本帖最后由 青蛙小王子 于 2010-3-31 10:19 编辑
【中文标题】为何美国网站在中国集体溃败? 【原文标题】China’s Internet Giants May Be Stuck There 【刊载媒体】纽约时报 【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/global/24internet.html 【翻译方式】人工 【译者】Tosgoo
SHANGHAI — Even before Google began threatening to shut down its search service in China, it was not fitting in.
上海——尽管之前谷歌露出危言要关闭其在中国的搜索引擎服务,但终究,事实是谷歌自己没能成功挤占中国市场,而非反之。
Google and other major American Internet companies like Yahoo and eBay failed to gain significant traction in the Chinese market. And Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked by the government.
谷歌和雅虎、易趣等其他几家主要的美国互联网公司,在借助中国市场的重大牵引力以蓬勃自己公司发展方面是失败的。同时,脸谱网,微博和YouTube视频网无一不在中国政府的限制之下。
I nstead, the hottest companies in the world’s biggest Internet market have names like Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba — fast-growing local firms that are making huge profits. Post-Google, China’s Internet market could increasingly resemble a lucrative, walled-off bazaar, experts say. Those homegrown successes, however, could have trouble becoming global brands.
与之相反,在这个世界上最大最火热的网络市场里,到处充斥着百度、腾讯和阿里巴巴的名号——发展迅速的当地企业正创享着巨大的收益。有关专家称,之前对于谷歌,中国市场就像一片没有藩篱的宝地,大有利润可图。而随着本土企业日益兴盛,这些国际大牌的日子也就不那么好过了。
“If the Chinese government continues to favor domestic companies, those companies that reach critical mass could become phenomenally profitable,” said Gary Rieschel, founder of Qiming Ventures, an American venture capital firm with investments in China. “But it may be hard for those companies to become world class without outside competition.”
“如果中国政府继续偏爱支持本土企业,那些国际互联网大牌所要面临的,将不仅仅是令人压抑的危机感,而要承受切实的资金损失了。”启明创投创始人之一,一位在中国进行风险投资的美国人,盖理·瑞斯彻(Gary Rieschel)如是说,“但是如果没有对外竞争力,这些中国企业与世界级同行的较量也并非易事。”
Still, the success of Chinese companies here can be measured by the numbers.
尽管如此,平步青云的中国企业还是数不胜数。
Revenue at Tencent, a kind of Internet conglomerate, jumped over 70 percent last year, to about $1.8 billion.
腾讯这家中国互联网公司的收益比去年跃升百分之七十,高达十八亿。
Baidu, a Google look-alike, has largely clobbered Google in China, despite giving up some ground in recent years. And Taobao.com, China’s huge e-commerce site, handled nearly $30 billion in transactions last year.
百度——谷歌的业内同行,尽管近年来在一些领域稍逊风骚,还是在中国市场的对决中还是大大击败了谷歌。淘宝网——中国大型电子贸易网站,去年的营业额成交收益将近三百亿之多。
The story behind the success of these companies is a simple one, some analysts say. The young people who dominate Web use in China are not just searching for information; they’re searching for a lifestyle. They are passionate about downloading music, playing online games and engaging in social networking.
一些分析家称,这些成功企业背后的故事十分简单。在中国占据互联网主导地位的年轻网民们不仅是为搜索信息而上网,而更是在寻找一种生活方式。他们热衷于下载音乐、玩网游和建立网络社交关系。
“Sixty percent of the Internet users here are under the age of 30,” said Richard Ji, an Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley. “In the U.S., it’s the other way around. And in the U.S. it’s about information. But in China, the No. 1 priority is entertainment.”
“在中国,百分之六十的互联网用户是不到三十岁的年轻人”摩根史坦利投资公司的一名网络分析师理查德·积(Richard Ji)说道,“而在美国情况是恰恰相反的。在美国,互联网关乎信息;在中国,娱乐才是互联网的最大功能。”
Experts say American companies have largely failed here because they don’t have local expertise, are too slow to adapt and don’t know how to deal with the Chinese government.
专家们认为由于对华具体情况认识上的缺乏,导致美国大牌网络公司们的败北——他们对中国市场环境适应得太慢,同时又不懂得应该如何与中国政府相处。
“Internet companies in China have to work so closely with the government,” said Xiao Qiang, of the China Internet project at the University of California, Berkeley. “And that means the government’s political agenda can become the company’s business agenda.”
作为加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校中国网络项目中的一员,肖强(Xiao Qiang)说道:“在中国互联网公司和政府在工作上亲密无间,这意味着政府的行政议程可以成为公司的运营议程。”
The need to censor Web sites, for example, can overwhelm smaller companies, Mr. Xiao said. “This becomes a growing business cost. So often, small companies don’t develop.”
肖先生还说,网监措施可造成诸如压垮较小规模公司的效果,“这使得经营成本不断增长,故而造成小公司不能继续发展壮大是再常见不过的事了。”
At this stage, analysts say the Web in China is less about innovation than about quickly delivering on the latest online trend.
在这种情况下,专家们分析称:在中国,与其说网络关乎革新,还不如说是用来在线迅速传播最新趋势和政策的。
“People here are quick to see trends, and to clone and innovate,” said William Bao Bean, a former Internet analyst who is now a partner at Softbank China & India Holdings. “If one company is doing well, other companies will quickly clone it and roll it out.”
“人们在这儿能迅速地了解到发展动态、并迅速地进行复制和创新。”威廉·包·比恩,这位前互联网分析师说,他现在是日本软银中印股份的参股人之一。“一旦一家企业做得出色,其他公司会立即复制这种成功甚至把它挤出市场。”
No company is better at that than Tencent, which is based in the southern city of Shenzhen.
这方面的本事没有哪家公司比创建于中国南方城市深圳的腾讯更厉害了。
The company’s biggest weapon is a popular instant messaging service called QQ. Its 500 million active users give the company an advantage when it introduces new products and offerings, like online games.
这家公司的独门利器是一款十分流行的即时通讯软件,也就是在中国家喻户晓的QQ。每每推出新产品或新服务,如在线游戏,QQ的五亿个活跃用户都能让腾讯大赚一把。
Tencent was founded in 1998 by a group of friends that included Ma Huateng, also known as Pony, who is now its 38-year-old billionaire chief executive. With Tencent commanding a stock market value of $37.2 billion, the only global Internet companies that are worth more are Google ($173.7 billion) and Amazon ($57.2 billion).
马化腾(Ma Huateng),也就是有名的小马,和他的一群伙伴于1998年成立了腾讯公司。当今小马成为一位年仅三十八岁而身家过亿的董事长。腾讯股价高达372亿,除了谷歌(1737亿)和亚马逊(572亿),腾讯以名列第三的成绩领先于其他任何国际互联网公司。
But there are other Chinese powerhouses. Baidu, which dominates the market for search advertising in China, is expected to benefit from Google’s departure, even though its own search engine is heavily censored. (Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, which remains censored, could also gain users.)
人中龙虎非一只。另一支互联网劲旅——百度占据着中国绝大部分搜索引擎广告的市场。虽然其搜索引擎同样受到严密网监,仍对谷歌撤退而使自身获益大报希望。(举个例子:微软必应——微软旗下一款搜索引擎,随受网监,但用户量仍能不断增长)
Investors are clearly betting on Baidu’s future. Since January, when Google first announced that it might exit China, shares of Baidu have leapt 50 percent, adding $7 billion to the company’s market value.
投资者们笃定看好百度的前景。自打今年一月谷歌首次宣称将可能撤出中国市场之后,百度的市场份额已然跃升了百分之五十,同时公司市价增长70亿美元。
One advantage local companies have is government protectionism. Because the Communist Party wants to maintain tight control over communication and the media, foreign Internet companies come under suspicion.
本土企业的一个优势就是享受政府保护政策。因为共产党需要保证对通讯媒体的有力监控,必然会对外企高度警惕。
And without competition here from Facebook, which has not yet tried to develop a site for the Chinese market, a social networking site called Kaixin001.com has managed to register over 70 million users.
脸谱网尚未试图在中国开辟一片“领地”,所以这里尚未有来自脸谱网的威胁。但一家名叫开心零零一(Kaixin001.com )的社交网站已成功赢得七千万用户。
But some experts say Google’s departure will leave Internet users here with fewer options, making the country’s Internet market less competitive and less open.
但另一些专家称谷歌的离去将大大狭窄互联网用户的选择面,这会使中国本土的互联网市场竞争度下降、开放度更低。
“The biggest loser is Netizens,” says Fang Xingdong, chief executive of Chinalabs.com, a research firm. “Google is a multilinguistic search engine, but Baidu is a Chinese-language one. Chinese information only occupies a small fraction of the Internet.”
“最大的损失者是普通网民”,知名调查公司——互联网实验室(Chinalabs.com)的首席执行官方兴东(Fang Xingdong)说,“谷歌是一家多语言搜索引擎,但百度只是汉语的。中文信息只占互联网消息的一小部分。”
Google was troubled by censors. And it’s clear that censors make some of the material on Baidu’s search engine look like the bulletin board of propaganda, with some links directed to People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece.
谷歌为网监而苦恼。很明显网监使百度成为一些宣导材料的电子公告板,直接传达人民日报和共产党的口谕。
But Chinese Internet companies go along, despite some misgivings, sensing that the real money is in online fun and games. These seem to flourish despite repeated government crackdowns and warnings about Internet-addicted youth and illegal music downloads.
尽管也有着担忧顾虑,中国网络公司一路走来,感觉到在线娱乐项目和网游才是真正让人发财的地方。不管政府如何三令五申反复镇压,年轻人依然痴迷于网游,非法歌曲下载也依然兴盛。
One question, though, is whether Google’s departure will prevent Chinese companies from developing alongside the world’s technology powerhouses.
然而这里存在一个问题:谷歌的退出是否会使中国企业脱离世界级强大的科技力量从而阻碍其深层次的进步和发展呢?
“When the Chinese companies go outside of China, they will find that they fail to understand their competitors as well as they did when they were competing in China,” said Mr. Rieschel, founder of Qiming Ventures.
美国著名投资公司启明创投(Qiming Ventures)创始人瑞斯彻(Mr. Rieschel)说,“当中国企业迈出国门,他们将发现自己不能理解竞争对手,也不能简单复制在国内般的成功。”
Of course, Chinese companies may just be happy staying home. With 400 million Internet users and growing, their own market is a substantial prize.
当然,也许中国企业更乐意窝在家里享福。四亿并持续着不断增长的互联网用户,这可是他们取之不尽用之不竭的金银山、聚宝盆。
注:《纽约时报》原文标题有所调整 译文出自http://blog.tianya.cn/blogger/post_show.asp?idWriter=0&Key=0&BlogID=534653&PostID=22664030
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