抖音：全球最具价值的创业公司?

TikTok: the world's most valuable startup that you've never heard of

Anticipation has long been building about the impending takeover of the tech world by Chinese digital giants like Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, and JD. Efforts so far, however, have been largely disappointing. The most popular messaging app in the West is WhatsApp, not WeChat; people use PayPal, not Alipay, for digital payments; Google dominates the search market, not Baidu.

表示“即将发生的，逼近的”，英文解释为“An impending event is one that is going to happen very soon.”举个🌰：

She had a sense of impending disaster.

她有种大祸即将临头的感觉。

表示“（公司的）收购”，英文解释为“A takeover is the act of gaining control of a company by buying more of its shares than anyone else.”举个🌰：

He lost his job in a corporate takeover.

他在一次公司收购中丢掉了工作。

Indeed, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Spotify, and Amazon, have barely noticed the competitive impact of their Chinese equivalents. While China has found great success in global hardware markets, they have had much less success with software. That is, until now.

表示“等同物；等价物；对应物”，英文解释为：something that has the same value, purpose, job etc as something else，举个🌰：

The word has no equivalent in English.

这个单词在英语中没有对应词。

类似的表达：sb/sth's answer to sb/sth

表示“与…相当（或同样好）的人（或物）；…的对应物”，英文解释为“If something or someone is the answer to another thing or person, it is or they are considered to be similar or as good.”举个🌰：

The Space Needle is Seattle's answer to the Eiffel Tower.

西雅图的太空针塔堪比艾菲尔铁塔。

上周今天的头条留给微信。一文中介绍微信就提到这么一句“China's answer to WhatsApp, Facebook, Uber and Apple Pay”，官方提供的译文“...的回应”就处理得不太好。

顺便提一下，此前「百度&谷歌」2018年度热搜榜单发布一文中，对爱奇艺的介绍就这么表达：iQiyi, China's answer to Netflix.

通常，提到Weibo时候也会介绍为中国版的Twitter，常见的有几种说法（不完全统计）：

1) Weibo, China's heavily censored version of Twitter (The Economist)

2) Weibo, China's Twitter-like service (SCMP)

3) Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter (NPR NEWS)

4) Twitter-like Weibo (Reuters)

5) Weibo, a Twitter-like platform (NYT)

etc. 欢迎补充~

You may not have heard of it, but TikTok became one of 2018's most downloaded mobile apps for Apple and Android devices in the US and Europe, unseating the likes of YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat. TikTok has already been downloaded more than 80m times in the US, logging 4m downloads from the App Store in October alone. It is also one of the most popular apps on Google Play.

表示“剥夺（重要工作或地位）”，英文解释为“When people try to unseat a person who is in an important job or position, they try to remove him or her from that job or position.”举个🌰：

It is still not clear who was behind Sunday's attempt to unseat the president.

仍不知道星期天发生的企图夺取总统权力的幕后主使是谁。

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a video sharing platform with a twist. Videos can be no longer than 15 seconds and they are based on various themes: music, cooking, travel, dance, fashion, and so on. Users create these short videos, use simple tools to add music and special effects, and share them on the site. The most popular clips are high on entertainment value, with a premium on instant gratification. Similar to Vine, which shut down in 2016, TikTok can be thought of as a video version of Instagram or Snapchat.

TikTok comes from China, but, interestingly, it is not owned by one of the Chinese tech giants. Despite massive investments in video platforms by the likes of Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu, none of them dominates this area.

TikTok – known locally as Douyin – was launched in 2016 by ByteDance, a Beijing-based tech company traditionally focused on news. Its news app, called Toutiao, uses advanced AI algorithms that learn user preferences, then provides customised news feeds. Bytedance uses the same algorithms to provide relevant video feeds to TikTok users.

By the start of 2017, Douyin had become China’s most popular mobile video app. In November of the same year, ByteDance spent US$1 billion to acquire a competing video sharing site called Musical.ly. While Musical.ly was also founded in China, most of its users were based in the US. The combined global reach of TikTok and Musical.ly made for a powerful combination.

此处表示“购得，得到，收购”，英文解释为“to obtain something by buying it or being given it formal”，举个🌰：

He acquired the firm in 2008. 他于2008年收购了这家公司。

I was wearing a newly/recently acquired jacket.

我穿着一件新买的夹克衫。

表示“遍布全球”，英文解释为“When people talk about the global reach of a company or industry, they mean its ability to have customers in many different parts of the world.”举个🌰：

It would have to grow by acquisitions or joint ventures to achieve global reach.

它得通过收购或合资来成长壮大以便触及全球。

While many social media applications focus on global consistency and reach, TikTok focused on targeting specific local audiences. For example, in Japan, TikTok collaborated with a large artist management company to drive traffic from YouTube and Instagram using watermarked TikTok videos created by local celebrities. It also ran a series of dancing and music campaigns focused on overcoming shyness, an issue for many young people in Japan.

Challenges are one of the key elements of TikTok. These are video skits that get acted out en masse, with people creating various responses to a popular meme. A recent one involved gummy bears singing an Adele song, which got 1.7m likes on TikTok, went viral on Twitter and spawned numerous spinoffs.

表示“幽默短剧，滑稽短剧；幽默讽刺小品”，英文解释为“A skit is a short performance in which the actors make fun of people, events, and types of literature by imitating them.”如：clever skits on popular songs 巧妙地讽刺流行歌曲的滑稽短剧。

类似的：sketch作名词除了“素描，概述”的含义，也可以指“幽默短剧；滑稽小品”，英文解释：A sketch is a short humorous piece of acting, usually forming part of a comedy show.

（法语）表示“一起，全体”，英文解释为“if people do something en masse, they do it together”，举个🌰：

The management team resigned en masse.

管理层全体辞职了。

作动词，表示“使大量出现，使大量产生；酿成”，英文解释为“to make a series of things happen or start to exist”，举个🌰：

New technology has spawned new business opportunities.

新技术创造了大量新的商机。

也可以指“（鱼或蛙）大量产卵”（if a fish or frog spawns, it produces eggs in large quantities at the same time）。

1）表示“意外收获；意外效应”，英文解释为“A spinoff is an unexpected but useful or valuable result of an activity that was designed to achieve something else.”举个🌰：

The company put out a report on commercial spinoffs from its research.

该公司发布了一份关于来自其研究的商业效应的报告。

2）表示“（书、电影或电视连续剧的）衍生物”，英文解释为“A spinoff is a book, film, or television series that comes after and is related to a successful book, film, or television series.”

Competition looms

By the end of 2018, TikTok had more than half a billion active users (more than Twitter) – around 40% of them outside China. It is no surprise that the Chinese giants are closely studying TikTok’s successful approach of simple design, active promotion, attention to different locales, and focused acquisition, with an eye to understanding and emulating the magic formula for succeeding in global markets.

表示“场所，现场”，英文解释为“A locale is a small area, for example, the place where something happens or where the action of a book or film is set.”

对比：

location的英文解释“A location is the place where something happens or is situated. The location of someone or something is their exact position. A location is a place away from a studio where a film or part of a film is made.”

表示“（尤因为仰慕而）效仿，模仿”，英文解释为“to do something or behave in the same way as someone else, especially because you admire them”，举个🌰：

Sons are traditionally expected to emulate their fathers.

传统上认为儿子应该效仿他们的父亲。

小作业：“模仿、效仿”还有什么词呢？imitate, ...

Tencent is already making a bet on the short-video streaming industry by investing in Kuaishou, TikTok’s main local competitor, and reportedly giving out subsidies worth nearly US$500m to promote its own platform Weishi. The giants of the West are also taking note, with Facebook quietly launching a TikTok competitor app called Lasso in November 2018.

Meanwhile, Bytedance recently completed a new round of funding led by major tech investor SoftBank. This valued the company behind TikTok at US$75 billion, making it the world’s most valuable startup, higher even than Uber.

Bytedance cannot rest on its laurels, however, if it wants TikTok to build on its position as the first globally successful “made in China” app. TikTok will need to massively expand from its base, while staving off attacks from well funded and ambitious Chinese and global competitors. Building a successful app is one thing. But, as Snapchat’s fall from grace shows, sustaining that success is an entirely more challenging endeavour.

表示“满足于既得成就；吃老本；不求进步”，英文解释为“to be satisfied with your achievements and not to make an effort to do anything else”，举个🌰：

Just because you've got your degree doesn't mean you can rest on your laurels.

你不能仅仅因为得了个学位就心满意足裹足不前了。

表示“延缓，避开”，英文解释为“If you stave off something bad, or if you stave it off, you succeed in stopping it from happening for a while.”如：a cost-saving plan intended to stave off bankruptcy 一个旨在避免破产的成本节约计划。

原文作者：

Michael Wade：Professor of Innovation and Strategy, Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation, IMD Business School

Jialu Shan：Research Associate at Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, IMD Business School

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