第二步：精读重点段落

（Tips: 双击文中单词可以查释义并加入你的生词本哦）

Dancing to their own tune

A Chinese news app is making headlines

[1] WHEN rumours swirled in August that Baidu, a Chinese online-search giant, was buying Toutiao, the scrappy news-aggregation platform reportedly quipped in response that reports had mistaken the buyer for the seller. The firm is proud with good reason. Toutiao’s growth since its launch in 2012 has been stellar: it says it has already drawn 700m users to the personalised newsfeeds on its smartphone app. Its valuation has shot up, to $22bn in its latest funding round.

• swirl [swɜ:rl]  v.旋转，打旋;眩晕;盘绕;大口喝酒n.（水，风等的）旋转
• scrappy [ˈskræpi]  adj.混乱的;散乱的;<美>好斗的;好吵架的
• newsfeed新闻馈送;新闻传送干路;新闻供应

[4] News was the perfect place for the startup to build its AI muscle. Toutiao sources its content from 4,000 partner sites, from China’s state-owned media titans to its buzziest blogs. Users’ newsfeeds are constantly updated based on what its machines have learnt about reading preferences, from things like taps, time spent on an article and location (where you spend the lunar new year is probably your hometown, for example). Toutiao claims to have a user figured out within 24 hours.

[6] Some scoff at Toutiao’s sometimes tawdry machine-generated mix; a Hong Kong- based analyst says the algorithm seems to cater to “the lowest common denominator”. Yet that its appeal goes far beyond China’s richest metropolises is one of the reasons it is thrilling investors, says Eric Zhang of General Atlantic, an American private-equity firm with a stake in Toutiao. Half of its users are in so-called third-tier cities and below, where most of China’s untapped smartphone potential lies.

• scoff [skɔ:f]  n.笑柄;食品;嘲笑;嘲弄，愚弄vi.嘲笑，嘲弄;掠夺，攫取;狼吞虎咽
• tawdry [ˈtɔdri]  adj.俗丽的，华而不实的 n.廉价而俗丽之物 adv.俗丽地，华而不实地
• metropolis [məˈtrɑ:pəlɪs]  n.大都市，大都会;首府，首都;大主教区;大城市

[7] Some think its rise may be bad news for Baidu, one of the “BAT” tech trio, along with Alibaba and Tencent. Toutiao’s news app uses its algorithms to fine-tune advertisers’ posts to suit readers’ interests, satisfying both. Toutiao reportedly hopes to make as much as 50bn yuan from ads next year. That is only 15bn yuan shy of what Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, earned last year from advertisers.

[8] Toutiao’s ascent has already earned it the newest accolade in Chinese internet circles: a place in a fresh tech trinity, “TMD”. Yet among its fellow new kids— Meituan-Dianping, an online services platform for everything from food delivery to cinema bookings, and Didi Chuxing, a ride-hailing firm—it stands alone in having no financial backing from BAT. Most up- starts join forces with BAT to gain access to users, algorithms and deep pockets. Toutiao’s genius, says Bhavtosh Vajpayee of Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, was managing to build up the first two from a business that needed very little capital.

• ascent [əˈsɛnt]  n.上升;上坡;登高;追溯
• accolade [ˈækəˌled, -ˌlɑd]  n.嘉奖，表扬;武士爵位的授予（礼）;[乐]达谱号

[9] Having come so far without BAT, investors think Toutiao has a good shot at continuing solo.

（Tips: 双击文中单词可以查释义并加入你的生词本哦）

Dancing to their own tune

A Chinese news app is making headlines

[1] WHEN rumours swirled in August that Baidu, a Chinese online-search giant, was buying Toutiao, the scrappy news-aggregation platform reportedly quipped in response that reports had mistaken the buyer for the seller. The firm is proud with good reason. Toutiao’s growth since its launch in 2012 has been stellar: it says it has already drawn 700m users to the personalised newsfeeds on its smartphone app. Its valuation has shot up, to $22bn in its latest funding round.

• swirl [swɜ:rl]  v.旋转，打旋;眩晕;盘绕;大口喝酒n.（水，风等的）旋转
• scrappy [ˈskræpi]  adj.混乱的;散乱的;<美>好斗的;好吵架的
• newsfeed新闻馈送;新闻传送干路;新闻供应

[2] Toutiao’s parent company, Bytedance, is definitely a buyer now. This month it snapped up Musical.ly, a lip-syncing video platform that has captivated American teens, for a reported $1bn. It looks like a good match. Musical.ly, based in Shanghai, is the first Chinese firm to build an app that has been so admired in the West; Bytedance, which has developed sophisticated artificial-intelligence (AI) technology to customise Toutiao’s newsfeeds, can provide it with winning algorithms.

• sync [sɪŋk]  n.同时，同步
• algorithm [ˈælɡəˌrɪðəm]  n.演算法;运算法则;计算程序

[3] Those algorithms are developed by an army of data scientists working from a vast former aviation museum in Beijing. Bytedance’s boffins showed off their prowess last year with a Toutiao bot that wrote hundreds of widely read short articles during the Rio Olympics. Bytedance’s code also powers four of the six most viewed short- video platforms in China.

• aviation [ˌeviˈeʃən,ˌævi-]  n.航空;飞行术，航空学;飞机制造业;[集合词]飞机
• boffin [ˈbɑ:fən]  n.<英俚>研究员，科学工作者，技术专家
• prowess [ˈpraʊɪs]  n.英勇;高超技艺

[4] News was the perfect place for the startup to build its AI muscle. Toutiao sources its content from 4,000 partner sites, from China’s state-owned media titans to its buzziest blogs. Users’ newsfeeds are constantly updated based on what its machines have learnt about reading preferences, from things like taps, time spent on an article and location (where you spend the lunar new year is probably your hometown, for example). Toutiao claims to have a user figured out within 24 hours.

[5] Its 120m daily readers spend an average of 74 minutes a day on the app—more than almost any other big social platform in or outside China, including Facebook and even WeChat, whose devotees use it for an average of 66 minutes. Half of that time is spent watching videos, many self-published through 800,000 accounts run by everyone from Shanghai celebrities to Henan pig-raisers. One is Brother Kun, who posts videos and articles about plant-related things like caring for your bonsai. He has 360,000 followers and earns over 10,000 yuan ($1,500) a month from the platform under a deal in which Toutiao shares advertising revenue with content- creators (paid content is still in its infancy in China).

[6] Some scoff at Toutiao’s sometimes tawdry machine-generated mix; a Hong Kong- based analyst says the algorithm seems to cater to “the lowest common denominator”. Yet that its appeal goes far beyond China’s richest metropolises is one of the reasons it is thrilling investors, says Eric Zhang of General Atlantic, an American private-equity firm with a stake in Toutiao. Half of its users are in so-called third-tier cities and below, where most of China’s untapped smartphone potential lies.

• scoff [skɔ:f]  n.笑柄;食品;嘲笑;嘲弄，愚弄vi.嘲笑，嘲弄;掠夺，攫取;狼吞虎咽
• tawdry [ˈtɔdri]  adj.俗丽的，华而不实的 n.廉价而俗丽之物 adv.俗丽地，华而不实地
• metropolis [məˈtrɑ:pəlɪs]  n.大都市，大都会;首府，首都;大主教区;大城市

[7] Some think its rise may be bad news for Baidu, one of the “BAT” tech trio, along with Alibaba and Tencent. Toutiao’s news app uses its algorithms to fine-tune advertisers’ posts to suit readers’ interests, satisfying both. Toutiao reportedly hopes to make as much as 50bn yuan from ads next year. That is only 15bn yuan shy of what Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, earned last year from advertisers.

[8] Toutiao’s ascent has already earned it the newest accolade in Chinese internet circles: a place in a fresh tech trinity, “TMD”. Yet among its fellow new kids— Meituan-Dianping, an online services platform for everything from food delivery to cinema bookings, and Didi Chuxing, a ride-hailing firm—it stands alone in having no financial backing from BAT. Most up- starts join forces with BAT to gain access to users, algorithms and deep pockets. Toutiao’s genius, says Bhavtosh Vajpayee of Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, was managing to build up the first two from a business that needed very little capital.

• ascent [əˈsɛnt]  n.上升;上坡;登高;追溯
• accolade [ˈækəˌled, -ˌlɑd]  n.嘉奖，表扬;武士爵位的授予（礼）;[乐]达谱号

[9] That is likely to change as Bytedance seeks new users through other types of entertainment. Before it bagged Musical.ly, it bought stakes in Indian and Indonesian news aggregators, as well as Flipagram, an American rival to Instagram; it was reported this month to have tried to buy Reddit, an American social-discussion site valued at close to $2bn. Having come so far with- out BAT, investors think Toutiao has a good shot at continuing solo.

• aggregator [’æɡrɪ,ɡeɪtər]  n.聚合器，整合者;汇集者，聚合