????在網絡世界，網站的門類并不重要；真正重要的是，有人創建了一個新的網站，專門用來跟蹤某類網站的每日動態。對于政治新聞類網站來說，Slate公司的“每日報刊摘要”（Today's Papers）（愿其安息）、卓奇網上新聞（Drudge Report）和談話要點備忘錄（Talking Points Memo）已經占據了統治地位。大笑貓（LOLCats）很出名吧？但是如果沒有IcanHazCheezburger，大笑貓什么都不是。談到社交網絡，我們永遠也不能忘記FriendFeed（盡管Facebook于2009年收購了該網站）。

????這便是聚合法則：只要一樣東西足夠流行，一定會有人專門對其資訊進行整合與再消化。

????維尼修斯?文森提便是這樣的人。2009年，他與人合作成立了Yipit網站，該網站的主要業務是聚合團購信息。每天早上，Yipit網站會瀏覽482家團購網站，其中既包括Groupon和LivingSocial等行業大佬，也包括一些名不見經傳的小網站。它會收集所有團購信息，并按照用戶自己定制的列表發送到用戶電子郵箱中。文森提就像是在黑色星期五（指每年11月的第四個星期五，由于這一天是感恩節后開業的第一天，同時人們通常由此開始圣誕節大采購，很多商店都會舉行促銷活動——譯注）之前整晚都在處理一大堆廣告傳單的家伙，只是為了讓用戶在第二天早上能收到“行動指令”。與其他著名的聚合網站相比，他或許已經找到了一種優于同行的全新商業模式。

????最初的Yipit與其他許多創業公司一樣，跟我們現在看到的Yipit完全不同。文森提曾經對金融分析師這份職業抱有幻想，隨后卻發現這一行毫無意義，于是他退出金融行業，成立了自己的公司。靠著以前的積蓄，他花了幾個月的時間學會了編程，并四處承接了一些小項目。說得好聽點，這些項目可以說是Google +與About.me網站的初級形態（其實坦白來講，應該只是誤打誤撞而已。）

????后來，他考慮建立一家名為Yipit的新網站，主要業務是收集紐約市家具店內正在熱賣的各種家具信息。那次創業是一次“災難”——這是文森提的原話（當然，其實我也這么認為）。但這場“災難”后來卻帶來了回報——經濟危機來臨后，文森提將Yipit網站轉變成一家聚合網站，專門收集經濟不景氣時期推出的優惠信息。2010年，Groupon橫空出世，Yipit輕松轉型，轉而收集經濟衰退時期的團購信息。（再也不用凌晨3點鐘起床收集各種不同的優惠信息了）。文森提由此最終確定了自己的業務方向。

????目前，該網站用戶已經達到270，000人（并以每天1，000人的速度增長），并已獲得750萬美元投資。該公司計劃，在兩年內將公司規模由目前的7人擴大到50人。不管眼下是否存在互聯網泡沫，只要對形勢有所了解的人都看得出，這家初創企業的發展勢頭在今年已經是不錯的成績。

????但是本文關注的重點并不是Yipit取得的成功，而是它奇特的商業模式。Yipit的大部分收入都來自于各團購網站的銷售收入，但它也有其他盈利途徑。那就是出售其對其所在行業的客觀分析。

????去年冬天，Yipit開始收到團購網站發來的電子郵件，紛紛詢問Yipit能否協助它們了解這一行業背后的真實情況。文森提解釋道：“結果我們發現與這些團購網站合作的商家很可能也是其它團購網站主要的賣點。團購網站雇有專人每天早上監控其它團購網站，但監控效果并不是很好。事實上，有人一直在為消費者整理這些數據。這個人是誰呢？當然是我們了。”

????還記得吧，文森提曾經在私募股權公司工作過，他意識到，團購行業缺乏的并不是聚合網站，而是分析師。而文森提恰好深諳此道。于是，繞了一大圈，文森提又回到了原點，成為團購行業的“神經中樞”。Yipit博客已經成為分析這個過熱行業的重要來源，甚至能像其他財經新聞記者一樣，對Groupon的S-1文件進行深入分析。在解答“Groupon對小企業是否有害？”這個問題時，美國著名科技博客網站Techcrunch把他列為專家，并引用了他的分析。

????到去年6月份，Yipit開始以專家身份向委托人提供付費服務。此項服務的收入包括：每個月匯總報告的費用是495美元，私人分析員的價格是每個月1，895美元，而Yipit全部原始數據的價格是9，995美元。文森提表示，有數十家網站已經提出分析要求。“這項業務可能永遠無法達到上百萬美元，抱歉，我是說千萬美元的規模。（不過確實能賺到些錢。）”

????當然，他們并不是唯一一家提供該類服務的公司。科技博客網站Inside Facebook對Facebook作為商業平臺的使用情況進行了研究，并按每月230美元至300美元的價格出售研究結果。另外兩家科技博客GigaOm和Business Insider也有自己的調研服務，而且面向更廣泛的科技界受眾。

????文森提表示，實際上，Yipit在獲得額外的600萬美元投資之前，便已經接近盈利了。他們能否擴大業務的規模還是未知數。盡管公司還未開始進行廣告營銷，但目前很可能依然存在許多尚待挖掘的商機。Groupon和它的山寨大軍正因為業務模式單一而陷入困境，但Yipit卻重新整合它們的原材料，形成了一個新的商業模式。這都是“聚合法則”的功勞。

????（翻譯 劉進龍）

????On the Web, a genre isn't truly important until somebody creates a site that obsessively tracks its every update. Political news? Legitimized by Slate's Today's Papers (may it rest in peace), the Drudge Report and Talking Points Memo. LOLCats? Nothing without ICanHazCheezburger. Social networks? Let us never forget FriendFeed (even if Facebook, which bought it in 2009, has.)

????Call it the Law of the Aggregator: If something becomes popular enough, somebody will devotedly regurgitate it.

????Vinicius Vacanti is one of those somebodies. In 2009 he and a partner founded Yipit, a site that aggregates daily deals. Every morning Yipit scans 482 daily deal sites, from the biggies like Groupon and LivingSocial to the small outfits you've never heard of. It collects all those deals and sends you an email with a customized list of them. Vacanti is like the guy who spends the night before Black Friday buried in a mess of circulars so you have your marching orders the next morning. And, in the legacy of all great aggregators, he just might have figured out a better business model than the companies he's aggregating.

????Yipit's origin story is like those of many other startups', which is to say it has nothing to do with the startup as we now know it. After growing disillusioned with the meaninglessness of being a financial analyst, Vacanti dropped out to start his own company. Backed by his savings he spent months teaching himself how to code, peeling off little projects here and there that charitably could be called the precursors to Google+ (GOOG) and About.me (and more honestly would be called roadkill).

????At some point he started thinking of a new site called Yipit that would collect information on what kind of furniture was being sold in New York City furniture stores. This was a "disaster" - Vacanti's words, not mine. (Actually, also mine.) But the disaster paid off - once the recession hit, Vacanti turned Yipit into an aggregator of recession-pegged coupon deals. And then once Groupon took off in 2010, it was an easy shift to becoming an aggregator of recession-era daily deals. (Easy other than waking up at 3 a.m. to collect all the different deals.) Vacanti had finally found his business.

????That business now has 270,000 users (1,000 new ones every day), has raised $7.5 million in funding and plans to expand from its current seven employees to as many as 50 in the next two years. If you're student of this tech bubble that may or may not exist, this will sound about right for a startup in 2011.

????But this piece isn't about Yipit's relative success. It's about a quirk in its business model. Yipit, which makes most of its money from generating sales for the various daily deals sites, is also making money another way. It's selling its objective analysis on the very industry it's a part of.

????Last winter Yipit started getting emails from daily deal sites wondering if Yipit would allow them a peak behind the curtain. "It turns out that all these businesses that run on these daily deal sites are potential leads for all these other daily deals sites," Vacanti explained. "So they were hiring people to monitor all these daily deal sites every morning but they had trouble monitoring them that well. Guess who was organizing all that data already for our consumer side? It was us."

????Vacanti – who, remember, once worked for a private equity firm - realized that the daily deals industry wasn't just lacking an aggregator, it was lacking an analyst. And Vacanti knew how to be an analyst. In coming full circle, he's become the conscience of the daily-deals space. Yipit's blog has become a source for analysis of an overheated industry, treading as deep into Groupon's S-1 as some financial journalists did. TechCrunch cites him as an expert to answer the question, "Is Groupon Bad for Small Business?"

????And as of late June Yipit became an expert-for-hire. It'll cost you $495 per month for a summary report, $1,895 per for a personal analyst call and $9,995 for all of Yipit's raw data. Vacanti says dozens of sites have asked for the analysis. "Never going to be a million - sorry, a 10 million - dollar

????They're not the only specialized site to be doing this, of course. Inside Facebook sells its research into how Facebook is being used as a business platform for $230-$300 a month. And GigaOm and Business Insider have their own research services for a broader tech audience.

????Vacanti says that before Yipit took its extra $6 million in funding it was nearing profitability. It's unclear whether they'll be able to scale their business well - though considering they haven't even started to experiment with advertising, there's a good chance there's some revenue yet undiscovered. But while Groupon and its army of clones are stuck with a monotonous business, Yipit has reassembled their raw material into an entirely new model. Chalk it up to the Law of the Aggregator.