Snapchat发力视频成社交黑马

人类已经进入了“过度分享”的阶段。Snapchat这种“阅后即焚”的功能为年轻人互相发送照片提供了安全平台，因为这些信息不会在网上留下痕迹，当然也满足了那些想要发送商业机密或者敏感信息的用户。近日其日浏览量突破60亿条，直追Facebook。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

clips 剪辑

engaging 迷人的

like-for-like 等同于

ephemeral 短暂的

Snapchat triples video traffic as it closes the gap with Facebook（489words）

By Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco

Snapchat is closing the gap with Facebook in the social networks' battle for scale in video. The number of videos viewed on messaging app Snapchat every day has tripled since May to 6bn,according to people close to the company.

That compares with the 8bn daily video views announced by Facebook last week,which has doubled from 4bn in April. Facebook's figure includes both desktop and mobile views,while Snapchat's audience — though smaller in size overall — is entirely made up of smartphone users.

Snapchat confirmed the 6bn views figure,but declined to comment further.

Video is fast becoming one of the most popular activities on social networking apps,and the race for eyeballs comes as analysts predict huge growth in digital video advertising. Clips are an important source of new revenue,as advertising rates tend to be higher for video compared with static images or text.

During last week's earnings call,Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said 500m people watched videos every day on its site and apps.

“Over the next few years,video is going to be some of the most engaging content online,” Mr Zuckerberg told analysts on Wednesday.

Last month Facebook began testing a new page dedicated to video in its app. Some 1.5m small businesses posted video to the site in September. Facebook has set its sights on beating Google's video site YouTube,which has more than 1bn monthly active users who generate “billions of views” every day. Snapchat says it has more than 100m daily active users.

Comparing the three services' video consumption on a like-for-like basis is difficult. YouTube prefers to track usage in hours,while Facebook counts a video as viewed if it has played for just three seconds. Snapchat reportedly charges advertisers for videos that play for fractions of a second,as many of its ephemeral clips are much shorter than on other platforms. Last month it launched a new ad format,“sponsored lenses”,allowing marketers to add digital “stickers” to users' video messages to promote their products.

eMarketer forecasts a 42 per cent leap in digital video revenues this year to $7.5bn in the US,while Forrester Research estimates that ad spending on the medium will reach $12.6bn in the US by 2019.

Mr Zuckerberg said last week that the kinds of video being watched on digital platforms were very different to the long-form content aired on television,requiring producers to adapt their output.

“The more interesting question is not in the near term what we're going to do to develop ways to consume long-form content,but what traditional media and content producers who have traditionally produced long-form content are going to do to chunk their stuff up better,so that way it can be more easily consumed by this big community online,” he said.

“We're just so early in this right now. It's pretty amazing how quickly it's growing,but there's a lot more to do.”

1.Which company's figure is entirely made up of smartphone users?

A.Snapchat

B.Facebook

C.Youtube

D.eMarketer

[1] 答案

2.What kind of content is more attractive to the eyeballs today?

A.static images

B.video

C.text

D.origin story

[2] 答案

3.Why it is difficult to compare the three services' video consumption?

A.different statistical methods

B.deadline is different

C.diverse statistical range

D.protect the trade secrets

[3] 答案

4.Which country is forecasted a 42 per cent leap in digital video revenues this year by eMarketer?

A.Britain

B.China

C.America

D.India

[4] 答案

[1]答案：A.Snapchat

解释：Facebook上周宣布，其每天的视频观看量达到80亿次，较4月的40亿次实现翻番。Facebook的数据既包含桌面端也包含移动端，而Snapchat的观看量完全由智能手机用户贡献。

[2]答案：B.video

解释：看视频已经成为社交网络上最受欢迎的一种活动，而由于分析师预计数字视频广告的需求量巨大，因此各大社交网络公司都在争相拓展这项业务。

[3]答案：A.different statistical methods

解释：YouTube习惯以时长来统计视频播放量，Facebook则以播放次数计算。

[4]答案：C.America

解释：市场研究公司eMarketer预计，美国今年数字视频营收将增长42%，达到75亿美元。