2. 外语
  3. Eight years later, Facebook is one of the hottest companies in the world. On February 1 st the social network announced plans fo

Eight years later, Facebook is one of the hottest companies in the world. On February 1 st the social network announced plans fo

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问题     Eight years later, Facebook is one of the hottest companies in the world. On February 1 st the social network announced plans for an initial public offering (IPO) that could value it at between $75 billion and $ 100 billion. This is extraordinary. Investors believe that a start-up run by a cocky 27-year-old is more valuable than Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft maker. Are they nuts?
    Not necessarily. Facebook could soon boast one billion users. Last year it generated $3.7 billion in revenue and $1 billion in net profits. That is nowhere near enough to justify its price tag. But there are reasons to bet Facebook will justify the hype, for it has found a new way to harness a prehistoric instinct. People love to socialise, and Facebook makes it easier. The shy become more outgoing online. The young, the mobile and the busy find that Facebook is an efficient way of staying in touch. You can do it via laptop or smartphone, while lying in bed, waiting for a bus or pretending to work. You can look up old friends, make new ones, share photos, arrange parties and tell each other what you thought of the latest George Clooney film.
    As more people join Facebook, its appeal grows. Those who sign up have access to a wider circle. Those who don’t can feel excluded. This powerful feedback loop has already made Facebook the biggest social-networking site in many countries. It accounts for one in seven minutes spent online worldwide. Its growth may be slowing in some rich countries—unsurprisingly, given how enormous it already is. But it is still growing fast in big emerging markets such as Brazil and India.
    A $100 billion price tag would hardly be cheap, but other tech giants are worth more: Google’s market capitalisation is $190 billion, Microsoft’s $250 billion and Apple’s $425 billion. And the commercial possibilities are immense, for three reasons.
    First, Facebook knows a staggering amount about its users. It is also constantly devising ways to find out more. The company mines users’ data to work out what they like and then hits their eyeballs with spookily well-targeted ads.
    Second, Facebook is the most powerful platform for social marketing. Few sales pitches are as persuasive as a recommendation from a friend, so the billions of interactions on Facebook now influence everything from the music that people buy to the politicians they vote for. Companies, like teenagers, are discovering that if they are not on Facebook, they are left out. Social commerce is still in its infancy, but a study by Booz & Company reckons that $5 billion-worth of goods were sold in this way last year.
    Finally, Facebook is becoming the world’s de facto online passport. Since so many people have a Facebook account under their real name, other companies are starting to use a Facebook login as a means of identifying people online. It has even created its own online currency, the Facebook Credit.
    That is the case for Facebullishness. But there are also two sets of reasons to worry. The first is the managerial challenge of jumping from start-up to giant. Facebook has only 3,200 employees, many of whom will now become paper millionaires. The prospect of having to motivate VIP employees--Silicon Valley shorthand for workers "vesting in peace"—may explain why Mr. Zuckerberg delayed a flotation so long. With the billions of dollars that the IPO will bring in, the firm will add more people and services. It has already rolled out an e-mail service and persuaded millions of other websites to add buttons and links that enable Facebook users to share material. It is bound to add an online-search function that will heat up its battle with Google, which is including information from its Google+ social network in its own search results.
    Google has made the jump from popularity to profitability. For all its talk of new revenue streams, Facebook is still dangerously dependent on display ads. And there is a tension between attracting users and squeezing money out of them. Facebook’s greatest asset is the information that its users willingly surrender to it. Turning such data into cash, however, will inevitably raise privacy concerns. Most users don’t realise how much Facebook knows, about them. If they start to feel that it is abusing their trust, they will clam up and log out.
    This is where the other set of worries emerges—and these should concern more than just investors. America’s Federal Trade Commission has already forced Facebook to submit to a biennial external audit of its privacy policy and procedures. It would be better if Facebook, Google and other web giants switched their default settings from "opt-out" to "opt-in" (so that users had to give permission for the companies to use their data).
                                              From The Economist, February 4, 2012
What’s the intention of the author by comparing the price tag of facebook and that of Microsoft and the like?
选项 A、To exemplify that facebook has someone to follow suits.
B、To demonstrate that facebook has its potential.
C、To predict a more promising future than its predecessor.
D、To show that facebook has already been outshined by its peers.
答案B
解析 本题为推断题。将脸谱网的上市估价和微软、苹果等商业巨头比，作者是出于什么目的?同样，我们要学会在上下文中找到答案。这里其实是有逻辑关系的。前文是，A $100 billion price tag would hardly be cheap，but other tech giants are worth more(虽然1000亿美元的估价不算低了，但是其他科技口头的市值更高)，后文是And the commercial possibilities are immense(脸谱网的商业潜力是巨大的)。因此，作者实际上是想说，不要以为目前准备上市的脸谱网已经达到巅峰状态了，比较一下其他同行业的商业巨头吧，作为上市有段时间的老手，它们当前的状态只有更好，因此，年轻的正准备上市的脸谱网，以后的前途是无量的。所以正确答案是B，展现脸谱网的无限潜力。
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