爲何說推特CEO來中國是件有意思的事

Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Dick Costolo is in Shanghai for a few days, but that doesn't mean Twitter will follow.

推特(Twitter)首席執行長科斯特羅(Dick Costolo)人在上海，他將在這裏小住幾日，但這不意味這推特也會跟隨他的腳步進入中國。

The U.S. social media network confirmed Monday that Mr. Costolo was in China to 'learn more about Chinese culture and the country's thriving technology sector.'

推特週一確認，科斯特羅人在上海，他到中國來是爲了更多地瞭解中國文化和中國正在蓬勃發展的科技業。

Mr. Costolo will be meeting with professors and students from Shanghai's famed Fudan University as well as government officials and business leaders, according to a person familiar with the visit.

據瞭解科斯特羅這次訪問的人說，他將與上海復旦大學的一些教授和學生見面，同時參加的還包括政府官員和商界領袖。

Though it might be tempting to assume Mr. Costolo is in fact feeling out the possibility getting Twitter into China, it's unlikely that's the case. In its statement, Twitter also said that it has 'no plans to change anything about our service in order to enter the market.'

儘管有人或許會推論，科斯特羅來中國實際上是爲推特進入中國的可能性做一番探查，但實際情況可能並非如此。推特在聲明中還說，沒有計劃爲了進入這一市場對我們的服務做出任何改變。

In China, most Internet companies are tasked with monitoring and censoring their social networks. Were Twitter to set up in China, it would almost certainly have to cooperate with the Chinese government's censorship demands -- something it is signaling it will not do.

在中國，大多數互聯網公司都會承擔監督和審查其社交網絡的任務。如果推特進入中國，幾乎可以肯定，它也要配合中國政府的審查要求，而推特發出的信號則表明它不會這麼做。

Even if Twitter were to try to cooperate with the Chinese government, it would be unlikely to get a stamp of approval.

即便推特是要試圖與中國政府合作，也不大可能得到批准。

The service has been blocked in China since 2009, due to government concerns it could be used to organize protests like those that were helping topple regimes in the Middle East at the time, according to analysts. Fears that social media could be used to coordinate protests against the government are alive and well in China, which is in the midst of a sustained government crackdown on online discourse.

分析人士說，自從2009年開始，推特在中國的服務就被封了，原因是政府擔心它可能被用來組織抗議（當時，類似的抗議在推翻一些中東國家政府方面發揮了作用）。在中國，有關社交媒體可以被用來協調反對政府的抗議者的擔憂大有市場，正因如此，政府纔對互聯網言論進行持續不斷的打擊。

Instead of trying to get Twitter into China, Mr. Costolo may simply be seeking to understand the world's largest and most isolated Internet market. Though many products on China's Internet remain copies of products coming out in the U.S., intense local competition and specific demands of local users are slowly leading Chinese companies to push in directions not anticipated by Silicon Valley.

科斯特羅並非試圖讓推特進入中國，他可能只是希望瞭解中國這個全球最大、但也最封閉的互聯網市場。儘管中國互聯網上的許多產品仍是美國產品的複製，但本地競爭的加劇和本地用戶的特殊需求正逐漸促使中國企業在硅谷預料之外的道路上推進。

Beijing Momo Technology Co., a dating app that had about 35 million monthly active users at the end of 2013, pre-dated its U.S. equivalent, Tinder. Another example that likely hits closer to home for Mr. Costolo is Sina Corp.'s Weibo, which popularized a number of features that would eventually make it into Twitter. Though Weibo still looks and feels very complicated to a U.S. Internet user, it pre-dated Twitter in allowing embedded comments and replies to a post and also to giving photos a prominent presence in a users' stream.

北京陌陌科技有限公司(Beijing Momo Technology Co.)旗下有一款約會應用，2013年年底的月度活躍用戶數約爲3,500萬。早在美國市場推出同類產品Tinder之前，這款應用就已經推出了。對於科斯特羅，另外一個例子可能更有參考價值，這就是新浪公司(Sina Corp.)旗下的微博(Weibo)。新浪微博推廣了一些功能，而這些功能將最終使它媲美推特。儘管對於美國互聯網用戶來說，新浪微博在外觀和感覺上都還非常複雜，但新浪微博早在推特之前就允許用戶對發佈的內容進行嵌入式評論和回覆，同時還在用戶數據流中給照片提供了一個重要地位。

For years now, China's start-ups have been studying how Silicon Valley works. Valley executives give talks at a proliferating number of start-up accelerators and cafes where entrepreneurs hang out. Some companies, like app search engine Wandoujia, even send employees on yearly trips to northern California to learn more about the culture, and visit the headquarters of the most iconic U.S. Internet firms.

多年來，中國初創企業一直在學習硅谷模式。在數量不斷增多的創業加速器以及企業家喜歡去的咖啡廳內，硅谷高管們會發表演講。應用搜索引擎豌豆莢(Wandoujia)等公司甚至每年都會派員工前往加州北部，以便更深入地學習硅谷文化並訪問最有代表性的美國互聯網公司的總部。

Mr. Costolo may well be the first wave of Americans doing the reverse, coming to China to look for new features, business models and even products that could do well if brought back to the U.S. Even if the trip isn't as pointed as that, it still shows that China's Internet market, though isolated from much of the world, has a gravity all its own that has an increasing pull to those thousands of miles away in the U.S.

科斯特羅很可能是第一批反其道而行的美國人，到中國來尋找新的特色和商業模式，甚至尋找那些帶回美國就可能有良好表現的產品。即便這種訪問並不那麼有目的性，但這仍表明，儘管中國互聯網市場與世界大部分地區相對孤立，但這一市場本身就是非常重要的，對那些遠在千里之外的美國人產生了越來越大的吸引力。