“
头条？没错，就是那个我们看新闻的今日头条。前些天登上了经济学人的头条，这是怎么回事呢？
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Dancing to their own tune
随着自己的节奏起舞
A Chinese news app is making headlines
一款中国新闻APP上了头条
【1】WHEN rumours swirled in August that Baidu, a Chinese online-search giant, was buying Toutiao, the scrappy news-aggregation platform reportedly quipped in response that reports had mistaken the buyer for the seller. The firm is proud with good reason. Toutiao’s growth since its launch in 2012 has been stellar: it says it has already drawn 700m users to the personalised newsfeeds on its smartphone app. Its valuation has shot up, to $22bn in its latest funding round.
rumour：[ˈru:mə(r)] n.流言；传闻，谣言
swirl：[swɜ:rl] v.旋转，打旋；眩晕；盘绕
scrappy：[ˈskræpi] adj.混乱的；散乱的
aggregation：[ˌæɡrɪ'ɡeɪʃn] n.聚集；集结；集成
quip：[kwɪp] v.说俏皮话；托辞 n.妙语；讽刺
stellar：['stelər] adj.星的；恒星的；优秀的；精彩的
newsfeed：[njuːz'fiːd] 新闻推送；新闻传送干路；新闻供应
8月有传言称，中国在线搜索引擎百度将收购新闻聚合平台今日头条。好胜的头条作出了讥讽的回应：传言把买家和卖家弄反了。头条的这种骄傲是有根据的。自2012年成立以来，今日头条的增长速度惊人。据称，已有7亿用户订阅了头条app的个性化新闻推送。最近的一轮融资后，其估值已经高达220亿美元。
［2］Toutiao’s parent company, Bytedance, is definitely a buyer now. This month it snapped up Musical.ly, a lip-syncing video platform that has captivated American teens, for a reported $1bn. It looks like a good match. Musical.ly, based in Shanghai, is the first Chinese firm to build an app that has been so admired in the West; Bytedance, which has developed sophisticated artificial-intelligence (AI) technology to customiseToutiao’s newsfeeds, can provide it with winning algorithms.
parent company：母公司，总公司
snap up：抢购，赶紧买下(便宜或心仪之物)
sync：[sɪŋk] n.同时，同步
captivate：[ˈkæptɪveɪt] vt.迷住，迷惑
sophisticated：[səˈfɪstɪkeɪtɪd] adj.复杂的；精致的；富有经验的；深奥微妙的
customise：['kʌstəmaɪz] vt.定制，定做
algorithm：[ˈælgərɪðəm] n.演算法；运算法则；计算程序
今日头条母公司北京字节跳动科技有限公司现在真成了买家。本月，该公司据报道以10亿美元收购了风靡美国青少年的音乐短视频应用Musical.ly。这看起来像是一笔珠联璧合的交易。总部位于上海的Musical.ly是首家开发了一款在西方国家流行的手机应用的中国公司，而字节跳动拥有成熟的定制新闻推送人工智能技术，它可以为Musical.ly提供优秀的算法。
［3］Those algorithms are developed by an army of data scientists working from a vast former aviation museum in Beijing. Bytedance’s boffins showed off their prowess last year with a Toutiao bot that wrote hundreds of widely read short articles during the Rio Olympics. Bytedance’s code also powers four of the six most viewed short- video platforms in China.
vast：[vɑ:st] adj.广阔的；巨大的；大量的；巨额的
aviation：[ˌeɪviˈeɪʃn] n.航空；飞行术，航空学
boffin：[ˈbɑ:fən] n.<英俚>研究员，科学工作者，技术专家
prowess：[ˈpraʊɪs] n.英勇；高超技艺
bot：[bɒt] n.网上机器人；自动程序
在北京一个巨大的前航空博物馆改造的办公室里，大批数据科学家开发出了头条的算法。去年，头条的研发人员曾在里约奥运会期间炫耀了他们的实力，他们用一个头条机器人写出了数百篇广为阅读的短文。字节跳动的代码还为中国六大短视频平台中的四家提供支持。
［4］News was the perfect place for the startup to build its AI muscle. Toutiao sources its content from 4,000 partner sites, from China’s state-owned media titansto its buzziest blogs. Users’ newsfeeds are constantly updated based on what its machines have learnt about reading preferences, from things like taps, time spent on an article and location (where you spend the lunar new year is probably your hometown, for example). Toutiao claims to have a user figured out within 24 hours.
startup：['stɑ:t'ʌp] n.启动；新兴公司（尤指新兴网络公司）
titan：[ˈtaɪtn] n.巨子；巨人；成就非凡的人
buzzy：['bʌzɪ] adj.热闹的；有趣的；时尚的
新闻是这家创业公司增强其人工智能实力的最佳领域。头条从大到中国的官方媒体巨头，小到人气博客等在内的4000家合作伙伴网站抓取内容。头条基于机器算法对用户阅读偏好的了解不断为用户更新新闻推送，比如通过了解读者常用输入、查看一篇文章花费的时间和用户的地理位置（比如农历新年时，你很可能会在家乡）。头条声称能够在24小时内了解用户的偏好。
［5］Its 120m daily readers spend an average of 74 minutes a day on the app—more than almost any other big social platform in or outside China, including Facebook and even WeChat, whose devotees use it for an average of 66 minutes. Half of that time is spent watching videos, many self-published through 800,000 accounts run by everyone from Shanghai celebrities to Henan pig-raisers. One is Brother Kun, who posts videos and articles about plant-related things like caring for your bonsai. He has 360,000 followers and earns over 10,000 yuan ($1,500) a month from the platform under a deal in which Toutiao shares advertising revenue with content- creators (paid content is still in its infancy in China).
devotee：[ˌdevəˈti:] n.信徒；皈依者；热爱者，迷恋者
celebrity：[səˈlebrəti] n.名流；名声；名人，知名人士
bonsai：[ˈbɒnsaɪ] n.<日>盆景
infancy：[ˈɪnfənsi] n.婴儿期，幼年时代；初期
头条的1.2亿用户平均每天使用头条app74分钟——超过了包括Facebook和微信在内（微信的用户平均使用时间为66分钟）的大多数国内外大型社交平台。其中一半的时间是观看视频。很多个人上传的视频来自80多万个账号，大到上海的名人，小到河南的养猪户。比如发植物相关的视频和文章、教你养护盆栽的头条号Brother Kun，有36万订阅用户，月入过万。他与头条签订了广告收入分成协议（在中国市场，付费内容仍然处于萌芽期）。
［6］Some scoff at Toutiao’s sometimes tawdry machine-generated mix; a Hong Kong-based analyst says the algorithm seems to cater to “the lowest common denominator”. Yet that its appeal goes far beyond China’s richest metropolises is one of the reasons it is thrilling investors, says Eric Zhang of General Atlantic, an American private-equity firm with a stake in Toutiao. Half of its users are in so-called third-tier cities and below, where most of China’s untapped smartphone potential lies.
scoff：[skɔ:f] n.笑柄；嘲笑；嘲弄，愚弄 vi.嘲笑，嘲弄
tawdry：[ˈtɔ:dri] adj.俗丽的，华而不实的
cater to：迎合；满足需要
lowest common denominator：大众化的东西；最平庸的人
metropolis：[məˈtrɑ:pəlɪs] n.大都市，大都会；首府，首都
thrilling：[ ˈθrɪlɪŋ] 扣人心弦的；激动人心的；引人入胜的
so-called：[səʊ kɔ:ld] adj.所谓的，号称的
tier：[tɪə(r)] 等级
untapped：[ʌnˈtæpt] adj.（有用或宝贵的东西）未开发的，未利用的
有人嘲讽头条机器生成的内容推送有时候很低俗。香港的一位分析人士指出其算法好像会迎合“低级趣味”。然而，头条的吸引力已经远不限于中国最富有的一些城市。美国私募股权基金公司泛大西洋资本（General Altantic）的Eric Zhang说这也是让投资者兴奋不已的原因之一，泛大西洋资本持有头条的股份。头条一半的用户是在所谓的三线以及三线以下城市，中国智能手机尚未开发的潜在市场几乎都在这些地区。
【7】Some think its rise may be bad news for Baidu, one of the “BAT” tech trio, along with Alibaba and Tencent. Toutiao’s news app uses its algorithms to fine-tune advertisers’ posts to suit readers’ interests, satisfying both. Toutiao reportedly hopes to make as much as 50bn yuan from ads next year. That is only 15bn yuan shy of what Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, earned last year from advertisers.
trio：[ˈtri:oʊ] n.三重奏；三人一组；三重奏
fine-tune：[faɪn tjuːn] v.微调
有人认为，今日头条的崛起对BAT三巨头（还有阿里巴巴和腾讯）之一的百度来说可能是个坏消息。头条的新闻应用通过算法对广告商的文章进行精准匹配，以符合阅读者的兴趣，满足了双方的需求。据称，头条希望明年广告收入达到500亿元人民币，这仅比中国最大的搜索引擎百度去年的广告收入低150亿元。
【8】Toutiao’s ascent has already earned it the newest accolade in Chinese internet circles: a place in a fresh tech trinity, “TMD”. Yet among its fellow new kids— Meituan-Dianping, an online services platform for everything from food delivery to cinema bookings, and Didi Chuxing, a ride-hailing firm—it stands alone in having no financial backing from BAT. Most upstarts join forces with BAT to gain access to users, algorithms and deep pockets. Toutiao’s genius, says Bhavtosh Vajpayee of Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, was managing to build up the first two from a business that needed very little capital.
ascent：[əˈsent] n.上升；上坡；登高；追溯
accolade：[ˈækəleɪd] n.嘉奖，表扬
trinity：['trɪnətɪ] n.<正>三人小组；三件一套；三合一
upstart：[ˈʌpstɑ:rt] n.暴发户，新贵；傲慢自负的人
头条已经在中国的互联网业赢得了一席之地，成为业界新的三巨头TMD之一，另外两个是美团点评（提供从外卖到预订电影票等一切服务的在线平台）和网约车公司滴滴出行。不过，头条是TMD中唯一没有BAT投资的公司。大多数创业公司都会与BAT合作，以获取用户、算法和投资。斯坦福•伯恩斯坦研究公司的巴夫托什•瓦杰帕伊（Bhavtosh Vajpayee）说，头条的天才在于它以极少的资本成功积累了用户和建立了算法。
【9】That is likely to change as Bytedance seeks new users through other types of entertainment. Before it bagged Musical.ly, it bought stakes in Indian and Indonesian news aggregators, as well as Flipagram, an American rival to Instagram; it was reported this month to have tried to buy Reddit, an American social-discussion site valued at close to $2bn. Having come so far without BAT, investors think Toutiao has a good shot at continuing solo.
solo：[ˈsoʊloʊ] n.单飞；独唱（曲），独奏（曲）；单人表演 adj.独奏的，独唱的，单独的
随着字节跳动开始通过其他娱乐形式寻找新用户，这一点可能会发生变化。在收购Musical.ly之前，字节跳动还收购了印度和印度尼西亚新闻聚合平台以及Instagram在美国的对手Flipagram的股权。据称，本月字节跳动还将尝试收购估值接近20亿美元的美国社交讨论网站Reddit。在没有BAT帮助的情况下头条取得了长足的发展，投资者认为，头条继续单打独斗有着很好的胜算。
毫无疑问，头条在崛起，成功的原因之一是先进的人工智能技术。但是算法毕竟不是万能的，头条自身仍存在种种问题，比如头条号文章不断爆出抄袭侵权丑闻，以及文中提到的内容低俗问题，目前似乎并没有很好的解决办法。那么，你又是怎样看待头条的未来发展呢？
英文原文：
http://www.economist.com
讲解：霞姐 / Tiassa / Angel
翻译 / 校对：Angel
本次文章翻译来源于网络，有删改
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