第 1 章：八点四人桌

多边平台业务很难做对，很多都失败了。这不是快速致富的计划。很多人都尝试过使用这种商业模式，结果却看到他们的企业崩溃和烧毁。新企业的失败率很高，无论其哲学基础如何。努力工作和充分利用环境没有捷径。

Opentable is an online restaurant reservation service. The company is a good example to use for understanding multi-sided platforms. They faced an initial barrier because most restaurants didn’t use computers way back when they started around the turn of the millennium. They decided to lease equipment and software to restaurants rather than make the small businesses invest in pricey equipment.

Next, they faced a classic chicken-and-egg problem. They had trouble attracting restaurants and their customers to the website. Neither side saw any value in the site without the other side present. Restaurants didn’t want to use the service if they couldn’t reach any customers by doing so. Customers had no reason to use the site if there weren’t any restaurants participating. Opentable tackled this problem by narrowing their focus to four cities. They realized the only way they could achieve critical mass was by focusing in depth in a narrow geographical region. They created a standalone service that made the platform valuable to one side, the restaurants. It worked. They managed to attract enough restaurants in San Francisco that customers were drawn to the site, and things really took off. Then they were able to spread to more cities. They scaled the business by moving to new regions, one at a time.

双边市场的平台竞争 Rochet 和 Tirole (2000) 的论文开创了一种看待媒人业务的新方式。这些新见解帮助我们了解多边平台需要的规则与传统企业使用的规则不同。例如，在旧的做事方式中，免费赠送东西是一件坏事。但是对于平台来说，免费赠品很好，因为赠送东西的做法可以帮助发展网络。

The matchmaker business model is older than you’d think. In fact, platform businesses have been around for thousands of years, but they have often been misunderstood and mismanaged.

单面平台包括老式商店。在这个模型中，商店批发，顾客从商店购买。客户和批发商从不互动。双边平台是双方互动和交易的场所。多边平台的例子包括购物中心、计算机操作系统（它们是应用程序开发人员和用户之间的中介）、杂志和不少网站。

任何通过连接不同类型的客户和客户来创造价值的渠道都是媒人。多边企业通常不得不使用非传统的、违反直觉的策略来赚钱和蓬勃发展。牵线搭桥业务的一个迹象是，当交易的一方得到一笔划算的交易时，例如免费的东西或便宜的好杂志。另一方支付参与费用。在 Opentable 上，餐厅需要付费才能上架，而客户可以预订而无需支付任何额外费用。

Chapter 2: The “Grab All the Eyeballs” Fallacy

Fifteen years ago, the accepted wisdom was that internet businesses needed eyeballs most of all. High numbers of visitors should result in high numbers of sales. But this isn’t true. Network effects turn out to be way more complicated than all that.

直接网络效应是关键。网络上的人越多，网络对他们的价值就越大；这也被称为 正的直接网络外部性.

When videotape players were developed for the home market, two competing standards emerged: VHS and Betamax. At one time, it was difficult to predict which of these formats would capture market dominance. VHS, however, had the advantage of an early lead. Once one standard became more popular, more producers were creating content for it. This made it even more popular, eventually leaving poor Betamax in the dust. Sometimes superior technology loses out because of the network effect. There’s a big advantage in being first.

The reality isn’t this simple. Both VHS and Betamax worked to get content providers and consumers. VHS was more successful attracting them. They had a better two-sided strategy. The video player wars got economists to look at network effects which cast doubt on first mover advantage and winner takes all theories. These theories might be true sometimes, but they aren’t universal truths.

网络效应比任何人意识到的都要普遍。事实证明，大多数人使用多个平台。这称为多宿主。例如，消费者可能拥有不止一张信用卡，而供应商可能接受不止一张信用卡。这显然为竞争创造了空间。如果用户是多宿主，则用户忠诚度可能会受到打击。

网络效应是复杂的。它们可以是正的也可以是负的，用户数量并不是唯一的重要变量。必须有足够的 可取的 互动双方的参与者。当一个平台对一个群体的价值受到不同群体参与人数的影响时，就会产生间接网络效应。

Matchmaking firms have distinctive pricing strategies. Usually, traditional businesses don’t sell for less than cost, although there are some exceptions. This isn’t always the case with matchmakers. They have to balance (at least) two sides of transactions, and they have to keep the various parties happy. Demand is interdependent.

Free and negative prices are permanent features of such platforms and not gimmicks. This approach isn’t automatically the right strategy. It depends on the situation. The matchmaking model isn’t for some businesses, but it’s natural for others.

第 3 章：涡轮增压

技术推动媒人革命。它使媒人能够降低成本、提高速度、提高质量并扩大其影响范围。有六种技术是平台增长的最大驱动力：

由于所有这些技术，世界各地的媒人都可以接触到庞大的人口和市场。

这些技术正在不断发展和迅速变化。它们支持支持其他平台的平台，就像互联网服务提供商 (ISP) 和操作系统所做的那样。操作系统是提供标准化环境的多边平台，可以在其中开发应用程序并且用户可以尽情玩耍。

手机和类似设备的移动操作系统是托管其他平台的平台；它们被称为基础多边平台。移动操作系统和相关设备正在拆除世界之间的墙。

曾经有两个世界：虚拟的互联网世界和真实的实体世界。这两个世界开始融合为一个。如今，你可以在街上被你刚刚用手机叫到的优步司机碾过。

Revolution has an inherent destructive side. You’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Platform businesses have certainly disrupted many traditional industries. They are disruptive because they found a better way to do things. Evans describes the process as “creative destruction.”

第 4 章：摩擦力战斗机

Platforms create value by reducing friction. The better they reduce friction, the more value they provide, the greater their success. But though reduction of friction is necessary for platform businesses, it’s no guarantee of success.

In order to effect transactions, every side must be satisfied. The customer will not buy if the price is too high, nor the seller sell if it’s too low. Everyone needs to get a slice of the value pie. Multi-sided businesses have to slice the pie up among more parties. It’s important to have a value pie that’s big enough for everyone to share. It must be worthwhile for all the parties to participate.

增加价值饼的一种方法是减少摩擦。阿里巴巴减少了人们在与中国公司打交道时遇到的摩擦。信任是个大问题。并非所有公司都处于上升期。人们无法知道他们是否应该信任中国公司来履行他们的协议。阿里巴巴开发了国际诚信通对商家进行身份验证。他们最终还设计了许多其他方法，以提高中国公司与其全球客户之间的信任度。阿里巴巴之所以成功，是因为他们解决并减少了关键摩擦。

As the Chinese economy exploded in the aughts, traditional businesses struggled to keep up with demand. There were barriers to creating more brick-and-mortar stores. Online stores weren’t trusted for transactions. Then Alibaba invented Alipay. In this system, the consumer pays at the point of purchase. Alipay doesn’t release the funds to the producer until they either get feedback from the purchaser about the transaction, or until enough time has passed without complaint to assume the customer was satisfied. This, coupled with innovations in merchandise delivery greatly improved trust on both sides of the transaction. Friction was reduced.

This comes with a common-sense caveat. Just because it worked for Alibaba doesn’t mean that it is magic and it will work for everyone just by waving a wand. For example, lots of B2B platforms crashed and burned in 2001 dotcom bust.

The reason these businesses failed is that they weren’t fixing big problems for their constituents. The frictions that existed in China weren’t there in the West. In the U.S., there were many good networks to use offline. People could use faxes, go to trade shows, etc. The friction the businesses were trying to reduce weren’t causing big problems to begin with. In the U.S., frictions are more about bureaucracy: keeping records, invoicing, etc. Many platforms that reduced the right frictions survived the 2001 dotcom bust and went on to continued success.

第 5 章：点燃或失败

Securing critical mass is a classic chicken-and-egg problem. A very hard problem. Both sides are needed in order for a platform to start, but users won’t want to join until there’s something there. No one, for example, would sign up on a dating site that didn’t have other people on it. There have to be enough users for users to want to join.

YouTube 尝试了许多不同的方法来超越这个阶段，包括创建自己的视频。真正帮助 YouTube 起飞的是他们添加了允许人们在其他平台上嵌入视频链接的功能。他们继续添加各种好的功能。他们花了一段时间才决定通过 YouTube 获利。他们首先努力增加市场两侧的用户。

这 临界质量前沿模型 展示了如何达到临界质量。想象一下，如果你愿意，你的标准笛卡尔 XY 图。在这种情况下，轴被标记为 A类客户 和 B类客户.有一条曲线显示需要有多少两种类型的客户才能达到临界质量。这条曲线是临界质量边界。曲线左侧和下方是内爆区（用户太少）。右上方是生长区。

解决鸡与蛋问题的点火策略主要有以下三种类型：

补充这些策略的策略：

It’s crucial to start with the right model, as it’s a decision with long-term repercussions. Platforms should stick with the pricing strategy they used when they were reaching critical mass.

第6章：长途

It’s a challenge to decide how to set prices for platform products and services. It’s a balancing act to determine the cost for both sides of a transaction. The pricing structure of a platform is determined by which sides are more sensitive to prices and which sides have more power over the interaction. The more valuable sides get a better deal. In the case of trucking fleets and gas stations, the trucking fleet has almost complete power over the transaction. The fleet can decide if the transaction is going to take place, so the pricing structure is largely in their favor.

当交易只有一个买方和一个卖方且没有中间商时，将使用单边定价。产品的价格是生产成本和市场承受能力的综合结果。

Multi-platform pricing is much more complex, as there is the question of what price each player in the transaction will pay. It’s a real balancing act. The price also has to be adjusted to maximize network effects. It becomes a matter of striking a relative price between the parties.

许多平台都有补贴方面和资金方面。价值较低的一面会激励价值较高的一面。一方支付另一方的费用。例如，在招聘网站上，通常准员工可以免费发布简历，而准雇主必须付费才能发布招聘广告。

When a platform becomes vast and desirable, it’s time to monetize it. Firms may decide to do this by charging usage or access fees. Fees should be placed on the group that offers the least value to indirect network effects. Try to get them coming and going; require participants to pay to get into the system and to pay to do the deal.

永远，永远不要忽视每一方的价格敏感性。哪一方需要什么，他们需要多少？哪一组决定是否会发生交互？随着时间的推移不断监控成本。根据需要进行调整和重新平衡。

在竞争激烈的环境中，您可以在设置费率时决定复制其他人的做法。当人们可以从您的竞争对手那里获得更便宜的东西时，您不太可能让他们支付额外费用。节省自己的精力并复制成功的平台。

第7章：城墙外

平台需要健康的生态系统。要取得成功，多边平台需要创建一个健康的外部生态系统。平台的价值与生态系统直接相关。生态系统由对平台价值产生积极或消极影响的所有实体组成。由于生态系统的重要性，与单边公司相比，平台对客户体验的控制要少得多。然而，随着权力的丧失，好处也随之而来。通过适当的激励，平台可以控制合作伙伴并让生态系统提供通常存在于公司内部的一整套服务。

一些公司开始时是单方面的，一段时间后才能起床并开始。然而，并非所有人都能做到这一点。一些公司想方设法混合单方面和双方面业务的元素。例如，微软拥有 Windows 作为平台，但它也开发自己的应用程序，与平台上的其他开发人员竞争。亚马逊与此类似，但它充当混合经销商平台。一侧连接买家和卖家，而另一侧进行转售。

Pioneers — those starting platforms so unique they can’t just copy what the last guy did — have to decide right from the get-go how many sides they want. They should figure out the order in which they’ll roll out their platform to each side. They don’t have to nail down every detail, but they should have some idea of the general framework of their platform structure.

平台边的选择很复杂。添加边可以产生更多的网络效应。添加边也可能导致混乱的商业模式产生不必要的复杂性和噪音。可能有太多的利益来安抚他们。

It’s important to nurture a healthy infrastructure.

Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile technology both illustrate the choice between multi-sided platforms very well. Because they wanted to have strict control over quality, Apple made the iPhone so it would only run proprietary apps. They kept absolutely everything in-house that they could, essentially turning it into a single-sided platform. Google went the other way. They had many partners when they developed Android. They used a certification program to keep Android and its apps standardized. Users wanted third-party apps. Apple saw the way the wind blew and eventually opened up to app developers. Both companies ended up creating thriving ecosystems around app development, although Apple ultimately saw greater success due to different internal structure.

第 8 章：室内设计

Southdale Center was the first modern indoor shopping mall. Located in Edina, Minnesota, it opened in 1956. Since then, mall developers have continued to learn how to maximize value to a mall’s stores, customers and owners.

In an auction, you want lots of buyers to drive up the price. This is an example of a thick market. Good platforms have thick markets. eBay has benefitted greatly from a thick market created through network effects. Stock markets can’t always achieve a thick market for each and every equity, so they rely on market makers to adjust the market on either side as needed.

Platforms don’t need to be as large as eBay or the stock exchange to be successful. Platform size can be large or small. Many platforms use screening devices to connect to a small market, making their platform more or less exclusive. This creates a thick market for a small group. Creating a specialized ecosystem is a good way to target specific markets. Some platforms also want to control size to limit competition and congestion.

平台的设计也应该有利于良好的匹配。他们这样做的一种方法是设计帮助相关方互动的标准。每个人都应该知道规则并有相同的期望。示例包括销售点的 VISA 标志等信号设备、搜索算法和搜索工具。

Platforms should also be designed to make matches with people that don’t want to be matched, but it still manages to make them happy. For example, media businesses give users good content at or below cost. In return for this cheap content, users must deal with a barrage of ads, but it is usually still worth it.

购物中心布局是平台设计的一个很好的例子。购物中心有固定租户，每个租户都吸引自己的客户。这增加了人流量并创造了一个庞大的市场。他们也有一堆非主播商店。顾客有多种商店可供选择。有面向讨价还价购物者和那些瞄准高端市场的购物中心。商店的类型向所需的观众发出信号：来店。商场的实体布局也鼓励购物。商店分布在整个商场，自动扶梯被放置在奇怪的位置，以增加步行和创造更多的互动。

第 9 章：造假者和欺诈者

Facebook 规范用户行为。它们要求用户通过真实姓名来识别自己。绝不容忍色情和欺凌。努力执行这些政策已经形成了一个公民社会环境。人们在网站上相互交流感到安全。 Facebook 可能通过维持一定水平的标准来防止该网站被巨魔侵占。

If people aren’t rewarded for providing a benefit or if they aren’t punished for causing harm, it results in what economists call an 外部性. An externality is a consequence that affects third parties, whether for good or for bad. An example of an externality is the pollution from a car’s exhaust. The pollution is an undesired side product, in this case one that might negatively affect the health of the people in the neighborhood the car drives through. Negative externalities are magnified by network effects. Negative externalities can overwhelm a platform and discourage users, starting a death spiral that will doom the platform.

People can be bad. People can be opportunistic. People can be very naughty indeed. When they act like this and engage in antisocial behavior, it reduces the value of the platform. There is strong financial incentive to police bad behavior. Negative behavioral externalities reduce the platform’s value and they push good participants away.

社区需要有规则，需要有人来执行。平台必须使用治理来培育积极的行为外部性并尽量减少消极的外部性。
有很多方法可以抵御负外部性。平台能够阻止低质量的进入者加入。这就是史蒂夫乔布斯想让应用程序开发对外人保持封闭的原因。平台可以在结构上针对高标准的社会行为进行设计。当问题确实出现时，它们可以迅速得到解决。与必须穿过官僚墙的政府不同，平台在处理问题时可以非常迅速地采取行动。

掌握这一点至关重要。有时可能需要付出很多努力。有帮助的工具。不良行为的负面后果会减少不良行为。评级系统很有用；其他用户可能不想与得分低的用户打交道。评级可以鼓励人们行为举止，遵守规则，举止文明。流放是另一个有用的工具；将不法分子赶出环境并禁止他们进入平台。平台不应容忍反社会行为。

第10章：嘶嘶声或嘶嘶声

Pioneers can’t follow someone else’s blueprint to success. They have no precedents to follow. There is, however, a checklist:

知道如何预测一个平台会成功还是失败对于新平台的开拓者和投资者来说都是有用的。

Platform startups exist on borrowed time. If a platform grows slowly and can’t reach critical mass in a few years, it is likely doomed. Generally, platforms should succeed within the first few years of their existence, if they’re ever going to be a success. When a platform can’t get any traction with anyone at all, that’s a bad sign. It’s time to take action.

What if growth is not fast enough? This must be monitored closely. At some point, there should be a steep acceleration in growth. Other signs a platform is in trouble is if it can’t get the even most adventurous early adopters, or if it fails to get any marquee customers.

当大多数参与者离开或投资资金枯竭时，平台就会死亡。
The history of the mobile payment system Apple Pay is used to illustrate the ideas introduced in this book. Apple Pay has yet to take off, no doubt in part because it’s only available to owners of the iPhone 6. When they launched, few vendors had the chip reading technology required to use the best features of Apple Pay. This was a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Apple Pay tried to go broad and shallow and cover the entire company. This resulted in many thin and fragmented markets.

相反，星巴克有一个手机应用程序。 2011 年，他们实施了一款在星巴克门店使用的移动应用程序。商店在充足的时间为发布配备了新的阅读器。该应用程序直观且易于使用。星巴克已经证明，在适当的条件下，移动支付应用程序可以取得成功。

Apple Pay 仍然可以解决它的问题。随着环境的融合，他们拥有异常充足的资源来度过艰难的早年。

第11章：转移资金

手机彻底改变了肯尼亚的货币流动，使大多数人更容易汇款。它们帮助在银行服务方面面临障碍的人们减轻了一定程度的压力。 M-PESA 的创建是一个很好的例子，说明尽管面临许多挑战，平台仍能取得成功。

许多肯尼亚人为了工作而离开家人。他们通过一个移动缓慢且充满信任问题的汇款系统将钱汇回家。这是很多摩擦的根源。沃达丰旨在通过引入一种涉及 SMS 消息的汇款系统来解决这种摩擦。他们注意到许多肯尼亚人已经拥有手机，因此他们可以开发一些几乎不需要额外技术要求的东西。消费者已经拥有参与服务所需的技术。

The most popular cell phone service provider was a mobile operator named Safaricom. Vodafone worked with Safaricom to develop a money platform for phones. They called it M-PESA. This solved big problems for people who couldn’t afford bank accounts. They could pay their bills. They could get birthday money from Uncle Charlie who lives in a distant village. They could finally engage in normal modern commerce.

由于先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题，很难启动 M-PESA。沃达丰必须在交易双方都获得足够的用户才能使系统正常工作。他们不得不招募商店作为他们的代理人，并为这项服务注册人员。

They made it cheaper to send money to others who were already signed up for the service. This encouraged money senders to convince the money receivers to join the service. They leveraged Safaricom’s existing network of retail dealers. When Vodafone launched their new platform, they had people on all sides of the platform already on board. They also did some traditional advertising. They were successful. Over time, they added more services. All these strategies helped M-PESA expand into a multi-sided business (including financial services and merchant platforms) and eliminated huge frictions in an impoverished country. Studies show that M-PESA increases household liquidity and helps Kenyan families become more economically resilient.

移动货币平台在其他非洲国家有所帮助，在其他地方还有更多人可以通过这项服务获得帮助。

第12章：失踪

Platforms are transforming the world of retail. The internet and smartphones have had big impacts. Despite a slight increase in spending at brick and mortar stores, many shops are shutting down or greatly cutting back on space. People do still leave the house to shop sometimes, but when they do they don’t walk around as much as they used to and they visit fewer shops. Shoppers are doing research and browsing on online platforms, leading to much less time spent in-store. Traditional retail depends on customers spending time moseying around and making impulse purchases.

平台在三个浪潮中颠覆了实体店：

传统企业可以学习新方法或为失败做好准备。改变是不可避免的；选择是跟随它还是被扫除。

It’s a steep curve. Everything is changing at once: a new way of doing things, a completely different pricing model, unfamiliar and non-replicable network effects and new competitors who aren’t limited by geographic region. If a company can’t compete in the new environment, they must give serious thought to shutting down shop, liquidating their assets and going out of business.

Brick and mortar isn’t going away. People still like to try on clothes and look at things before they buy them. Even millennials have a strong preference for retails stores when it comes to checking out the merchandise. Successful retailers have brick-and-mortar as one of the sides of their platform.

为了在这种颠覆中生存下来，现有公司有以下三种选择：

百视达未能对零售业的这种转变采取任何措施。在 Netflix 推出之前，他们有机会与 Netflix 合作，但 Blockbuster 拒绝了他们的想法。他们拥有成功所需的能力和人脉。他们本可以作为视频流媒体服务做得很好，但他们否认了革命，其余的都是历史。重磅炸弹。

改变是双向的。正如一些商店拥有自己的网站和在线商店一样，一些在线零售商也转向实体店。

这些变化仍在现实世界中发生。需要很长时间才能看到企业在世界上的最终结果平台。

第13章：比你想象的还要慢

以 Airbnb 为代表的共享经济完全是关于多边平台的。

Matchmaking — making markets — has been going on forever. Everything old is new again. What’s different now is that there is fancy technology. IT has “turbocharged” matchmaking businesses, making them more efficient than ever before.

Have matchmakers reached their final form or will they evolve further? History suggests nothing really ends, and new technology does not bring apocalypse. Rapid change, certainly, but not apocalypse. The matchmakers that exist today won’t be the last ones to be significant.

随着媒人迅速扩张并取代传统公司，涡轮增压媒人将掀起行业变革浪潮。媒人在全球经济中变得越来越重要。他们将继续带来巨大的变化。

To reiterate, many of today’s matchmakers are just combining old ideas with new technology. The telegraph was a messaging service, village matchmakers used to make dates, and the sharing economy has been around forever. Now we have WhatsApp, eHarmony and Airbnb instead.

Indirect network effects drive multi-sided platforms. Technological advances magnify those network effects, which is why turbocharged matchmakers have the power to disrupt so many industries. Because we’re in the thick of it, our view of these big changes in industry and in the economy is distorted. Actually, it’s not as big of a deal as you might think. The development of the telegraph, or that of the ancient agora, were probably more significant in the long run than the significance of the internet.

This is not the end of history. Don’t for a moment presume that all the cool stuff has already been invented.

尽管变化有时会以惊人的速度发生，但现在发生的一切都是优先的。过去的技术突破对其社会产生了类似的影响。变化和破坏的模式大致相似。

尽管有这些媒人，但新平台仍有很大的空间。任何希望成为这个美丽新世界的一部分的人都应该了解平台是如何发展和运作的。

Multi-sided platforms are important players in today’s economy, and their influence is only going to continue to grow. They have become vital in the developed world. They help drive progress in underdeveloped economies. Like other innovations before them, matchmaking multi-sided platforms are causing vast amounts of creative destruction. Everything is changing, and will continue to change into the foreseeable future.