Chinese tech apps trade knowledge for cash

内容付费在中国渐成风潮

Financial Times

金融时报

Each morning when James Lu drives to work, he streams[1] economics podcasts that he purchased through iGet, a mobile app launched by Luo Zhenyu, one of China's most recognisable media personalities.

每天早晨，在James Lu驱车上班时，他都会收听他从“得到”(iGet)购买的经济播客。“得到”是中国最知名的媒体人物之一罗振宇推出的一款手机应用。

[1]stream(v.):to listen to or watch sound or video on a computer directly from the internet rather than downloading it and saving it first 在线收听（或收看）

“In big cities, people are too busy to read books and watch movies. Famous personalities can teach you knowledge that let you seem as if you have read the book or watched the movie yourself,” he explains.

他解释说：“在大城市，人们太忙了，没有时间看书和看电影。名人可以教你知识，让你觉得自己仿佛读了这本书或看了这部电影。”

iGet is just one of a burgeoning[迅速发展的] cohort of new media start-ups that trade branded knowledge for money that China's tech groups are betting on, as a country infamous for pirating[盗版] demonstrates an increasing willingness to pay for content.

“得到”是数量日益增多的用品牌知识赚钱的新兴媒体初创公司之一，中国科技集团正押注于这种业务。这个以盗版闻名的国家正显示出越来越强的为内容付费的意愿。

“People trust the personal brand, and there's this vacuum there for real information. Everyone knows the media is bought and paid for. Having these people who can speak to you in a real way and who have built large followings through providing information that is real is obviously going to attract a lot of people here [in China],” says Matthew Brennan, co-founder of China Channel, a digital marketing agency.

数字营销公司China Channel联合创始人马修•布伦南(Matthew Brennan)表示：“人们相信个人品牌，这里存在一个真实信息真空。所有人都知道，媒体是要购买，要花钱的。这些人以真实的方式讲给你听，并通过提供真实的信息积累了大批粉丝，这种模式显然将吸引（中国）很多人。”

China's tech oligarchy[2] — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — have made monetising digital content a priority as the number of new users slows.

随着新用户数量的增长放缓，中国的科技寡头（百度(Baidu)、阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和腾讯(Tencent)）把数字内容变现列为了优先任务。

[2]oligarchy ['ɒlɪ.ɡɑː(r)ki]

(government by) a small group of powerful people 寡头统治（的政府）；寡头统治集团

Social media group Tencent now runs the country's biggest music streaming service after merging QQ Music with China Music Corp. Baidu has more than doubled what it spends on content creation and fees to acquire streaming and broadcast rights, from Rmb914.5m ($133m) in 2015 to Rmb2.21bn in 2016.

社交媒体公司腾讯将QQ音乐(QQ Music)与中国音乐集团(China Music Corporation)合并之后，现在经营着中国规模最大的音乐流服务。百度将其在内容创作以及购买流媒体播放权和转播权方面的支出增加了逾一倍，从2015年的9.145亿元人民币增至2016年的22.1亿元人民币。

However, the number of digital entertainment subscribers is just a sliver of the hundreds of millions of users registered on China's most prolific[3] social media apps. Tech companies are exploring new ways to cash in on the user-generated content and expert analysis they host that until now has been largely distributed for free.

然而，与中国人气最旺的社交媒体应用的数亿注册用户相比，数字娱乐付费用户的数量非常少。科技公司正寻找新的方法利用用户原创内容和它们支持的专家分析赚钱，目前，这些内容基本上是免费提供。

[3]prolific:producing a great number or amount of something 作品丰富的；多产的

He was probably the most prolific songwriter of his generation.

他可能是他这代人中最多产的歌曲作家。

“People are time poor and money rich in China now, and it's a very good thing for content,” says Mr Brennan. “Now there are lots of successful case studies of people monetising knowledge and the beginnings of a much healthier ecosystem for content creators than in the US.”

“在中国，人们现在有钱了，但时间少了，这对于内容是个好事，”布伦南表示，“如今，知识变现的成功例子很多，一个比美国健康得多的内容创作者生态系统开始建立。”

A January survey of internet users conducted by Guokr.com, a Chinese science news and education website, and Netease, one of China's oldest internet companies, found that 75 per cent of users said they were willing to pay for quality content, while 52 per cent believed high-quality content providers deserve payment.

中国科技新闻和教育网站果壳网(Guokr.com)和中国最老牌互联网公司之一网易(Netease)今年1月针对互联网用户的调查发现，75%的用户表示他们愿意为优质内容付费，52%的用户认为优质内容提供者是值得付费的。

“In the early stages of the internet, tech companies relied more on a free consumer model. But as the volume of content has increased, quality has not kept up, and users have to spend more time and effort screening. They are willing to pay more for content curators that can promise high-quality content,” says Lou Meijing, analyst with the Beijing-based consultancy iiMedia Research.

北京咨询公司艾媒咨询(iiMedia Research)分析师娄梅静表示：“在互联网早期，科技公司更多地依赖免费消费者模式。但随着内容数量的增加，质量没有跟上，用户不得不花费更多时间和精力去筛选。他们愿意为能够保证提供优质内容的内容管理者支付更高费用。”

The biggest knowledge platforms have leveraged the personal reputation of speakers to charge fees.

一些最大的知识平台已开始利用主讲人的名声来收费。

There is Fenda, based on Reddit's “Ask Me Anything” format, in which users pay to hear celebrities and industry experts answer user-submitted questions. Created by Guokr.com, Fenda attracted early investment from Tencent last November as well as the founders of Xiaomi and Lenovo. The more popular the answer, the higher the payout for both the respondent and the asker.

在基于Reddit“随便问”模式的分答(Fenda)，用户付费听取名人和专家回答用户提交的问题。由果壳网创办的分答吸引了来自腾讯以及小米(Xiaomi)和联想(Lenovo)创始人的早期投资。答案越受欢迎，答者和问者获得的收入越高。

Last May, investor Wang Sicong, the son of the founder of Dalian Wanda, attracted a media firestorm when answers about everything from financial advice to his sex life reached a price of nearly Rmb5,000 apiece[每个;每人;各] ($750). JD.com, the ecommerce platform, and search engine group Baidu have launched similar question-and-answer apps.

去年5月，大连万达(Dalian Wanda)创始人王健林之子王思聪，在分答上对从财务建议到其性生活等各种问题进行了回答，每个回答获得了近5000元人民币（合750美元）的收入，引发媒体关注。电商平台京东(JD.com)和搜索引擎百度也推出了类似的问答应用。

Tencent-run WeChat jumped into the fray[4] this month when founder Pony Ma announced a beta test with invited users that would test out payment models for WeChat public accounts.

腾讯的微信(WeChat)本月也加入进来，其创始人马化腾(Pony Ma)宣布对受邀用户推出测试版平台，将测试微信公众号的多种付费模式。

[4]the fray:an energetic and often not well-organized effort, activity, fight, or disagreement （常指乱糟糟的）干劲十足的努力，充满活力的活动；激战；激烈争吵

A good holiday should leave you feeling refreshed and ready for the fray (= ready to work) again.

好好度一个假应该能使人感到精神振奋，为重新投入忙碌的工作作好准备。

WeChat's base of 856m active users means it commands a huge audience of potential paying readers already linked up to WeChat Wallet, Tencent's mobile payments platform, yet it has delayed in rolling out a concrete payment model.

微信拥有8.56亿活跃用户，这意味着它拥有已经关联腾讯移动支付平台微信钱包(WeChat wallet)的庞大潜在付费读者群体，但它迄今没有推出具体的付费模式。

“WeChat is behind in this respect, because content subscription is not the heart of WeChat's business model. They are payment and finance driven, not content driven,” says Thomas Graziani, founder of WalktheChat, a privately owned, independent tech company.

私人所有的独立科技公司WalktheChat的创始人托马斯•格拉齐亚尼(Thomas Graziani)表示：“微信在这方面有所落后，因为内容订阅不是其商业模式的核心。他们是由支付和金融、而非内容驱动的。”

With more than 65m users, the most successful knowledge platform is Zhihu, a free Quora-like platform backed by Tencent and Chinese internet group Sohu and the first knowledge platform to achieve a valuation of more than $1bn. It launched Zhihu Live last year through which users can pay for one-on-one sessions with an expert live-streamed to the user's device. The average speaker earns about Rmb8,300 ($1,200) per session.

最为成功的平台是知乎(Zhihu)，它拥有逾6500万用户，是腾讯和中国互联网集团搜狐(Sohu)支持的类Quora的免费服务，它是第一家估值逾10亿美元的知识平台。去年，他们推出了知乎Live(Zhihu Live)，用户可以付费在设备上实时与专家一对一问答。普通主讲人每场可以获得大约8300元人民币的收入。

This month, popular culture website Douban launched its own live-streaming feature, banking on its core audience — well-educated, culturally-attuned millennials — will shell out[5] money to hear their favourite public intellectuals and artists discuss topics ranging from current affairs to trends in music and poetry at a starting price of Rmb128 ($20).

本月，流行文化网站豆瓣(Douban)推出了自己的实时产品，希望受过良好教育的千禧一代，将会付费听取他们青睐的公共知识分子和艺术家对从时事到音乐和诗歌趋势等主题的讨论，最初价格为128元人民币。

[5]shell (sth) out:to pay or give money for something, usually unwillingly （通常指不情愿地）支付，拿出（钱）

Having shelled out €150 for the tickets, I wasn't going to miss the show.

我忍痛花了50英镑买票，可不会错过演出的。

“Chinese consumers are notably interested in not only owning information but also owning perspective,” says Min Jiang, a professor of communications at University of North Carolina Charlotte, who studies Chinese popular media.

北卡罗来纳大学(University of North Carolina)传播学教授、研究中国媒体的蒋敏表示：“中国消费者出了名的不仅对了解信息感兴趣，而且还对了解观点感兴趣。”

“You can read the newspaper, but how you interpret that story can be quite different . . . and that second part is more important sometimes than the first of just getting the facts straight.”

“你可以阅读报纸，但如何解读新闻故事可能完全不是一回事……解读有时比简单地了解事实更重要。”

原文摘自：金融时报，翻译仅供参考

链接：http://t.cn/R6pimLs