2021年经济学人 "小红书"升级版App(1)（在线收听）

Platform economics

平台经济

The price of fame

名气的价值

What is a celebrity worth?

名人的价值是什么？

"The writer of this piece deserves a big raise," says Bret "The Hitman" Hart, a professional wrestler from the 1990s. "He is the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be," he adds, echoing his old catchphrase. Your correspondent paid Mr Hart $150 to sing his praises.

上世纪90年代的职业摔跤手、“职业杀手”布莱特·哈特说：“这篇文章的作者理应得到大幅加薪。”“他是最好的，曾经是最好的，将来也会是最好的，”他补充道，重复着他的老口号。你的记者付给了哈特先生150美元来赞扬他。

Mr Hart is one of over 10,000 celebrities on Cameo, an online service where anyone can commission famous people to film short messages. Its popularity has surged as celebrities seek new sources of income and confined consumers look for ways to spend money. Last year they paid some $100m for 1.3m videos, more than in the previous three years combined. Talent on the site ranges from Jack Nicklaus, a golfer ($1,000 per clip), and Vicente Fox, a former president of Mexico ($300), to Barkley the Dog, a dog ($5).

哈特是Cameo上1万多名名人之一。Cameo是一项在线服务，任何人都可以在Cameo上委托名人拍摄短信息。随着名人们寻求新的收入来源、受限的消费者寻求新的花钱方式，Cameo的受欢迎程度飙升。去年，他们为130万段视频支付了1亿美元，比过去三年的总和还要多。Cameo上的人才有高尔夫球手杰克·尼克劳斯(每段1000美元)、墨西哥前总统维森特·福克斯(300美元)、还有狗狗巴克利(5美元)。

Cameo, like Uber, is a two-sided market. But most Uber users don't care what car shows up, as long as it is clean, safe and gets them to their destination. On Cameo, the emotional connection between a fan and a star matters. "The price that a market will bear depends on the value being created for a potential customer," says Jill Avery, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied how online influencers price themselves. But "value" is hard to measure when it comes down to emotion.

Cameo和优步一样，也是一个双边市场。不过大多数优步用户并不在乎出现的是哪辆车，只要它干净、安全，能把他们送到目的地就行。而在Cameo上，粉丝和明星之间的情感联系很重要。哈佛商学院教授吉尔·艾弗里曾研究过网红如何给自己定价，他表示：“市场能承受的价格取决于为潜在客户创造的价值。”但是，当涉及到情感时，“价值”就很难衡量了。