外媒：中国人已经离不开微信

A Popular Chinese Social Networking App Blazes Its Own Path 中国人已经离不开微信-纽约时报中文网 By DAVID BARBOZA January 21, 2014 翻译：黄铮、张薇 1. SHANGHAI — Every half-hour or so, Jenny Zhao, young and wired ['waɪəd]连线的, unlocks [,ʌn'lɔk] her iPhone 5 to connect with friends using Weixin, China’s wildly popular social messaging app. 2. “I’m probably on Weixin six hours a day,” says Ms. Zhao, 24, a cosmetics [kɔz'metiks]n.化妆品 marketer in Shanghai. “A lot of what I do revolves around it.” (cosmetic surgery) 3. Weixin (pronounced way-shin) is this country’s killer app招人喜爱的应用程序, a highly addictive [ə'dɪktɪv]adj.上瘾的social networking tool社交网络工具 that allows smartphone users智能手机用户 to send messages and share news, photos, videos and web links, much like America’s WhatsApp, or Line, a Japanese communications and messaging app. In the United States, a similar version is known as WeChat. 4. Just three years after being introduced in China, Weixin has nearly 300 million users — a faster adoption rate普及率,采用率 than either Facebook and Twitter — giving the app a dominant ['dɒmɪnənt]adj.占优势的,支配的position in what is now the world’s biggest smartphone market. It has already stopped the growth of the messaging service of the country’s biggest mobile phone company and provoked [prəu'vəuk]vt.挑起China’s largest Internet companies to create competing services. 5. But in the free-for-all可自由参加的竞赛(争),混战in China, one leading social media company is not a factor. Analysts say the phenomenal [fɪ'nɒmɪnəl]adj.显著的rise of Weixin all but dooms注定…失败 any chance that Facebook will become the market leader there. 6. In 2009, the Chinese government blocked封堵 access ['ækses]n进入 to Facebook, without explanation. Twitter and YouTube are also blocked in China. 7. Since then, Facebook has hinted [hɪnt]vt.暗示that it may try to re-enter the market, perhaps by teaming up合作 with a local company. Weixin’s success has made that all the more difficult. 8. “Even if Facebook had permission, it’s probably too late,” says Wang Xiaofeng, a technology analyst at Forrester Research. “Weixin has all the functionality of Facebook and Twitter, and Chinese have already gotten used to it.” 9. Weixin is the creation of Tencent (10 cents), the Chinese Internet powerhouse 发电站 known for its QQ instant messenger service即时通讯服务 and its popular online games. Tencent, which is publicly traded and is worth more than $100 billion on the Hong Kong exchange, is now seeking to strengthen that grip支配 in social networking and expand into new areas, such as online payment and e-commerce. 10. Alibaba, China’s e-commerce goliath [ɡəu'laiəθ]n.[圣经]被牧羊人大卫杀死的 Philistine ['filistain](中东古国)腓力斯巨人, has already announced plans to fight back in China, with its own newly developed messaging app, called Laiwang. 11. Tencent, meanwhile, is so confident of its messaging app that it is promoting Weixin overseas, particularly in Southeast Asia, where there are already tens of millions of users. The company also plans a marketing blitz [blɪts]n.[军]闪电战in Europe and Latin America, using the name WeChat. The company declined谢绝 to say whether or when it would promote the service in the United States. 12. Weixin could help change global perceptions观念 of Chinese companies. Although Chinese Internet companies are still considered knockoffs冒牌货,仿制品 of Google, Facebook, Twitter and eBay易趣, analysts say they are quickly transforming [træns'fɔ:m] themselves into dynamic, innovative technology companies with unique business models. 13. Weixin, for instance, is no mere copy of an existing service but an amalgam [ə'mælgəm]n.[采矿]汞合金,混合物of various social networking tools: part Facebook, part Instagram and even part walkie-talkie ['wɔ:ki'tɔ:ki]n.步话机. Rather than send a short mobile phone message by typing Chinese characters, which can be time-consuming, users simply hold down a button that records a voice message. 14. “Chinese Internet companies are no longer behind,” says William Bao Bean, a former technology analyst who is now a managing director at the venture capital firm SingTel Innov8. “Now, in some areas, they’re leading the way.” 15. The disruptive powers of the service are indisputable [ɪndɪ'spjuːtəbəl]adj.无可争议的. Weixin has already stunted [stʌnt]vt.阻碍...发育the growth of China’s popular microblogging service微博服务 Sina Weibo, and eroded [i'rəud]vt.侵蚀 the profitability [,prɑfɪtə'bɪləti]n.盈利能力of a service offered by China’s big, state-run telecommunications operators运营商: the mobile phone short message service known as SMS. 16. At China Mobile, the country’s biggest mobile phone service provider服务提供商, revenue ['revənjuː]n.收益from short message services peaked in 2009 at nearly $9 billion. Three years later, it was down nearly 20 percent from that high, and it very likely dropped again last year, according to recent estimates. 17. Analysts say that technology shifts often kill companies that are slow to react. But the threat of extinction [ɪk'stɪŋkʃən]n.灭绝can also inspire companies to reinvent [riːɪn'vent]vt.彻底改造 themselves, or to search for the next great thing. 18. That is what happened at Tencent, which has been growing at a torrid ['tɒrɪd]adj.热带的,快速的pace for much of the past decade. Fearing the development of a disruptive technology that could upend [ʌp'end]v.颠倒this success, Tencent executives say they encouraged the company’s software developers and product managers to search for new ideas. 19. In late 2010, Allen Zhang, the head of Tencent’s research and development center in Guangzhou, organized a team of 10 developers to work on a smartphone messaging app. He was inspired by Kik messenger, which he worried might eventually threaten Tencent’s dominant, PC-based QQ instant messenger. 20. Three months later, Tencent released发布 Weixin. With an elegant and easy-to-use interface界面, the messaging app attracted 50 million users within a year, and over the next two years reached nearly 300 million users worldwide. 21. Weixin, technology experts say, has what every Internet company executive dreams about: stickiness ['stikinis]n.粘性. Although Tencent does not track the time that users spend on the service, analysts say it is most likely multiples倍数 of other major blogging or social media services. 22. Analysts say Tencent also has a huge opportunity to make money from the free service. By introducing free mobile games — with virtual虚拟的 items available for purchase — and a payment feature功能 that can be used online or offline, Weixin could soon develop into a profitable business with little or no advertising. 23. The company is now experimenting with use of Weixin to book taxis, hotels and airline flights, and even to control televisions and home appliances. Last August, a technology analyst at Barclays Barclays [ba:'kleiz]n.巴克莱银行（公司名，财富500强公司之一，总部所在地英国，主要经营银行）forecast that Weixin could have 400 million users and nearly $500 million in revenue this year. With investors anticipating such growth, shares of Tencent have soared飙升 94 percent in the past year. 24. Some Tencent executives even view Weixin as a company savior ['seivjə]n.救星. Last year, Tencent’s chief executive and co-founder, Ma Huateng — known in English as Pony Ma — said during a speech that the power of Weixin was that it was mobile, like a “portable organ” that unlike a PC was always with the user. 25. If Weixin had been created by another company, Mr. Ma went on, Tencent might have gone into decline. “Looking back,” he said, “those two months were a matter of life and death” for the company. 26. There are challenges, of course. One, analysts say, is that China’s tech-savvy ['sævɪ]adj.聪明的young people are fickle ['fɪk(ə)l]adj.浮躁的;易变的, and could just as quickly switch to转到 other messaging services. Another challenge could come from Tencent’s rival Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company that has all but declared war on Weixin. 27. Last August, Alibaba barred [bɑ:]vt.禁止 vendors ['vendəz]n.销售商 on its Taobao.com shopping site from using Weixin to market their products. Alibaba then introduced its competing service, Laiwang, and announced plans to introduce a mobile games platform. 28. Tencent’s overseas expansion plans could also be hampered [ˈhæmpə(r)d]vt.受到阻碍by concerns担忧 about a Chinese company’s handling so much personal information, and then being forced to turn it over to the Chinese authorities, which have tight controls严格控制 over Internet services. 29. Tencent executives insist [ɪn'sɪst]vt.强调the risks of spying间谍活动,窥探 are small because the company does not store messages on its servers. 30. Access to Facebook may now be blocked in China, but the American company is selling advertising to Chinese companies and considering re-entering the market. 31. “We are interested in China but have made no decisions about how we will approach it,” a company spokeswoman said this month. 32. For now, Chinese consumers are flocking to (成群结队地)涌向 Weixin, seemingly glued [ɡlu:] vt.粘合to it. At work, on subways地铁(美式说法) and in restaurants, one can hear the increasingly familiar ping of a new Weixin message being received. 33. “I use Weixin every day,” said Zhang Shoufeng, 29, a food and beverage ['bevəridʒ]n.饮料saleswoman, as she relaxed at a shopping mall restaurant on a recent evening. “My friends are on it and my boss is on it. We are talking about where to eat, where to hang out闲逛 and where to meet for company conferences. This is how we communicate.”