現在輪到硅谷來山寨中國企業了
HONG KONG — Snapchat and Kik, the messaging services, use bar codes that look like drunken checkerboards to connect people and share information with a snap of their smartphone cameras. Facebook is working on adding the ability to hail rides and make payments within its Messenger app. Facebook and Twitter have begun live-streaming video.
香港——在通訊應用Snapchat和Kik裏，人們用彷彿毫無章法的棋盤一樣的條碼建立聯繫，用智能手機拍照分享信息。Facebook打算在其Messenger應用內增加叫車及付款功能。Facebook和Twitter已經開始提供視頻直播。
All of these developments have something in common: The technology was first popularized in China.
所有這些新動向都有一個共同點：相關技術最初是在中國流行起來的。
WeChat and Alipay, two Chinese apps, have long used the bar-codelike symbols — called QR codes — to let people pay for purchases and transfer money. Both let users hail a taxi or order a pizza without switching to another app. The video-streaming service has for years made online stars of young Chinese people posing, chatting and singing in front of video cameras at home.
微信和支付寶這兩個中國應用很早就開始利用名爲二維碼的條碼式符號，讓人們方便地支付購物款項或轉賬。兩者的用戶都無須切換到其他應用，就可以叫一輛出租車或者一份披薩。視頻直播服務多年來一直讓年輕的中國網紅可以在家裏的攝像機鏡頭前拗造型、聊天、唱歌。
Silicon Valley has long been the world’s tech capital: It birthed social networking and iPhones and spread those tech products across the globe. The rap on China has been that it always followed in the Valley’s footsteps as government censorship abetted the rise of local versions of Google, YouTube and Twitter.
硅谷是長期以來的世界科技之都：它孕育了了社交網絡和iPhone，並讓這些科技產品在全球範圍內流行開來。中國則一向遭到指責：它總是對硅谷亦步亦趨，在政府審查推波助瀾之下，中國版谷歌(Google)、YouTube和Twitter紛紛崛起.
But China’s tech industry — particularly its mobile businesses — has in some ways pulled ahead of the United States. Some Western tech companies, even the behemoths, are turning to Chinese firms for ideas.
但中國的科技行業——尤其是移動業務——在某些方面已經領先於美國。一些西方科技公司，甚至包括某些大公司，正從中國企業那裏尋求創意。
“We just see China as further ahead,” said Ted Livingston, the founder of Kik, which is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario.
“我們認爲中國是走在前面的，”Kik創始人泰德•利文斯頓(Ted Livingston)說。該公司總部設在安大略省的滑鐵盧。
The shift suggests that China could have a greater say in the global tech industry’s direction. Already in China, more people use their mobile devices to pay their bills, order services, watch videos and find dates than anywhere else in the world. Mobile payments in the country last year surpassed those in the United States. By some estimates, loans from a new breed of informal online banks called peer-to-peer lenders did too.
這種轉變表明，中國在全球科技產業的發展方向上可能享有更大的話語權。 在中國，用移動設備支付賬單、定購服務、觀看視頻、尋找數據的人，比全世界任何地方都要多。去年，中國的移動支付交易總額超越了美國。據一些人估計，一種叫做“P2P借貸”的新型非正規網上銀行的貸款總額也已經超過美國。
China’s largest internet companies are the only ones in the world that rival America’s in scale. The purchase this week of Uber China by Didi Chuxing after a protracted competition shows that at least domestically, Chinese players can take on the most sophisticated and largest start-ups coming out of America.
在全球範圍內，只有中國最大的互聯網公司在規模上能與美國最大的互聯網公司相提並論。滴滴出行在和優步中國展開曠日持久的競爭之後，於本週將後者收入麾下。這表明，至少是在國內，中國玩家可以跟運作最成熟、規模最大的美國初創公司一較高下。
The future of online payments and engagements can be found at Liu Zheng’s noodle shop in central Beijing. Liu Xiu’e, 60, and her neighbor, Zhang Lixin, 55, read about the noodle shop on WeChat. Then they ordered and paid for their lunches and took and posted selfies of themselves outside the restaurant, all using the same app.
從劉正在北京市中心開的麪館，可以窺見在線支付和宣傳的未來。60歲的劉秀娥和她的鄰居、55歲的張立新，在微信上看到了這家麪館的信息。他們點了午餐，付了款，在店外自拍並把照片發到了網上，用的都是同一款應用。
Liu Zheng, who is not related to Liu Xiu’e, said the automated ordering and payments meant he could cut down on wages for waiters. “In the future, we will only need one waiter to help in the restaurant and one to help with seating,” Mr. Liu said.
劉正說，自動下單和支付意味着他可以削減僱傭服務生的開支。“以後我們就只需要一個人在餐廳，一個人幫忙找座。”
Industry leaders point to a number of areas where China jumped first. Before the online dating app Tinder, people in China used an app called Momo to flirt with nearby singles. Before the Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos discussed using drones to deliver products, Chinese media reported that a local delivery company, S.F. Express, was experimenting with the idea. WeChat offered speedier in-app news articles long before Facebook, developed a walkie-talkie function before WhatsApp, and made major use of QR codes well before Snapchat.
行業領導者指出，中國在很多領域都是最先試水者。線上約會應用Tinder出現前，中國人就在用一款名叫陌陌的應用跟附近的單身人士調情了。亞馬遜(Amazon)首席執行官傑夫•貝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)開始談論用無人機送貨前，中國媒體就報道說，當地的順豐快遞公司正內測無人機配送服務。微信推出應用內即時新聞比Facebook早很多，它還在WhatsApp之前開發出了對講功能，在Snapchat之前開始大量使用二維碼。
Before Venmo became the app for millennials to transfer money in the United States, both young and old in China were investing, reimbursing each other, paying bills,and buying products from stores with smartphone-based digital wallets.
此外，在美國的千禧一代通過Venmo這款應用轉賬之前，中國的老老少少已經在使用基於智能手機的數字錢包投資、銷賬、支付賬單、從商店裏買東西。
“Quite frankly, the trope that China copies the U.S. hasn’t been true for years, and in mobile it’s the opposite: The U.S. often copies China,” said Ben Thompson, the founder of the tech research firm Stratechery. “For the Facebook Messenger app, for example, the best way to understand their road map is to look at WeChat.”
“坦白講，中國抄襲美國這種說法好多年前就過時了，在移動領域事實恰恰相反：美國常常抄襲中國，”科技調研公司Stratechery的創始人本•湯普森(Ben Thompson)說。“例如Facebook Messenger，要弄清它的發展路線，最好是以微信爲鑑。”
A Facebook spokesman declined to comment. Tencent did not respond to requests for comment.
Facebook的發言人拒絕置評。騰訊未回覆置評請求。
Executives from companies like Facebook and smaller rivals like Kik are trying to replicate what has emerged in China: dominant online platforms where users will spend much of their time. Much of that effort is focused on chat.
Facebook等公司的高管以及Kik等規模較小的競爭對手，正努力複製已經在中國出現的東西：佔據絕對優勢的在線平臺，用戶會花很多時間待在這些平臺上。它們的許多努力都以聊天爲重心。
“The cool thing about chat is it becomes an operating system for your daily life,” Mr. Livingston said. “Going up to a vending machine, ordering food, getting a cab: Chat can power those interactions, and that’s what we’re seeing with WeChat.”
“關於聊天很酷的一點是，它已經成爲你日常生活中的一種操作系統，”利文斯頓說。“來到一臺自動販售機前，點餐，叫車：聊天可以爲這些互動提供驅動力，這就是我們在微信中看到的。”
China still lags in important areas. Its most powerful, high-end servers and supercomputers often rely in part on American technology. Virtual-reality start-ups trail foreign counterparts, and Google has a jump on Baidu in driverless car technology. Many of China’s products also lack the polish of their American counterparts.
中國在一些重要的領域還處於落後位置。性能最強的高端服務器和超級計算機在某種層面上常常要仰仗美國的技術。虛擬現實初創企業落後於國外的同行，谷歌的無人駕駛技術領先於百度。中國的許多產品也不像美國的同類產品那樣精良。
China’s biggest advantage, according to many analysts, is that it essentially started many industries from scratch at the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. Unlike the United States, where banks and retailers already have strong holds on customers, China’s state-run lenders are inefficient, and retailers never expanded broadly enough to serve a fast-growing middle class.
許多分析師表示，中國最大的優勢在於，它基本上是在1976年文化大革命結束後從零開始發展出許多行業。與銀行和零售商已經對消費者有很強掌控力的美國不同，中國國有放貸機構效率低下，零售商的擴張始終跟不上規模迅速增大的中產階級的需求。
Many Chinese also never bought a personal computer, meaning smartphones are the primary — and often first — computing device for the more than 600 million who have them in China.
許多中國人從未購買過個人電腦，這意味着對中國6億智能手機用戶而言，智能手機是他們的主要的——而且往往是第一個——計算設備。
“The U.S. was first to credit cards, and everyone there has a personal computer. But China, where everyone is on their phones all the time, is now ahead in mobile commerce and mobile payments by virtue of leapfrogging the PC and credit cards,” Mr. Thompson said.
“美國是信用卡普及度最高的國家，而且幾乎所有美國人都有個人電腦。但在中國，所有人都是時刻在使用手機。在移動商務和移動支付方面，中國已經領先於美國，因爲它跳過了PC和信用卡的階段，”湯普森說。
Chinese companies also approach the internet in a different way. In the United States, tech firms emphasize simplicity in their apps. But in China, its three major internet companies — Alibaba, Baidu and the WeChat parent Tencent — compete to create a single app with as many functions as they can stuff into it.
中國企業對待互聯網的方式也有所不同。在美國，科技企業重視應用的簡潔性。而在中國，三個最大的互聯網公司——阿里巴巴、百度及微信的創造者騰訊——則爭相打造一個單一應用，然後將盡量多的功能融入其中。
On Alibaba’s Taobao shopping app, people can also buy groceries, buy credits for online games, scan coupons and find deals at stores nearby. Baidu’s mapping app lets users order an Uber, reserve a restaurant or hotel, order in food, buy movie tickets and find just about any type of store nearby.
在阿里巴巴的淘寶購物應用中，人們可以購買食品雜貨，買網絡遊戲卡，搜尋附近商鋪的折扣。百度的地圖應用可以讓用戶約優步(Uber)平臺上的車，預定餐廳或酒店，訂餐，買電影票，還可以找到所在位置附近幾乎所有類型的商鋪。
Tencent has opened up WeChat to other companies, allowing them to create apps within WeChat. Ebaoyang — a start-up that enables people to order oil changes for their cars directly on smartphones — was at first almost totally reliant on WeChat to attract business. Gao Feng, one of Ebaoyang’s founders, said the company still relied on the app for 50 percent of its payments and 20 percent of new customers.
騰訊向其他企業開放了微信端口，允許它們在微信平臺上開發自己的應用。E保養是一家讓用戶可以在智能手機上直接下單預定汽車保養服務的創業公司，在創立之初它幾乎完全依賴微信招攬生意。E保養創始人之一高峯表示，公司目前依然很依賴微信，有50%的支付和20%的新客戶來自該應用。
“We started from WeChat. So it was our main, original source for getting customers,” he said.
“我們是從微信開始的，它原來是我們主要的客戶來源。”他說。
Between fees for its services and money it makes through online games, WeChat manages to generate $7 in revenue per user each year, according to Nomura. The app has roughly 700 million users, more than the total number of smartphone users in China, in part because some users are outside the country and in part because people have multiple accounts.
據野村證券(Nomura)統計，通過售賣服務和在線遊戲，微信每年可以從每個用戶身上獲得7美元的收入。微信有大約7億用戶，超過了中國智能手機用戶的總量。出現這種情況，有一部分原因在於一些用戶身在國外，還因爲有些人有多個微信賬戶。
Much of that comes not from ads, as it might in the United States, but from spending on games, services and goods sold on the app. Those models may not translate from one market to the other, but the two can still borrow from each other, said Carmen Chang, a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates.
這些營收有相當多並非來自廣告——這可能跟美國有所不同——而是來自微信上銷售的遊戲、服務和商品。風險投資公司恩頤投資合夥人週一華(Carmen Chang)表示，這兩種模式或許無法從一個市場移植到另一個，但它們可以相互借鑑。
“China was able to develop a lot of innovative business models, which arose in a different kind of economy,” said Ms. Chang, who spends time in both China and in Menlo Park, Calif. “Whether or not we admit it here in Silicon Valley, it’s had an impact on us and our thinking.”
“中國能發展出許多有富有創意的商業模式，它們出現在一個與美國不同的經濟環境裏，”在中國和加州門洛帕克兩地生活的週一華說。“不管硅谷是否承認，它已經對我們和我們的思維產生了影響。”
