用人工智能篩選“今日頭條”

Every day, in a former Beijing aeroplane factory that is now the headquarters of Jinri Toutiao, servers sort and tag some 200,000 articles and videos that the mobile app’s users will consume that day.

今日頭條的總部設(shè)在北京一座曾經(jīng)的飛機(jī)制造廠里，每天，這里的服務(wù)器都要對(duì)約20萬(wàn)條文章和視頻進(jìn)行整理和貼標(biāo)簽，供這個(gè)移動(dòng)應(yīng)用的用戶當(dāng)天閱覽。

With nearly 600m users, five-year-old Toutiao has overtaken traditional and state-owned media to become a significant channel through which the world’s most populous country gets its news.

成立五年、擁有近6億用戶的今日頭條，已超越傳統(tǒng)和國(guó)有媒體，成為世界人口第一大國(guó)獲取新聞的一條重要渠道。

Meaning “Today’s Headlines”, Jinri Toutiao is also one of China’s most valuable tech start-ups, valued at $11bn after its latest Series D funding round led by Sequoia Capital last month. That is more than 20 times its $500m valuation in 2014, sparking a debate over the worth of what is essentially a news aggregation app.

今日頭條也是目前中國(guó)估值最高的科技初創(chuàng)企業(yè)之一。在完成由紅杉資本(Sequoia Capital)領(lǐng)投的D輪融資后，其估值已達(dá)110億美元，較2014年5億美元的估值高出20余倍，由此引發(fā)了一場(chǎng)圍繞本質(zhì)上是一款新聞聚合應(yīng)用的價(jià)值的辯論。

While Toutiao hosts content but does not produce it, it maintains it has a key selling point in its “intelligent news feed”, where artificial intelligence and machine learning software tailor content.

盡管今日頭條發(fā)布內(nèi)容，但并不生成內(nèi)容。它堅(jiān)稱自己有一個(gè)關(guān)鍵賣點(diǎn)：“智能新聞推送”，即由人工智能與機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)軟件對(duì)內(nèi)容進(jìn)行個(gè)性化定制。

“We strive to become the information platform that knows each individual best,” Tina Zhao, vice-president, said in an interview. “No two users’ feed lists are alike.”

今日頭條高級(jí)副總裁趙添(Tina Zhao)在接受采訪時(shí)表示：“我們努力成為最了解每一位用戶喜好的信息平臺(tái)。沒有兩位用戶的新聞列表是一樣的。”

It is betting that a personalised user experience will give it an edge over its competitors — the tech triumvirate of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.

今日頭條押注的是，個(gè)性化的用戶體驗(yàn)將使其相對(duì)于競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手——科技三巨頭百度(Baidu)、阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和騰訊(Tencent)——擁有優(yōu)勢(shì)。

“Back in the days when Toutiao was born, the Chinese information market was dominated by web portals like Sina and Sohu. Their mobile products were simply moving content from web to mobile, and user experience . . . was not good enough,” said Ms Zhao.

趙添表示：“今日頭條剛誕生時(shí)，中國(guó)的信息市場(chǎng)還是由新浪(Sina)和搜狐(Sohu)之類的門戶網(wǎng)站把持著。他們的移動(dòng)產(chǎn)品僅僅是把內(nèi)容從網(wǎng)絡(luò)端挪到移動(dòng)端，用戶體驗(yàn)……并不太好。”

Founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, a former software engineer, Toutiao has grown rapidly in the past year. Its number of daily active users rose from 30m to 78m in 2016 — making it the tenth most-used app in China — as it capitalised on voracious demand for interesting content, in a country still dominated by state-owned media.

今日頭條是2012年由前軟件工程師張一鳴創(chuàng)建的。過去一年里，公司發(fā)展迅速。日活用戶數(shù)從3000萬(wàn)增至2016年的7800萬(wàn)，在中國(guó)熱門應(yīng)用中排名第10。在中國(guó)這個(gè)仍由官方媒體主導(dǎo)的國(guó)家，人們對(duì)于有趣的內(nèi)容有著旺盛需求，今日頭條利用了這一點(diǎn)。

“We are not like other news portals which provide news with a certain position. Rather, we are a neutral platform, providing news to every person depending on what they are interested in,” said Mr Zhang, in a 2015 interview with Chinese media.

張一鳴在2015年接受中國(guó)媒體采訪時(shí)曾表示：“我們和其他帶有一定立場(chǎng)提供內(nèi)容的新聞門戶網(wǎng)站不一樣。我們是一個(gè)中立的平臺(tái)，根據(jù)每個(gè)人的興趣來(lái)提供新聞。”

Toutiao’s readers can browse Chinese-language news, commentary and video sourced from 4,000 partnerships, which the company says it has forged with both state-owned and independent media organisations, including Xinhua and Caixin.

今日頭條的中文新聞、評(píng)論和視頻來(lái)自4000家合作伙伴。據(jù)該公司稱，這些合作伙伴既有國(guó)有媒體，也有獨(dú)立媒體，例如新華社和財(cái)新。

Sina Weibo, one of China’s largest social media platforms, invested $100m in Toutiao in 2014 and now publishes non-news content by verified bloggers directly to Toutiao’s app.

2014年，中國(guó)最大的社交媒體平臺(tái)新浪微博向今日頭條投資1億美元，如今，可直接在今日頭條應(yīng)用上發(fā)布來(lái)自微博認(rèn)證博主的非新聞內(nèi)容。

To beef up its news-sorting algorithms, Toutiao has aggressively poached engineering talent. In February, it hired Ma Wei-Ying, the former assistant managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, to lead its AI Lab.

為了增強(qiáng)自己的新聞排序算法，今日頭條一直在積極挖技術(shù)人才。今年2月，微軟亞洲研究院(Microsoft Research Asia)常務(wù)副院長(zhǎng)馬維英加盟今日頭條，執(zhí)掌其人工智能實(shí)驗(yàn)室。

Yet some of Toutiao’s investors have expressed concern over how solely providing content can sustain long-term growth.

但對(duì)于僅憑提供內(nèi)容如何能維持長(zhǎng)期增長(zhǎng)，今日頭條的一些投資者表示了擔(dān)憂。

“We are still undecided about ‘new media’ firms. They build audience and popularity through third-party mega-platforms but are not really building something on their own. They are dependent on the mega-platform,” said Anita Huang, a managing partner at Beijing-based Sinovation Ventures.

總部位于北京的創(chuàng)新工場(chǎng)(Sinovation Ventures)運(yùn)營(yíng)合伙人黃蕙雯(Anita Huang)表示：“對(duì)于‘新媒體’公司我們?nèi)杂行┆q豫。這些公司通過第三方大平臺(tái)來(lái)構(gòu)建受眾和人氣，但并不是真正靠自己。他們依賴大平臺(tái)。”

Nearly all of Toutiao’s revenue comes from advertising. The company said it earned Rmb6bn ($869m) last year from in-app advertisements and aims to increase that to Rmb10bn by 2020.

今日頭條幾乎全部營(yíng)收都來(lái)自廣告。該公司稱，去年通過應(yīng)用內(nèi)廣告創(chuàng)收60億元人民幣(合8.69億美元)，力求到2020年提升至100億元人民幣。

“The value of Toutiao is indeed overestimated for a platform without original content,” wrote Zhang Luoyang, a prominent online tech commentator. “Toutiao’s 600m user base has pretty much found all of China’s 680m internet users. To make only Rmb6bn in advertisements, despite having so many users, means its margins are extremely low and dependent on one source, so it must create more value within its own services.”

知名在線科技評(píng)論員張洛陽(yáng)撰文表示，“作為一個(gè)沒有原創(chuàng)內(nèi)容的平臺(tái)，今日頭條確實(shí)被高估了。今日頭條6億用戶已逼近中國(guó)6.8億網(wǎng)民的總量。如此多用戶只貢獻(xiàn)了60億元人民幣的廣告費(fèi)，說(shuō)明其利潤(rùn)率極低，且創(chuàng)收來(lái)源單一。因此，它必須挖掘自己的服務(wù)，創(chuàng)造更多價(jià)值。”

That has prompted Toutiao to seek additional sources of revenue abroad and to explore other service areas.

這促使今日頭條去海外尋找其他營(yíng)收渠道，并開發(fā)其他服務(wù)領(lǐng)域。

In February, it bought Los Angeles-based video app Flipagram, an Instagram rival, for an undisclosed amount, and has taken controlling stakes in several Indonesian and Indian media apps. A partnership with Chinese ecommerce platform JD.com enables users to browse and purchase directly JD.com products featured within the Toutiao app.

今年2月，今日頭條收購(gòu)了Instagram的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手、總部位于洛杉磯的視頻應(yīng)用Flipagram(收購(gòu)金額未對(duì)外披露)，還買下數(shù)款印尼和印度媒體應(yīng)用的控股股份。此外，公司還與中國(guó)電商平臺(tái)京東(JD.com)進(jìn)行合作，讓用戶可直接在今日頭條應(yīng)用里瀏覽并購(gòu)買京東商品。

Toutiao also has made a big push into hosting user-created content. Last year, it said it would invest $1bn in video streaming and now allows anyone to set up a channel on Toutiao to post non-news content.

今日頭條還開始大舉發(fā)力用戶原創(chuàng)內(nèi)容領(lǐng)域。去年，該公司稱將向視頻流業(yè)務(wù)投資10億美元。現(xiàn)在任何人都可以在今日頭條上開設(shè)頻道，發(fā)布非新聞內(nèi)容。

Meanwhile, media professionals and investors worry that Toutiao could encounter the problems of algorithm bias and fake news that have entangled social media platforms such as Facebook. Toutiao employs “human intelligence” teams to screen for dubious content and refine its algorithms but analysts say a personalised news source runs the danger of becoming too narrow.

與此同時(shí)，媒體專業(yè)人士和投資者擔(dān)心，今日頭條會(huì)遇到一直困擾著Facebook等社交媒體平臺(tái)的算法偏差和假新聞等問題。今日頭條組建了多個(gè)“人類智能”團(tuán)隊(duì)來(lái)篩查可疑內(nèi)容，并改進(jìn)算法，但分析師們表示，個(gè)性化新聞存在著新聞來(lái)源變得太窄的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。

Lou Meijing, an analyst at iiMedia, a Beijing media consultancy group, said: “There is this problem of creating a filter bubble from a news source based on an algorithm and what our friends recommend, so that what we read further creates an even more subjective, more biased stream of information.”

北京媒體咨詢集團(tuán)艾媒網(wǎng)(iiMedia)分析師婁梅靜表示：“要當(dāng)心一個(gè)問題，這種基于算法和朋友推薦的新聞來(lái)源會(huì)形成一個(gè)‘過濾泡沫’，我們的閱讀歷史會(huì)導(dǎo)致推送的信息更加主觀、更有偏見。”