The business of polo 经济学人双语版.doc

The business of polo
马球业

Cloney ponies
克隆赛马

How technology could transform an ancient sport
技术如何改变一项古老运动

Jan 5th 2013 | BUENOS AIRES | from the print edition

IMAGINE a football match pitting 11 clones of Wayne Rooney against 11 more clones of the same spud-faced Manchester United striker. Even avid Wayne-watchers might find it a bit dull. But polo fans may one day be treated to something similar. No one is proposing to clone the stallions who wield the mallets, of course. But the stallions they sit on are another matter. Outstanding polo horses are hard to find and horribly expensive. Each world-class rider may have dozens, the best of which may cost more than $200,000 each.
设想一场足球比赛，11位韦恩•鲁尼（Wayne Rooney）的克隆人对阵另外11位与这位曼联前锋长着同一张土豆脸的克隆人，就算韦恩的狂热观众也会觉得有点无趣。但有朝一日，马球迷会遇到类似的事。当然，无人建议克隆那些挥动长柄球棍、像种马一般健美的男子。不过，他们胯下的种马则另当别论了。出色的马球赛马很难找到，价格也贵得吓人。每位世界级骑手或许都有十几匹赛马，其中的佼佼者，每匹花费或许超过20万美元

So breeding great mounts is big business. It used to be hit-and-miss, but new technology is making it less so. In 2010 the world’s first cloned polo pony was born. The technique has since caught fire in Argentina, the global capital of professional polo. Adolfo Cambiaso, probably the world’s best player, has teamed up with Alan Meeker of Crestview Genetics, a Texan firm, to clone eight of his mounts.
于是，繁殖优良坐骑就成了一桩大买卖。这事以前靠“碰运气”，但新技术让成功率高了些。2010年，第一匹克隆马球赛马降生到这世间。自此，这一技术在全球专业马球之都——阿根廷推广。阿道夫•坎比亚索（Adolfo Cambiaso）或许是世界最佳马球骑手，他与美国德州克里斯由基因公司（Crestview Genetics）的艾伦•米克（Alan Meeker）合作，克隆了8匹坐骑。

The clones look and act like their “parents”. Dolfina Lapa, one of Mr Cambiaso’s star mares, is “meaner than mean”, says Mr Meeker. Her clones? “They’ll kick you, they’ll bite you…just like Lapa. It’s uncanny.”
这些克隆马外表与行动肖似其“父母”。米克先生称，坎比亚索先生有匹明星母马多菲娜•拉帕（Dolfina Lapa），“极难驯服”。她的克隆后代呢？“它们踢你、咬你，就跟拉帕一样。不可思议。”

Polo’s various governing bodies have approved clones for competition, but since polo horses seldom compete until they are five years old, no clone has yet been tested in a match. Buyers are undeterred. A three-month-old clone of Mr Cambiaso’s Cuartetera fetched $800,000 at auction in Buenos Aires—the most expensive sale in polo history.
马球比赛各级管理机构同意克隆马参赛，但赛马5岁前很少上场，因此还没有一匹克隆马经过了比赛考验。买家并未退缩。坎比亚索先生一匹叫Cuartetera的马克隆出的一个后代才三个月大，就在布宜诺斯艾利斯拍卖会上卖得了80万美元，是马球史上最贵的一笔交易。

Mr Meeker holds an exclusive licence to use a specific technique (the one used to create Dolly the Sheep in 1996) to clone horses that have been, or might be, used for polo. This licence is widely recognised, but not in Argentina, where a rival cloning firm, Kheiron Laboratories, began operations in March.
米克先生持有一张专营许可证，可使用一种专项技术（1996年曾用其克隆出了绵羊多莉）克隆曾经或可能的马球赛马。这一许可证得到广泛认可，却不被阿根廷接受。该国一家克隆公司喀戎实验室（Kheiron Laboratories）加入竞争，2012年3月开始运营。

Cuartetera, et cetera
赛马Cuartetera及其他

Mr Meeker is anxious not to “sell the factory”. He invited the Argentine executive who bought Cuartetera’s clone to form a partnership with Crestview instead of cloning the horse himself. The executive agreed and, despite being offered $2m for another Cuartetera, the partners pledged not to sell any more clones of the same horse. Instead they will channel some clones to competition, and sell the ovules and sperm of others to breeders. “The idea is not to have games where four Cuarteteras are playing four Cuarteteras,” insists Mr Meeker.
米克先生并不急于“卖厂”。他邀请购买了Cuartetera克隆马的阿根廷公司老板与克里斯由公司合作，而非由其自行克隆。这位买家接收了邀请，而且，尽管有人出价200万美元要求再买一匹Cuartetera克隆马，两位合伙人都承诺不再出售这匹马的其它克隆体。相反，他们将会把一些克隆马引入竞赛，并且将其它赛马的卵子和精子出售给育种人。米克先生坚称，“这一想法并不是让四匹Cuarteteras与四匹Cuarteteras同场竞技。”

Crestview has created 60 clones so far, and Mr Meeker hopes to produce between 20 and 30 next year. That will not keep pace with demand, however: one eager player has requested 100 copies of the same horse. Kheiron, which can clone 10-20 horses a year, is booked solid through half of 2014. Firms that clone polo ponies are set to mint it.
克里斯由公司迄今已克隆了60匹马，米克先生希望2013年能克隆20~30匹。可是，这仍供不应求：一位急不可耐的骑手要求购买同一匹马的100匹克隆后代。喀戎实验室公司每年可克隆10~20匹马，预订已排到2014年中了。马球赛马克隆公司注定财源滚滚。

Multilevel marketing
多层次营销

The bottom line
底线

Herbalife is shorted
康宝莱被做空

Jan 5th 2013 | NEW YORK | from the print edition

“IF I am right, its share price will go to zero,” says Bill Ackman, the founder of Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund, who insists he has never felt so confident in shorting a company’s stock. On December 20th he invited an audience of his peers to hear his declaration of war against Herbalife, a seller of dietary supplements and vitamins. His claim that the 32-year-old company is an “illegal pyramid scheme” had an immediate impact: Herbalife’s share price fell from over $40 a couple of days before the presentation to $26 on December 24th. However, Herbalife is fighting back. Its managers deny Mr Ackman’s accusations and promise a detailed rebuttal soon. The company’s shares have rallied, ending 2012 at almost $33, a market capitalisation of around $3.6 billion.
“我要是没错，康宝莱的股票会跌得一文不值。”对冲基金潘兴广场资本公司的创始人比尔•阿克曼（Bill Ackman）如是说。他强调对于做空康宝莱他信心十足。12月20日，他请来一批同行，见证了他对出售保健品和维生素的康宝莱公司宣战。比尔•阿克曼声称这家有32年历史的公司是个“非法传销组织”，这话立竿见影：12月24日，康宝莱的股价从比尔•阿克曼放话前几天的40多美元跌至26美元。不过，康宝莱正在实施反击。公司管理层否认比尔•阿克曼的声讨，并承诺很快会详细地对此进行反驳。目前康宝莱股价已经反弹，在2012年底回升至将近33美元，市值约36亿美元。

Herbalife is one of the world’s best-known “multilevel marketing” companies, along with Avon and Amway. Hordes of independent individual sellers, many sporting badges with the slogan “Lose weight now. Ask me how”, distribute its products. These sellers are recruited by people on a higher tier of the marketing structure, who receive a slice of the commission on sales made by those whom they recruit.
康宝莱和雅芳、安利一样，是世界知名的“多层次营销”公司之一。一大群独立的个体推销员到处推销着康宝莱的产品，很多还戴着显眼的标志，上面写着“减肥此刻起，秘诀康宝莱”。公司营销体系中级别更高的人将这些推销员招至麾下，并从他们的销售产品获得的佣金中抽取部分。

Multilevel marketing is a huge business. In 2011 direct selling (the vast majority of it through multilevel marketing) by around 16m distributors generated sales of almost $30 billion in America. Worldwide, some 92m distributors grossed $154 billion, according to the Direct Selling Association, an industry group.
多层次营销是盘大生意。根据行业组织直销协会的数据，2011年，美国约1600万个直销人员通过直销（其中大部分是通过多层次营销）获得了将近300亿美元的销售额。而全球大约9600万个直销人员的总收入则为1540亿美元。

Multilevel marketers take pains to distinguish their businesses (which are legal) from pyramid schemes (which are not). In a pyramid, recruitment is everything. People pay to participate, and are rewarded by finding others willing to pay to join. At some point the supply of new recruits dries up and the pyramid collapses.
多层次营销公司都竭力将自己的业务（合法）和传销（非法）划清界线。在一个传销组织里，发展下线才是生存之道。人们掏钱加入传销组织，又通过发展下线来收取回报。到了招不到人的时候，传销组织便土崩瓦解。

Multilevel marketing is not like this. Legitimate firms rely on sales of real products for their income, not on fees charged to new recruits. Mr Ackman contends that Herbalife relies on recruitment, not sales of its products to genuine customers (as opposed to new distributors, who are required to buy a batch to join the sales force). Michael Johnson, Herbalife’s chief executive, retorts that over 90% of product sales are outside its distribution network.
多层次营销却不同。合法的公司是靠出售实际商品，而不是向新成员收取费用来赚钱的。比尔•阿克曼坚称康宝莱赚钱靠的是不断招人，并没有将产品卖给真正的顾客（而是卖给新加入的推销员，他们加入时必须先购买一批产品）。康宝莱CEO 迈克•约翰逊（Michael Johnson,）反驳说公司超过90%的产品都是卖到经销网外的

Mr Ackman says Herbalife’s marketing materials give a misleading impression of how easy it is to make money by selling its products. By his calculations, only 0.14% of Herbalife’s 2.7m sellers earn more than $20,000 a year gross, and 93% earn no commissions at all. Herbalife is continually entering new markets, from Mexico to Ghana, but the supply of virgin markets may soon dry up, claims Mr Ackman.
比尔•阿克曼又称，康宝莱公司的销售资料让大家误以为推销其产品很容易赚钱。据他估计，康宝莱的两百七十万推销员中只有0.14%每年总收入超过两万美元，93%的人根本没有佣金。他还说，从墨西哥到加纳，康宝莱正在不断地开拓新市场，但新市场很快就会被开拓殆尽。

Mr Ackman is not always right, but he has made a packet by shorting overpriced firms such as MBIA, a bond insurer. His attack on Herbalife follows tough questioning of the company in May, shortly after its share price reached an all-time high of $73, by David Einhorn, another hedge funder who made a fortune by calling the financial crisis correctly.
比尔•阿克曼不一定对，不过靠卖空一些公司（如债券保险公司MBIA）股价过高的股票，他已经大赚了一笔。5月份，康宝莱股价创73美元新高后不久，另一家对冲基金的投资者大卫•霍恩（David Einhorn）严厉地质疑康宝莱，接着比尔•阿克曼就开始抨击康宝莱。大卫•霍恩曾因准确预测金融危机而大赚一笔。

However, in July Anne Coughlan of Northwestern University’s Kellogg business school published a paper arguing that Herbalife is legitimate, and “fails to meet the fundamental test of a pyramid scheme, because its compensation is directly related to sales volume (not to recruiting) and therefore its business cannot collapse under the weight of its compensation plan.” (Herbalife helped finance the paper.)
但是，西北大学凯洛格商学院的安妮•考夫兰（Anne Coughlan）在7月发表文章指出，康宝莱公司是合法的，不符合“非法传销组织”的基本条件，因为其推销员的报酬与销售量（非发展新成员 ）直接挂钩，所以在这种报酬机制下，公司不会跨台。（此文由康宝莱公司提供赞助。）

As The Economist went to press, regulators had not reacted publicly to Mr Ackman’s accusations. Much may depend on Herbalife’s detailed response at an event for analysts scheduled for January 10th. Analysts will want to see convincing evidence that most of its sales really are to people outside its network of distributors.
本期《经济学人》付印时，监管部门仍未对比尔•阿克曼的声讨做出公开回应。康宝莱计划在1月10日面向分析人士针对比尔•阿克曼的声讨进行详细的回应，监管部门的态度很可能取决于这次回应。分析人士希望看到的是，康宝莱能拿出有力的证据证明自身大部分的销售额的确来自经销网外。

One thing is certain. Even if he is right, it will not add to Mr Ackman’s vast fortune. He describes his campaign against Herbalife as a philanthropic act, and has promised to give his personal share in any profits from shorting its shares to charity.
但有一点是肯定的：哪怕比尔•阿克曼说得没错，其巨额财富也不会因此增加分毫。他说对抗康宝莱只是出于慈善，并已承诺将做空康宝莱股票所得的个人收益全数捐给慈善机构。

Facebook
脸谱网

Search me
搜搜我

The social network’s shares recover as it fixes its search problem
修复自身搜索问题，脸谱网行情重新见涨【注1】

Jan 19th 2013 | SAN FRANCISCO |From the print edition

MARK ZUCKERBERG is trying to spice up things online with some pillar talk. Unveiling a revamped search engine on January 15th, the boss of Facebook referred to it as the “third pillar” of the social network alongside its timeline, which lets individual users post what they have been up to, and its news feed, which lets them see what their friends are doing. Facebook’s search offering has long been so dire that any improvement to it is a welcome relief. But the company will have to do much more in future if it wants to mount a serious challenge to Google’s dominance of the online-search business.

马克•扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）正试图通过有关支柱的探讨来为网络“加点儿料”。1月15日，脸谱网推出一款改良后的搜索引擎——被总裁扎克伯格称作社交网站的“第三大支柱”，另外两大支柱分别是“时间轴（timeline）”——供用户发布自己的动态，“新闻墙（news feed）”——获悉朋友的近况。长期以来，脸谱网糟糕的搜索功能一直被人们所诟病，因此，稍微一丁点儿的改进，对于脸谱网来说都值得宽慰。不过，面对如今在网络搜索界叱咤风云的一哥——谷歌公司，想要向它发起实质性的挑战，未来脸谱网需要做得更多。

This still accounts for the lion’s share of digital advertising. According to eMarketer, a research firm, an estimated $17.6 billion was spent on search ads in America alone last year, with Google pocketing three-quarters of that sum. Facebook has been focused on digital display advertising and its success in winning business has helped its share price rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of a catastrophic stockmarket flotation last year (see chart). If it can pinch search ads from Google and others too, its shareholders will be even more delighted.

而这一成败的关键仍在于能否称霸数字广告。据调查公司eMarketer估计，去年，光是美国的搜索广告费用就达176亿美元，而这一金额的四分之三都落入谷歌的腰包。脸谱网一直专注于数字显示广告，并成功赢得了相关业务，其股价因此如凤凰涅槃一般，从去年灾难性的上市余灰中重获新生（见下图）。如果能够从谷歌和其他公司手中夺取一些搜索广告的市场份额，脸谱网的各位股东将会更加满意。

Hence Mr Zuckerberg’s third pillar. Still in its infancy, the new search engine serves up answers to queries by tapping into people’s social networks and those of their mates. So someone who is, say, thinking of visiting New York can search for “restaurants in New York visited by my friends” to see eateries his pals have raved about there. Lonely hearts can trawl for kindred spirits who happen to know their friends, and job-hunters can more easily track down people who know folk at companies they want to work for. All this should offer plenty of fodder for targeted ads.

于是就有了扎克伯格的第三大支柱。尽管这款新式搜索引擎尚未成熟，但它可以利用用户及其朋友的社交网络信息，对人们搜索的问题给出答案。比如，正在考虑到纽约旅游的人，就能通过搜索“我朋友去过的纽约饭馆”，看到他的朋友们曾经大肆讨论过的各种纽约小饭馆。单身人士可以“广撒网”，找到他们朋友身边和自己意气相投的人。而求职者也更容易寻到为自己和心仪公司“牵线搭桥”的人。所有的这些，都能为目标广告提供充裕的素材。

Some critics point out that the social network is very late to the search game. “It’s unbelievable that Facebook has taken so long to do something that should be table stakes online,” says Nate Elliott of Forrester Research. But Facebulls point out that Google, whose Google+ social network is still a shadow of Facebook’s, cannot match its rival’s prowess in “social” search. And they claim that Facebook’s move will help it counter the likes of Siri, a voice-activated personal assistant for mobile devices from Apple, which is hoping mobile search ads will boost a share price that dipped below $500 this week, having been more than $700 in September.

一些批评家指出，在搜索广告方面，脸谱网的社交网络牌打得未免太晚了。弗雷斯特研究公司的Nate Elliott表示：“脸谱网竟然为它的网络筹码花了这么久，实在令人难以置信。”但是脸谱网支持者们指出，谷歌的Google+社交网络仍然是脸谱网呆板的仿制品，因此无法撼动脸谱网在社交搜索中的霸主地位。同时，他们还宣称脸谱网此举将会为对抗来自于类似Siri【注2】（苹果手机中一款声控的个人用户助手）产品的挑战助上一臂之力。苹果公司曾于去年九月股价突破700美元，本周股价却跌破500美元，现在苹果将股价飙升的希望放在移动搜索广告上。

The social network’s gambit could have another benefit too. Many speculate that Facebook’s growth may have stalled in some rich countries, such as Britain, where according to one estimate it is now used by over half of the population. So the firm needs to persuade existing customers to visit it more frequently. A search engine that is actually useful would certainly help here, assuming that any privacy worries it raises can be calmed.

脸谱网抢占社交搜索先机，还能有另一个好处。许多人预测，在一些发达国家，脸谱网的增长可能已经面临瓶颈。英国就是其中之一，据估计，英国脸谱网用户现在已达总人口的一半以上。因此，脸谱网需要做的就是促使现有用户更加频繁地访问网站。一款有实际效用的搜索引擎，自然会对此有所裨益，只要脸谱网不引起公众在隐私方面的担忧。

Mounting an effective challenge to Google will still be tough, however, because most web searches are for things such as the weather and traffic conditions, where friends’ opinions are irrelevant. (Recognising this, Facebook has turned to Microsoft, whose Bing search engine will answer such queries in the social network’s service.) Moreover, many Facebookers don’t “like” their doctors, dentists, builders and other things that would help make social search more valuable. Without such material, Facebook’s new pillar will be built on a shaky foundation.

然而，想要向谷歌发起强有力的挑战仍然没那么简单，因为大多数人搜索网页，都是为了查询诸如天气、交通等信息，在这方面，朋友的意见不太有指导意义（意识到这点之后，脸谱网寻求和微软的合作，因为微软旗下的必应搜索引擎将会在社交网络服务中给出这类搜索的答案）。此外，许多脸谱网用户不“喜欢”他们的医生、牙医、建筑商以及其他让社交搜索更有价值的事物。如果缺失这些内容，脸谱网的新支柱将被建立在一个摇摇欲坠的基础之上。

Alibaba
阿里巴巴

Alibyebye?
阿里拜拜？

China’s leading internet entrepreneur, Jack Ma, springs a surprise
中国互联网领军企业家马云语惊四座

Jan 19th2013 | SHANGHAI |From the print edition

“FELLOW Aliren,” begins the memo sent on January 15th by Jack Ma, the boss of Alibaba, using his pet name for his staff. “The internet belongs to young people…at 48, I am no longer ‘young’ for the internet business.” With those words Mr Ma, the founder and chief executive of China’s biggest e-c