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Meta points out that it has been here before.
Meta指出，這種情況它之前就經歷過。
Instagram's Stories feature took a while to get advertisers signed up but is now a big earner.
Instagram的Stories功能花了一段時間才讓廣告商注冊，但現在能帶來大筆收入。
Meta is monetising Reels more aggressively and expects it to stop losing money around the end of this year.
Meta正在更積極地將Reels變現，預計將在今年年底左右停止虧損。
But the firm acknowledges that it will be a long time before Reels is as profitable as the old news feed.
但該公司承認，Reels還需要很長一段時間才能像老式新聞推送一樣盈利。
"We know it took us several years to bring the gap close between Stories and Feed ads," Susan Li, Meta's chief financial officer, said on an earnings call last month.
"我們知道，我們花了幾年時間才縮小了Stories和Feed廣告之間的差距。"Meta首席財務官蘇珊·李上月在財報電話會議上表示，
"And we expect that this will take longer for Reels."
"而且我們預計，對于Reels來說，將需要更長的時間。"
Some wonder if the gap will in fact ever be closed.
有些人在想差距是否真的會被彌合。
Even mature video-apps cannot keep up with the old social networks when it comes to monetising their users' time.
在將用戶的時間變現方面，即使是成熟的視頻應用程序也不及老式社交網絡。
YouTube, which has been around for 18 years, makes less than half as much money per user-hour as Facebook or Instagram, estimates Bernstein.
伯恩斯坦估計，已有18年歷史的YouTube從用戶身上每小時賺取的錢還不及Facebook或Instagram的一半。
In China, where short-form video took off a few years before it did in the West, short-video ads last year monetised at only about 15% the rate of ads on local e-commerce apps.
短視頻在中國比在西方早幾年開始流行，去年中國的短視頻廣告的變現率僅為本土電商應用廣告的15%左右。
For one thing, the ad load in video is inescapably lower than on a news feed of text and images.
首先，視頻的廣告量不可避免地低于圖文新聞推送的廣告量。
Watch a five-minute YouTube clip and you might see three ads; scroll Instagram for five minutes and you could see dozens.
看一段五分鐘的YouTube視頻，你可能會看到三個廣告；刷五分鐘的Instagram，你可能會看到幾十個廣告。
Watching video also seems to put consumers in a more passive mood than scrolling a feed of friends' updates, making them less likely to click through to buy.
觀看視頻似乎也會讓消費者處于一種比刷好友動態時更被動的情緒，這會降低他們點擊購買的可能性。
Booking 1,000 impressions for a video ad on Instagram Reels costs about half as much as 1,000 impressions for an ad on Instagram's news feed, reports Tinuiti, a big marketing agency, implying that advertisers see Reels ads as less likely to generate clicks.
大型營銷機構Tinuiti報告稱，在Instagram Reels上預訂1000次視頻廣告顯示量的費用，大約是Instagram新聞推送中1000次廣告顯示量費用的一半，這說明廣告商認為Reels廣告產生點擊的可能性更小。
Auctions for video ads are less competitive than those for static ones, because many advertisers have yet to create ads in video format.
與靜態廣告相比，視頻廣告的拍賣競爭較小，因為許多廣告商還沒有以視頻格式制作廣告。
Big advertisers prize video ads (and report record engagement on TikTok, where products have gone viral with the hashtag #TikTokmademebuyit).
大型廣告商重視視頻廣告(并在TikTok上有創紀錄的參與度，產品帶著"TikTok讓我買了它"的標簽而瘋傳)。
But the long tail of small businesses from which social networks have made their billions find video spots tricky to produce.
但尾部的眾多小企業發現視頻廣告很難制作，社交網絡正是從這些小企業身上賺了數十億美元。
Just over 40% of Meta's 10m or so advertisers use Reels ads, the company says.
Meta表示，在其1000萬左右的廣告商中，只有超過40%的廣告商使用了Reels廣告。
Getting the remaining 60% to create video commercials may be made easier by artificial intelligence.
讓剩下60%的廣告商制作視頻廣告可能會因為人工智能而變得容易一些。
One senior executive imagines a near future in which a small retailer can create a bespoke video ad using only voice commands.
一位高管設想，在不久的將來，小型零售商只需使用語音指令就可以生成定制的視頻廣告。
Until that moment arrives, half the long tail is lopped off.
但在那一刻到來之前，尾部一長串企業中的一半會被砍掉。
Short-video apps are also hampered by weaker targeting.
短視頻應用程序也受到目標定向較弱的阻礙。
For audiences, part of the appeal of TikTok and its many imitators is that users need do no more than watch, and swipe when they get bored.
對于觀眾而言，TikTok和其許多模仿者的部分吸引力在于，用戶只需要看視頻，然后感到無聊的時候刷一下就行了。
The algorithm uses this to learn what kinds of videos--and therefore ads--they like.
算法利用這一點來了解用戶喜歡什么類型的視頻以及什么類型的廣告。
But this guesswork is no substitute for the hard personal data harvested by the previous generation of social networks, which persuaded users to fill in a lengthy profile including everything from their education to their marital status.
但這種猜測并不能取代上一代社交網絡收集的實打實的個人數據，社交網絡說服用戶填寫一份冗長的個人資料，從教育背景到婚姻狀況都包含在內。
The upshot is that many advertisers still treat short-form video as a place for loosely targeted so-called brand advertising,
結果是許多廣告商仍將短視頻視為一種不太有針對性的所謂品牌廣告，
to raise general awareness of their product, rather than the hyper-personalised (and more valuable) direct-response ads that old-school social networks specialise in.
用于提高人們對其產品的普遍認知度，而不是老式社交網絡所擅長的那種高度個性化的(且更有價值)直效廣告。
Here, at least, TikTok's imitators have an advantage over TikTok itself.
至少在這一點上，TikTok的模仿者比TikTok本身更有優勢。
Using a trove of data built up over a decade and a half, when there were few rules against tracking users' activity across the wider web, Meta already knows a lot about many of the users watching its videos and can make well-informed guesses about the rest.
Meta利用15年來積累的大量寶貴數據(當時幾乎沒有禁止追蹤用戶在網絡上的活動的規則)，已經對觀看其視頻的許多用戶有了很深的了解，并可以對其余用戶做出明智的猜測。
If a new, unknown user watches the same videos as a group who are known to be rich female graduates with children, say, it is a good bet that the new user has the same profile.
比如，如果一個新的未知用戶和一群大學畢業的富有已育女性觀看了相同的視頻，那么很有可能這個新用戶也有同樣的個人資料。
TikTok says it has made big investments in its direct-response ads, including new tools for measuring their effectiveness.
TikTok表示，它已經在直效廣告上投入了大量資金，包括衡量其有效性的新工具。
But it still has catching up to do.
但它仍需趕上差距。
"Meta are leveraging their history," says Mark Shmulik of Bernstein.
"Meta正在充分利用其歷史。"伯恩斯坦的馬克·施穆里克表示。
Social apps will not be the only losers in this new, trickier ad environment.
在這一更棘手的廣告新環境中，社交應用程序不會是唯一的輸家。
"All advertising is about what the next-best alternative is," says Brian Wieser of Madison and Wall, an advertising consultancy.
"所有廣告都是關于第二好的替代選擇是什么。" 廣告咨詢公司"麥迪遜華爾"的布萊恩·維澤表示。
Most advertisers allocate a budget to spend on ads on a particular platform, he says, and "the budget is the budget", regardless of how far it goes.
他表示，大多數廣告商都會為某一特定平臺的廣告支出分配預算，無論效果如何，"預算就是預算"。
If social-media advertising becomes less effective across the board, it will be bad news not just for the platforms that sell those ads, but for the advertisers that buy them.
如果社交媒體的廣告整體都變得不那么有效，那么這不僅對出售廣告位的平臺是個壞消息，對購買這些廣告位的廣告商也是一個壞消息。
