yahooCEO演讲之英汉双语版本

yjknanjing

We always talk about the Internet a lot, and people always come to me and say, \"Jerry, what is the big deal about the Internet?\" And I always try to tell them with some numbers and statistics of what is happening on the Internet. At the end of 1997, there are about 70 million users on the Internet on the worldwide bases, and by the end of this year it will be over 100 million. And this is from a very rapid growth in 1995. There was less than 30 million people on the Internet, and you can see that in the net last three years it has grown very, very fast and very, very rapidly. The Internet is very interesting because it is a platform for information, for business, for commerce and for content. And this is a very interactive medium. It is the only interactive medium that allows you to do all these things. We have really seen a tremendous growth within the United States on the Internet media. And what we are going to see in the future is that the growth outside of the U.S. is going to be much more rapid, much faster, especially in countries like China, in Asia and in Europe. I have to say how important it is to have an interactive medium because the ability for users like yourself to interact with the Internet to have a dialogue, to experience, is what makes the Internet very, very unique. There is really no other way that can allow you to experience content, commerce and do business like Internet. And this is why I would think that it is very, very important for not only businesses, but also users to get on to Internet and start using it as a way of getting their information and making their life easier.

A lot of people called Yahoo a search engine, and I always have to sort of say that we are more than a search engine. In fact what we have become is a very powerful brand. Over 30 million users on the every month use Yahoo in the United States. We have tremendous amount of recognition and trust. One of the key things that we have established is every time somebody uses Yahoo we call that a page view. Every month we do over two billion page views and that is becoming quite a way of life for a lot of people on Internet. We really appeal to the individual users. We have a lot of people that use Yahoo when they are at work, and we have a lot of people that use Yahoo when they get home at night. And what we are doing is also expanding very rapidly around the world. We have numerous Yahoo versions in Europe, in Asia, in Australia, and we are always expanding, hoping to do more. The key for Yahoo, as many of you know, is a directory structure and its navigational guide. We have over 900,000 Web sites in the US underneath of a few hundreds, thousand categories, and we have over 300 content relationships that we have with major media companies, content companies. And we are always to build, provide users, and consumers, some business solutions to help them find things on their net, to help them shop for something on the Internet, and help them to find information or even other people that they want to contact and communicate with.

A lot of people ask me, \"how do you make money?\" \"What is the business behind Yahoo?\" And what are the things we tried to do is have a very partnership-oriented approach. So we have a lot of partners, and our business model is based on the advertising business model. When you use Yahoo you will see a lot of banner advertising that is on top of the pages, and those are paid advertising that we receive for people to display their messages to our users. So this is, I feel, very similar to broadcasting and other kind of media where the user can use the service for free. Many of you know Yahoo is a free product, but we get money from the advertisers who want to reach our users.

Let me talk a little about the history because I am one of the founders along with my partner David. We were both graduate students at Stanford University in 1994 in California, and instead of working on our thesis, we were playing around on the Internet. And one night my partner David started to put together a database of Web sites, maybe in the first time we did this around 200 Web sites. We put it on the Web, on the World Wide Web, and people started to use it. And in the year 1994 we saw from now usage to almost one million users a day coming to Yahoo everyday. Many people ask me how we come up with the name Yahoo. Well, Yahoo, if you look in a dictionary, it means a very rude and uncivilized people from Gulliver's Travels. And so we, my partner and I, said we are a kind of yahoos because we are both very uncivilized. And so we take the name, and says it is easy to remember. And that is how we got the name. We decided to turn into business in 1995, almost one year after we started as a hobby at Stanford. We got some virtual capital, money, and started to get some management, people, senior managers, to help us, and we work very hard at getting advertising revenues, and in one year we were able to build a real business. Several important things happened to us in 1996, historically, because we went public in the Nastaq market in the United States. And we were, became a profitable company in later of that year. And those are very important things for me but also for the industry, because a lot of people didn't believe that (with) Internet you can make money. And we showed that by having a strong brand, a good set of users, a good product, we can be a profitable company.

Here are some more statistics about the Yahoo business. In 1997, last year, we did, in US dollars, about 67 million US dollars. We were able to achieve something that a lot of people cannot do yet on the Internet which is, have a very viable business model. Now we have about 450 other Yahoos around the world where headquartered in Silicon Valley in Santa Clara. And we really believe that our business, the Internet business is a global business, and so we have not only 8 offices in the US, but also have offices in 10 countries around the world.

I want to spend a few minutes and talk about Internet advertising because it is one of those things that people don't often understand -- why it works and how it works. When you build a Web site, when businesses build a Web site, they often have to find a way to get people to know about their Web site. And advertising on the Internet is the best way for people to know about what Web site is where. We have to keep ability of tracking how many people saw the Web site, how many people saw the advertising, and become a very targeted and accountable medium. We can target it based on different geographies, we can target base on different kinds of people. And it is a very, very large market. Many people don't realize, but in the US alone, almost 200 billion dollars a year were spent on advertising. So even if you think about an Internet advertising, so even if it is one percent of overall advertising market, it is a multi-billion-dollar market.

Let me talk a little about that Web advertising market and update on 'Net. In 1997, em, in 1996, the number of dollars spent on the Web was around 270 million US dollars. That is the amount of money that the Web advertisers spent. Last year that number was around 700 million dollars. In 1998, this year, over one billion dollars will be spent on the Web advertising alone. And this is primarily driven out the United States and Western Europe, and some parts of Asia. And we really believe that the growth will continue to double at a very, very rapid rate. In fact, one of the key things I shared with you earlier was that, Yahoo can reach tens of millions of people over the course of a month. And this is becoming as popular a medium as television, newspapers, and magazines. So that we are now competitive in many ways with traditional media advertisement. To give you an example, in last quarter, in the last part of last year, we had over 1,700 advertisers. Over 70 percent of them are consumer brand advertisers, and so not everybody who advertise on the Internet are technology companies, but they could be names you are very familiar with, like Coca Cola, or telephone companies or car companies.

One of the biggest things that happened in 1997 for me was that Electronic Commerce, Internet Commerce, became a possibility. A number of companies in United States became aware and became possible to start doing commerce and transactions, such as shopping, over the Internet. I, for example, myself, did a lot of my Christmas shopping on the Internet because I don't like to go buy things at stores. So I order some pants, one of them I am wearing now, over the Internet. And it was great because I know exactly what size I want it and it showed up online home. The opportunity for Web Commerce is very, very large. In 1997, last year, about 3 billion dollars of merchandise were sold through the Internet in the United States. By the year 2000, that number is going to be over 100 billion dollars. And you can see year by year there is going to be a tremendous amount of transactions that going to happen over the Internet. The Web is very interesting because it allows users themselves to be active. They are the persons that are in charge. And consumers, people who are doing the Web surfing, have a lot of options, and they have the choice. So a lot of people are recognizing that the customers now can have a very important say in what to buy, how to buy it and where to buy it. And as a result many industries in United States are undergoing some very rapid change, because of the buying power on the Web. At least there are some examples here. For example, stocks. People not only look at stock information, but also trade, and buy, and sell stocks electronically through the Web. In fact, there are many very successful companies that are now emerge (emerging) in the United States that all it do (does) is (to) sell stocks over the Web. We work with a partner called Etrade that does exactly that. In the United States now, it is tax season. And for the first time, you can file some of your taxes over the Web. And this is a very convenient way for people to gather information, to understand the laws that have changed about taxes, and now be able to process and sermon your tax forms online. Other applications that are very, very important, are travel, where you can buy airline tickets, book hotels, book rental cars through travel sites; buy books, Amazon.com is a very famous bookstore now on the Web; you can buy computers and software and hardware and accessories through Web -- people, for example, like Dell Computers and Gateway 2000, have created the tremendous opportunity to go directly to the consumers; you can buy music CDs, videos, almost anything you can imagine that you can buy through retail now you are beginning to buy on the Web. I believe that in the United States you will see even more industries change because the way that the Web is so popular and people have ability to conduct commerce at their own pace. They can talk to whoever they want to talk to, (find out,) do some research and then conduct the transaction based on their own behavior rather than having to go to somebody else to buy the merchandise.

So I want to show you this chart because it talks about Yahoo's strategy and where we want to be as a company. We have a lot of content on the Web. Millions of Web sites that are on the top; and on the bottom we have tens of millions, hundreds of millions of users; and in the middle is where Yahoo is focusing our efforts. We develop the technology; we develop the advertise; we develop the business model to help build merchant-consumer commerce services like the ones I talked about taxes, stocks, computing goods. We talk of contents, news, sports. We talk about the directory, that I talked about the aggregation which I call, we call super aggregation and core aggregation. And on the two sides we have two very important elements. The personalization element, which is how do we make the Web, how do we, how do Yahoo help you make the Web more personal. Everybody should have a very unique experience with the Web. You don't have to have the same experience because it is interactive. And we are trying very hard to bring a personalized component to the Web experience. And the other side we have communication. And the key to allow the Web success is the fact not only can you get content from publishers or information sources, you can also communicate through email, through chatting and through messaging that is now become a very big part Web usage in the United States. And we believe by doing these parts well, by helping people find the content need, find the products and services they need, and finding other people that they need to find, we can become a new kind of company that ties together people on the Web.

These are some of the things we offer today on Yahoo site in the United States, and I thought it is useful to list them because a lot of people don't realize all these things are available on Yahoo. A lot of people still think of these at many ways as a navigational guide. I have already mentioned Yahoo Finance. Yahoo Finance is our stock-put and stock-lookup service. Everyday we have over 5 million people that look at us for stock information, news about companies, etc. Score Bodies are sports site where we have real time sports information, so during a ball game, people can look at information on the Web. And of course news, which is one of the most popular, news services on the Web. Nowadays I will give you the example when big news items happen. So many of you know last year Princess Dianna's tragedy. The Web was the first place that had real information about the incident, even before television did. And we believe in many ways, the way people use the Web to find news is going to change the way people get news. We also have a lot of local information in the United States --classifies which is a way of buying and selling things, small things, for yourselves; yellow pages which is way to find businesses; maps where you can actually get driving directions or find out where the place is. These services are all available on the Web through Yahoo. We talked about international. We have ten countries. I didn't have time to list them all here, but, France, Germany, Yahoo UK, Yahoo Japan, Yahoo Canada, Yahoo Asia in Singapore, Yahoo Australia, and numerous others. We also have designed some Yahoo services around demographics. So for example, Yahooligan is our service for kids, and we have also a version for Yahoo seniors for people who are over the age of 65. My Yahoo is a personalized service. We have some happened event, guide. We will tell you what is everything going on on the Web. And on the last bullet I talk about the communication services that we offer. Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Pager, which sends messages to each other, and Yahoo message board where you can post and read what other people say about certain topics.

Because we are, because I am in China and because I am in Asia, I want to talk a little about the global aspect of Yahoo. And I want to talk about Yahoo Japan as a kind of case that you want me to show with you. A lot of people tell me, you know, that the problem with the Internet, the biggest problem of the Internet is language and culture. You know, my locution is still so much dominated by English and dominated by American language and American culture. I agree with that. One of the first things we did as a company was to establish a joint venture in Japan. We did this in April 1996, while even Yahoo is very, very young. We started in Japan because it is a very interesting market. At that time it was already becoming a very big Internet user base, and also the language is obviously very different. We had to build the site from Japanese. Almost from the date we launched we became the most popular Web site in Japan. Now we are one of the most dominant Web-based businesses in Japan. In fact we took the company public on the Japan's stock exchange in last November. And we also help develop the Internet advertising business in Japan. And I honestly believe that by focusing on building around the culture and building around the language of the audience, we can duplicate the Yahoo model no matter where we go. And in fact we have done that as well in Europe and Canada, Singapore, etc.

One of the key things that makes me very excited about the China market is because that I believe the Chinese Web market is going to have a very, very huge potential in the future. Part of my trip, here is to learn more about China market, and learn about the Internet developments in China. And I have learned a tremendous amount. And I have increasing hope that there are so many things that the Chinese Web can do that is unique to China as a market, and to China as a language, and China as a culture. What is happening today, as many of you know, is the number of Internet users in China is increasing at such a rapid rate. Almost every month I hear the number is getting larger and larger. Just recently we understand that there is officially over 600,000 subscribers on the Internet in China, and unofficially that number may be even higher. We believe that there are significant efforts that are beginning to develop so that good content is being developed. And we think that the potential for developing advertising-based, commerce-based, free service is very, very large.

I want to talk a little bit about as the local market, as a China market, what are the keys to grow this market going forward. The first thing that we look at, I try to understand, is how many personal computers will be sold that can allow people to get on the Internet. And in China that number is growing at a very, very rapid rate. I understand that by 1998 over 5 million PCs will be sold in China and all of them can get on the Internet. The using that I think is key to growing a business which we have seen in every market that we have been in is being able to provide cheap, affordable access to the Internet for consumers. And not only the services should be cheap and affordable but also they need to be reliable and fast. And to do that a lot of times these access businesses need to be somehow driven by profitability, and somehow being able to be a real business demo online. And I think China as a whole is going through that investment stage where a lot of money needs to be invested in building all the infrastructure and attracting subscribers to get on the Internet. The third thing we see as a key to growth in any market is the ability to have software tools that help you put information on the Web, design information on the Web and change information on the Web. And those software tools are what people (that) have built in the United States that drove very, very rapid growth. In the United States for content and commerce, and I hope in China as well there will be significant efforts to build out a set of tools, a set of software, a set of technology, that help you build content commerce applications for the Web. The fourth thing that is very important for a viable Web medium model is the creative community, so people who can help you design Web sites and can help you design concepts and help you understand how to use these Web sites, to help your marketing, to help your users, to (help you) give you better experience. And these people are very much needed in order to develop compiling, competitive quality, content experience. And lastly which is probably the most important thing is that businesses, governments, education, people in the community, people in the society, have to feel like the Web is a key part of how to grow as a country, as an economy, and to be competitive. I will give you an example in the United States. The government in the early 1990s decided that they need an interactive infrastructure to grow the economy in the country, and they had invested in all kinds of different things and, you know, vice president Al Gore calls it a National Information Infrastructure - NII. And the Internet in many ways became that National Information Infrastructure for the United States. And I believe not only the government had intense interest in building out Internet as a way as communications, that education sector, the colleges, the public schools, the most importantly the business community. It is very hard to find a company now in the United States that doesn't have a wide presence or even doing some business on the Web. And without businesses endorsing, the Web as a way of doing businesses is tough to have a viable industry.

I think when I end the talking about the future a little bit. One of the key challenges as we see is being able to continue to monitor how the telecommunications industry is being opened up and deregulated for competition. Still in many parts of the world outside United States, the cost for telephone lines and for telephone access to the Internet is still very, very expensive. And most of it is still based on usage. So if you use so many hours you have to pay for so much. And in the US the move has been made to a flat pricing where the pricing is based on unlimited usage. We think that in order for the Web to develop more mature and faster, the telecommunication companies around the world need to have more competition and have lower rates in order to make it affordable and also make it accessible for users. The Web is still a very much (a) young medium, it has only been around for a couple of years. There are a lot of issues with security, and reliability, and being able to protect sensitive data, being able to provide a safe environment. It is very, very important. The top two issues right now in America for Web usage is how to protect children, how to make it a safe place for people to use the Web, and also how to protect the privacy of users. And those two things, I think, are very large problems that are being addressed. And I think in anywhere that the Web goes, anywhere that the Web industry wants to go, we need to help address the security issues, and help address the content issues, and make it a safer and safer place. One of the things that I think is very interesting in the future is that the way you can access the Internet is going to be very different from different places, and what I call multiple ways of accessing the Internet. Today primarily the access to the Internet is done through telephone lines, released lines. But I think in the future there are tremendous technologies that can enable people to access the Internet through wireless ways, through satellites, through cable, and of course, through different pass phones on telephone lines. And to me to build have, the Internet access in its many different ways as possible as very, very important because sooner rather than later, people are going to feel like the Internet is not some special places they have to go to. It is going to be something you use almost as frequently and without thinking as the telephone. And people don't think about going to the telephone like they think about going to the Internet today. Eventually the Internet has to become more ubiquitous and to do that it needs to be a better way, a better access method, for. Another big issue for the future is the bandwidth issue. And too often I hear people complaining that it is too slow on the Internet. It takes too long to download anything. And yes, those are major issues. And I know there are huge initiatives around the world that will increase bandwidth, that will allow people to design things that you can interact very fast. And I hope that the bandwidth keeps getting better, because the more bandwidth there is , the more ways in which people can develop the tools.

Lastly I want to talk about the migration of primarily information medium into a kind of commerce medium, a community medium. You know a lot of people think about the Internet in the future. And one of the things I think needs to happen is, maybe it is not only a computer-oriented tool, maybe it is not too far of the future, that you can access the Internet on your TV, on your watch, maybe on your microwave oven. Somewhere and everywhere you can somehow get into the Internet. And in that point it really isn't about what content you have on the Internet. It is really about how you can communicate with other people effectively and how can you do business effectively. And in order for the Internet survive around the world and in China, it needs to be not only a content medium, but also needs to be a business medium. People need to build to have value that are improved, their lives made better because of the Internet.


我们总是大量地谈论 Internet，人们也总来问我：“Jerry，什么是 Internet 的大交易？”我总是试图告诉他们一些有关 Internet 的统计数据。在 1997 年年底，全球范围内有 7000 万 Internet 用户，到今年年底，这个数字将突破 1 亿。这种快速的增长从 1995 年便已开始，当时 Internet 用户只有 3000 万，你们可以看到在过去三年 Internet 用户的增长非常非常迅速。Internet 非常有趣，因为它是一种非常广泛的平台，包括信息、交易、商业和娱乐，同时还是一种非常交互的媒体。它也是允许你做所有这些事情的唯一交互式媒体。我们已确实看到了 Internet 媒体在美国的巨大增长。并且我们看到未来在美国之外的增长将会更加迅速，特别是在中国，在亚洲还有欧洲。我得说一种交互式的媒体对于我们来说非常重要，因为这样一种媒体允许你与之对话，而正是这种体验使得 Internet 非常非常特别。确实没有其它的途径使你能够得到在 Internet 上的这种娱乐、商业和交易方式。这就是为什么我觉得 Internet 如此重要，不仅是对于商业，它还可以使用户们上网后得到他们所需的信息，生活更为舒适。

很多人把 Yahoo 称作搜索引擎，我却要说我们不仅仅是搜索引擎。事实上我们已经成为一个非常强大的品牌，在美国每个月有超过 3000 万的用户使用 Yahoo。我们广为人知并值得信赖。我们把每一次用户对 Yahoo 的使用称作一次“page view”。每个月我们有超过 20 亿次的“page view”，这已经差不多成为许多网上用户的生活方式了。我们对于个人用户极具吸引力。我们不仅拥有许多用户在工作时使用 Yahoo，还有许多人晚上在家里使用 Yahoo，而我们正在做的是向全球范围迅速扩张。我们在欧洲、亚洲、澳大利亚有很多版本的 Yahoo，我们一直在扩张，并且希望能够做得更多。你们很多人都知道，Yahoo 的关键是它的目录结构和浏览指南。在上十万个类别下我们有 90 多万个美国网点。我们与主要的媒体公司及信息公司有超过 300 个的合作信息关系。我们一直在为用户和消费者建造并提供一些商业能力，帮助他们在网上找到所需的东西，并进行网上购物。我们还帮助他们寻找信息甚至是他们想联系的人。

许多人问我：“你们如何赚钱？”“Yahoo 背后的商业机制是什么？”我们极力去做的是建立面向 Internet 访问的广泛合作关系。我们有许多合作伙伴，我们商业模式的基础是广告商业模式。当你使用 Yahoo 的时候，在页面的顶端你会看到很多广告，那些是收费广告，我们要把他们的广告词显示给我们的用户。因此我想这与广播或其它媒体是类似的，用户都是免费得到服务。大家都知道 Yahoo 是免费使用，但是我们要从广告客户哪里赚取利润。

我与合伙人 David 一起创建了 Yahoo，现在我来谈一谈我们的发展历史吧。我们在 1994 年都是 Stanford 大学的研究生，我们没有专注于论文而是在 Internet 上畅游。有一天晚上我的伙伴 David 把一些网址集中到一个数据库内，第一次大概有 200 个网点。然后我们把它放到 WWW 网上，就有人开始使用它。在 1994 年大概每天都有 100 万用户访问 Yahoo。很多人问我 Yahoo 的名称是如何得来的。在字典上，Yahoo 的意思是粗鲁而未开化的人，是从《格列佛游记》中得到的。我们把自己称作 Yahoo，因为我们认为我们自己就是 Yahoo。而且它还很容易记，这样我们就把它当作了我们的名字。开始，我们在 Stanford 还只是把它作为业余爱好，一年后，在 1995 年我们决定投入商业运作。我们搞到一些钱作资本，并找到一些管理人员来帮我们。为了得到广告收入，我们工作非常努力，在一年内我们便有能力形成真正的业务。1996 年发生了一些非常重要的事，我们开始在美国 Netherdeck 上市，那年晚些时候我们便成为一个盈利公司。这些事不仅仅对我们自己很重要，对整个业界也很重要，因为很多人不相信能够通过 Internet 赚钱。但我们做到了这一点，我们拥有强大的品牌、大量的用户以及很好的产品。

这儿还有一些关于 Yahoo 的统计数字。在 1997 年，我们的收入达到 6700 万美元。我们做到了很多人在 Internet 上还做不到的事情，建立了一个可行的商业模式。现在我们在全世界有约 450 个 Yahoo，总部设在 Santa Clara 的硅谷。我们相信我们的 Internet 业务是全球性的业务。因此我们不仅在美国有 8 个分部，而且还在全世界 10 个国家拥有分部。

我想用几分钟谈谈 Internet 广告，因为这是人们常常不能理解的 -- 为什么它可行又是如何可行的？当商业公司建立网点时，他们常常要想办法让别人知道他们的站点。Internet 广告正是要告诉人们网点的位置。我们要了解有多少人访问了网点，有多少人看到了广告，这便形成了一种目标明确且可以信赖的媒介。我们不仅可以按不同地理位置定位，还可以按不同类别的人定位。这是一个很多人都未认识到的非常非常大的市场，仅仅在美国，一年就几乎有 2000 亿美元花费在广告上，即使 Internet 广告只占 1％ 的市场份额，那也是一个数十亿美元的市场。

下面我来谈一下网络广告及其最新情况。在 1996 年，网络上的广告费用约为 2.7 亿美元。去年这个数目达到约 7 亿美元。在 1998 年网络广告费用将会超过 10 亿，这主要是由美国、西欧和亚洲部分地区所带动的。我们相信增长还将会迅速翻倍。事实上，Yahoo 的关键是每个月能接触到上千万的用户。它正逐渐成为象电视、报纸和杂志一样的大众媒体。我们在很多方面能够与传统媒体广告竞争。例如，在去年的最后一个季度，我们广告客户超过 1700 个，其中 70％ 是消费类品牌，因此并不是只有技术公司在Internet 上做广告。它们都是些大家很熟悉的公司，例如可口可乐公司、电话公司或者是汽车公司。

在 1997 年对我们来说最大的一件事是电子商务，或者说 Internet 商务成为可能。相当多的美国产业逐渐意识到了这一点并开始在 Internet 上从事购物之类的商业贸易活动。例如，我的很多圣诞采购就是通过 Internet 进行的，因为我不喜欢在商店里购物。我定购了一些裤子，其中就包括我现在穿的这一条。当然，我之所以能够通过 Internet 购物，也是因为我知道我所需要的确切尺寸而且它可以在线展示。网络商务的机会是非常非常巨大的。1997 年在美国约有 30 亿美元的货物是通过 Internet 售出的。到 2000 年，这个数目将会超过 1000 亿美元。你会看到网络上的交易量将会一年比一年大。网络之所以如此有趣，是因为用户在它上面是主动的。在网络上冲浪的人拥有大量选择余地，他们有很多机会。很多人都认识到，现在消费者对购买什么、如何购买以及在那儿购买拥有更大的发言权。因此，美国许多产业正在进行一些非常迅速的改变，其原因正是网络上的购买力。例如股票，人们不仅在网上了解股票信息，而且进行电子交易，通过网络买卖股票。事实上，美国现在出现的许多非常成功的公司所做的其实就是通过网络销售股票。我们的一个合作伙伴 E-trade 就是这样。美国现在正是收税的季节，今年是第一次你可以通过网络缴纳一些税费。这对于人们收集信息，了解有关税收法律改变情况非常方便。你可以通过网络处理并填写税收表格。其它一些非常重要的应用包括，旅行方面 -- 你可以通过旅行网点购买机票、预定旅店和预定租车；购买书籍 -- ArmazondaCom 便是一家非常有名的网上书店；你还可以通过网络购买计算机、软件、硬件及附件，例如 Dell 计算机公司和 Gateway 2000 便创造了许多直接面向消费者的机会；你还可以购买音乐 CD 和录象制品。总之，几乎你想象中所有可以通过零售渠道购买的东西现在都可以在网上购买。我相信在美国还会有更多的产业进行转变，因为网络方式是如此的受欢迎，人们有能力以自己的方式来引导商业。他们还可以与任何需要的人交谈，进行一些调查，然后以他们自己的行为来引导交易而不再需要去找什么人购买商品。

我给大家展示这个图表是因为它描述了 Yahoo 的战略以及我们的公司将向哪里去。我们在网上有很多信息。最顶层有数百万网点，在最低层我们有数以亿计的用户，而这中间正是我们努力之所在。我们开发技术，发展广告，我们还建立了一种商业模式以提供面向消费者的商业服务。正象我前面所说的税收、股票或计算机产品那样，我们谈到娱乐、新闻、体育，我们讨论目录，我们还讨论称之为超级集合 (aggregation) 和核心集合的东西。在这两方面我们有两条非常重要的因素。个性化因素，这是指我们使你的网络更具个性化。每个人在网络方面都有各自不同的经历，你不必与别人相同，因为网络是交互式的，我们正在努力把个性化成分带给你的网络经历。另一方面，是通信能力。你不仅可以从出版商或有关消息来源得到一些内容，还可以通过 email、聊天及讯息进行通信，这些在美国要占网络使用的很大一部分，而正是这些使得网络取得成功。我们相信只要我们把这部分做好，即帮助人们找到所需的内容如产品、服务或他所要找的其他人，我们就能够成为一种在网上与人们紧密相连的新型公司。

下面是我们目前在美国 Yahoo 站点上提供的一些服务，因为有很多人并没有意识到在 Yahoo 上可以得到这些，所以我认为列出它们是有用的。仍然有很多人将这些服务作为导航工具使用。我已经谈到过 Yahoo Finance。Yahoo Finance 的内容是股票交易和股票查询。每天我们有超过五百万人在看我们提供的股票信息及公司新闻等等。Score Bodies 是一个体育运动站点，我们在那里提供实时的体育信息，所以当球赛进行的时候,人们就可以在网络上实时看到消息。当然还包括现在最流行的网络新闻服务。现在我给你们举一个新闻焦点事件发生的例子。很多人都知道去年 Dianna 王妃的悲剧。网络是第一个实时提供有关车祸信息的地方，甚至比电视都早。同时我们相信，人们通过网络查找新闻将逐渐改变人们其它的许多种获得新闻的方式。我们在美国已经有很多本地信息服务，交易方式的分类对你来说是一件小事，通过黄页你可以找到商业机会；通过得到的地图你能够搞清楚驾车方向或找到要去的地方。这些服务都可以通过 Yahoo 在网上得到。

我们该谈谈国际上的情况了。我们在十个国家开展业务，由于时间有限我不能一一列出，象法国、德国、英国、日本、加拿大、新加坡、澳大利亚以及其它的一些国家都有 Yahoo。我们也针对不同的人群设计了 Yahoo 业务，例如 Yahooligan 是为儿童提供的；Yahooseniors 是专为65岁以上的人设计的；My-Yahoo 是针对个人的服务。我们记录了很多发生过的事情，我们会告诉你在在网络上发生的每一件事。最后我要谈谈我们提供的通讯业务，有可以互相发送信息的 Yahoo Mail 和 Yahoo Pager ; Yahoo 留言板，在它上面你可以发表（观点）及阅读其他人关于特定题目的言论。

由于我现在是在中国，在亚洲，所以我想谈一些关于 Yahoo 的国际方面的情况。作为你们希望我展示的一个例子，我想谈谈 Yahoo Japan 。很多人对我说， Internet 上的问题，最重要的问题，就是语言和文化 -- 你们知道，我的语言风格就仍然为英语所统治，或者说是为美国语言和文化所统治。我同意上面的观点。作为一个公司，我们最初所做的联合风险投资之一便是在日本。那是在 1996 年 4 月，尽管当时 Yahoo 还非常非常年轻。我们从日本开始是因为这是一个令人非常感兴趣的市场。那时日本已经有非常多的 Internet 用户，语言也是如此的不同，我们必须建立一个日语站点。几乎是与此同时，我们就成为日本最受欢迎的网点。现在我们在日本已经成为最具统治性的网络商业公司之一。事实上去年十一月我们的股票便已在日本上市。我们还在日本帮助发展 Internet 广告商业。所以我完全相信，通过按照用户的文化和语言建立站点，无论我们到了哪里，我们都可以克隆 Yahoo 模式。事实上在欧洲、加拿大和新加坡我们都获得了成功。

中国市场的一个关键因素使我非常兴奋，我相信中国的 Web 市场在未来将会有非常非常巨大的潜力。我这次旅程的成果之一就是，在这里我更加了解了中国市场，了解了 Internet 在中国的发展。我真的了解了很多，所以我的信心在增加。中国的 Web 有很多的事情可以去做，因为在中国无论是市场、语言或是文化都是独一无二的。而现在正在发生些什么呢，正如你所知道的，在中国 Internet 的用户数目正在迅速增长，几乎每个月我都所听说用户数量变得越来越大。就在最近我们了解到官方统计的 Internet 用户已达60万，而在官方统计之外的用户数字可能更大。我们正在做出重要的努力以发展网络的容量。同时我们还看到网络广告、网络贸易和免费服务的发展潜力是非常非常巨大的。

我想谈一谈中国这个市场，什么是它继续前进的关键因素呢。从我自己的角度看，首先是我希望了解，到底会卖出多少台个人电脑，才能使人们可以步入 Internet。现在中国这个数字正在非常迅速的增长。我知道在 1998 年中国将销售超过 5 百万台的 PC 机，而且所有这些都可以接入 Internet。我认为，PC 机的使用是我们所见的每一个市场增长的关键因素，这样我们才有可能向消费者提供廉价且承受得起的 Internet 接入。
同时不仅是服务要廉价和承受得起，而且它们要可靠而快速。很多情况下，提供这些接入服务的公司必须能够盈利，成为真正的商业公司，才能做到以上这几点。我认为，中国正在全面经历一个投资阶段，此时需要大量的投资以建设整个基础设施并吸引用户进入 Internet。

我们看到的任何市场发展的第三个关键因素是软件工具的能力，这些软件帮助你将信息放到网上、在网上设计信息并在网上修改。这样的软件工具在美国已经应用了，并推动了网络信息和贸易的快速发展。因此我希望中国也能够作出足够的努力，推出整套的工具、软件和技术，以建立网络信息及商业应用。

第四件对可行的 Web 媒体模式非常重要的是创造性人群，这些人能够帮助你设计站点、设计概念并帮助你如何使用这些站点来为你的市场、用户服务，他们还能帮助你得到更好的经验。这些人对于发展竞争质量和信息经验是必需的。

最后也可能最重要的是让企业、政府、教育单位、社团成员以及社会各阶层都能够感到网络是国家经济和竞争力增长的一个关键因素。我要讲一下美国的例子。在九十年代早期，政府就确定他们需要一个交互式的基础设施以促进国家经济的增长，于是他们向所需的各方面投资，这就是副总统戈尔所说的国家信息基础设施（NII）。由此 Internet 在很大程度上便成为美国的 NII。同时我相信不仅是政府在建立 Internet 方面有很大的兴趣，以作通信之用，而且作为教育机构的大学、公立学院以及主要的企业团体也是这样。现在已经很难找出哪个美国公司不在网上经常出现或在网上进行交易。并且不需企业签字的交易在网上已经成为一个可行的产业。

在结束之前，我想谈一谈我们的未来。我们所见的一个关键挑战是，如何使我们的通信产业变得更加开放并自由竞争。在美国之外的很多地方，电话线和电话接入 Internet 的费用依旧非常非常昂贵，而且其中大多数还是面向时间的。因此你用了多少小时，就要相应付多少钱。而在美国你可以无限制的使用，却只缴纳相同的费用。我们认为为了让网络发展得更加成熟和快速，世界上的通信公司都应该更具有竞争性，降低费用以使网络可以被用户承受得起。

网络仍然是一个非常年轻的媒体，大约仅仅有几年的历史，这里有很多的安全和可靠性问题，例如：如何保护敏感数据、提供安全环境等等，这些都非常非常重要。在美国关于网络最重要的问题是：如何保护儿童；如何保证使用网络的人们处于一个安全的环境；以及如何保护用户的个人秘密。这些事，我认为，无论我们处于哪里、网络通到哪里以及网络产业发展到哪里都是非常大的问题。我们得解决安全问题、解决内容问题，以创造一个越来越安全的网络。
关于未来我想到一个非常有趣的事：我们将从不同的地方以不同的形式接入 Internet ，这就是我所称的多种方式 Internet 接入。今天首选的接入 Internet 的方式是通过电话和租用线。但是我认为在将来，人们可以利用大量的技术以不同的方式接入 Internet -- 通过无线方式、卫星、电缆接入到 Internet，当然还可以通过不同的电话接入 Internet。

正如我指出的那样，通过不同的方式接入 Internet 是非常非常重要的，因为马上人们就会觉得 Internet 不再是什么特殊的所在，它将成为你不用多加考虑的、非常频繁使用的东西 -- 就象电话机一样。现在的人们对电话的看法和对 Internet 的看法是很不一样。最终 Internet 会变得更加普及，而为了做到这点，需要一个更好的途径、一个更好的接入方法。
另一个将来要面对的大问题是带宽的问题。我总是听到人们在抱怨 Internet 的速度太慢，不管从它上面下载什么东西都要花费太多的时间。我同意这是一个重要问题。我知道在世界上有好多人都在努力提高网络带宽，以使人们可以设计快速交互的网络。我希望带宽将变得更宽，因为带宽越宽，人们开发各种工具的方法就越多。

最后我想谈谈原有的信息媒体向一种商业媒体、共有媒体转变的问题。有很多人，包括我，都认为有一件事是一定会发生的，未来的 Internet 不再仅仅是一个面向计算机的工具了。或许就在不久的将来，你将可以通过 TV、手表甚至是微波炉接入 Internet，你在哪儿都可以接入。从这一点上看，问题就不再仅仅是从 Internet 可以得到什么信息了，实际上问题将是如何通过 Internet 有效地与其他人联系、有效地开展商业活动了。为使 Internet 在全世界、在中国存在下去，Internet 必须不仅应该是一个信息的媒体，而且应该成为商业媒体。Internet 将提高人们生活的价值，将使人们的生活变得更加美好。