Could Google Fix Detroit?
无知是什么意思Google能够拯救底特律吗？
By Jeff Jarvis
韩小冰翻译
February 9, 2009
报考类别
集合名词
If Google (GOOG) ran a car company, what would it look like? What lessons of Google's singular success in the Internet age might apply to remaking this, among other failing industries? Would the Googlemobile be the product of stealth and crecy or openness and collaboration? Could Detroit relea cars in beta? Could cars be ad-supported and free? Is there any hope for an industry that traffics in atoms instead of digits? Would a Googley car company even make cars?
如果 Google（GOOG）运营一家汽车公司，它会怎么样？在其他陷入困境的行业里，Google在互联网时代的与众不同的成功模式可以用来重整旗鼓吗？Google手机，会是隐蔽地秘密开发的产品，抑或开放的合作产品？底特律会发布测试版的汽车产品吗？汽车可能是持续广告投入支持还是完全免费的产品？我们会有这样的期待吗-汽车产业基于数字技术而不是实体技术？一家带有Google印记的汽车公司甚至会制造汽车吗？
A few years ago, it might have been absurd to look to Google for ideas about the auto industry. But not now. American automakers are in crisis. General Motors (GM) and Chrysler needed a $13 billion bailout from the federal government in December to keep them out of bankruptcy, and, with a new Administration in Washington, the Big Three are likely to head back to the well for billions more. They're suffering from more than the economic crisis. The huge declines in sales reflect a fundamental disconnect between drivers and Detroit. It's time for a radical rethinking of the way U.S. automakers do business. 元旦英语
几年前，期待Google进军汽车业是个荒谬透顶的想法，但是现在情况大不一样。美国汽车
制造商深陷危机。12月，通用汽车和克莱斯勒为了避免破产的厄运，需要美国联邦政府130亿美元的紧急援助，此外，伴随着新总统入主华盛顿，三大汽车公司希望获得数十亿美元的源源不断的额外援助。它们正在饱受的经济之外的其他危机。汽车销量的急剧下滑反映出的是汽车买主和底特律制造商之间伤及基础的互不信任。到了彻底地重新思考美国汽车制造商生意模式的时候了。
clearca
I sat in Detroit some time ago and suggested heresy: I urged the car people to open up their design process and make it both transparent and collaborative. Car companies have no good way to listen to customers' ideas. If they had opened up, years before, I would have been among the legions who'd have gladly told them to invest 39 cents for a plug-in car radio so we could connect our iPods. Every time I try to listen to my music or podcasts in the car via various kludges—FM transmitters that can't transmit to a radio an inch away and castte-tape gizmos—I cur car companies and their suppliers. At least let us help design the radios you install, I urged.
haa很久以前，我曾经在底特律开会，并且提出了与众不同的建议：我极力主张汽车从业者开
放汽车设计的过程，让设计过程变得透明、可共同参与。汽车公司没有好办法聆听消费者的想法。如果他们数年之前就开放设计过程，我可能早已经和一群有类似要求的同仁提出这样的建议： 另外付出39美分，买一个可插入汽车音响的小设备，这样我们就可以连上我们的 iPod。每一次我试着听音乐或者iPod的其他内容时，都不得不借助汽车里攒在一起的各种设备，调频收音机和卡带播放器是如此难用，以至于我常常对汽车厂商的他们的零部件供应商破口大骂。我一再坚持，至少要允许汽车用户们帮助设计汽车里配备的无线电系统。
THE BIG THREE DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT
the carnaby三大汽车厂商对此充耳不闻
My suggestion was sacrilegious becau automakers have long been cretive about design. Design and surpri, they think, are their special sauce. That's why they cloak new models like classified weapons, tting off games of cat-and-car with photographers who try to scoop the crets. Apart from the most fanatical car fan, do the rest of us still care? The excitement I remember about a new year's cars—like a new ason's TV show
s—is gone. Cars have lost their ason. They rarely engender excitement or passion. An Oldsmobile is no Apple (AAPL) iPhone, after all. How could a car company again win our affection for its products and brands? By opening up, by making the process of producing cars transparent so it could involve customers, by turning out cars customers want becau they had a chance to say what they want. boobs是什么意思
因为汽车制造商长期以来对于设计过程是极其保密的，所以我的提议听起来像是犯了他们的大忌。他们认为，特殊设计和意外惊喜，是他们特别的调味料。这就是为什么他们把新车型用布蒙上，像隐藏某种秘密武器一样，这样做的目的是和希望一探新车究竟的摄影师们玩猫捉老鼠的游戏。除了最狂热的汽车粉丝之外，其他消费者会关心新车型吗？在我记忆中，希望对新车型一睹为快的兴奋早已烟消云散，就像对于新一季的电视连续剧一样百无聊赖。新车型早已经是明日黄花，已很难带来消费者的兴奋和热情。老款的手机毕竟不是苹果的 iPhone。一家汽车公司如何会再次用它的产品和品牌赢得消费者的垂青？答案是借助设计过程的开放，将汽车的生产过程透明化，使得消费者可以参与其中，同时倾听用户的需求，因为消费者有机会来说出他们想要的。
icax
Chrysler has solicited customers' ideas (in a clod forum that prevents them from commenting on each others' suggestions) and created a customer advisory board of 5,000 lected drivers. The problem with the efforts is that they don't allow customers to affect the product openly. An idea prented to Ford Motor via e-mail or to Mini in its popular online community might influence a decision that will come off the line in a few years. But we'd never know it. Indeed, the preliminary attempts at interactivity em aimed at keeping the customer from doing harm. This is interactivity as defined by a children's muum: Here are the buttons you may push without breaking anything; knock yourlf out, kids. But just as companies should hand over their brands to customers, so should they hand over their products. Let the customers make the cars.
克莱斯勒曾经征求过消费者的建议（在一个封闭性的论坛中，防止消费者彼此之间交换意见）而且产生了所谓的客户建议给董事会，这些建议来自挑选过的5000名消费者。这些努力结果中存在的问题是，克莱斯勒根本不允许消费者公开地对其产品作出评论。在深受消费者欢迎的在线论坛里，某个通过电子邮件展示给福特汽车或者宝马迷你的创意，很有可能会影响公司的决策，而该决策可能在多年以后才会发挥效用。可是我们可能永远都不知
道这个好创意。的确，这些互动过程中产生的初步尝试看起来目的仅是使得消费者远离损害。这种互动就像一个儿童博物馆：这里有一些按钮，你按了也不会打破任何东西，孩子，自己试一下。但是，正如汽车公司应该把自己的品牌交给客户评判一样，汽车公司也应该把产品交给客户评价。让客户来决定汽车的款式。
AMENESS IN AN AGE OF EXPRESSION
同声相应，同气相求
That if just one model from one brand were opened up to collaborative design? I don't suggest that design should be a democracy. But shouldn't design at least be a conversation? Designers can put their ideas on the Web. Customers can make suggestions and discuss them. Designers can take the best ideas and adapt them, giving credit where it is due. I don't imagine customers would collaborate on transmission design—though a few might have good suggestions if given a chance. But they would have a lot to contribute on the pasnger compartment, the look of the car, the features, and the options. They could even get involved in economic decisions: Would you be willin
g to give up power windows if it got you a lower price or a nicer radio? This collaboration would invest customers in the product. It would build excitement. It would get the product talked about on the Web and linked to and boost its popularity in Google arches. The approach could change the relationship of customers to the brand and that would change the brand itlf. Imagine that, the collaborative community car: our car.
