in the video but I got distracted by the similarly frequent "immense" and "interesting" and "incredible." And he mixes the eloquence of a Jobs, with the mischievous grin of a guy who plays in a reggae band and is known to zoom around Facebook headquarters on a RipStick (a contraption that my colleague Jessi Hempel described as "a skateboard but cooler.") |