演講MP3+雙語文稿:印度的智能手機革命如何催生了新一代讀者和作家

聽力課堂TED音頻欄目主要包括TED演講的音頻MP3及中英雙語文稿，供各位英語愛好者學習使用。本文主要內容為演講MP3+雙語文稿:印度的智能手機革命如何催生了新一代讀者和作家，希望你會喜歡！

【演講人及介紹】Chiki Sarkar

出版商，Chiki Sarkar是Juggernaut的創(chuàng)始人，Juggernaut是一個查找和閱讀高質量，價格適中的書并提交您作品的平臺。

【演講主題】印度的智能手機革命如何催生了新一代讀者和作家

【演講文稿-中英文】

翻譯者 Carol Wang 校對 psjmz mz

00:13

Look all around you. Whether you're in a subway, a park, an airport, a restaurant, even at this conference, all of you have a phone in your hands or maybe in your pockets. How many of you have a book? Very few, right? This is the sight that used to greet me every time I walked out of my office block. I was surrounded by a sea of 20-something professionals glued to their phones. And not a single one had a book in their hands. And this used to make me very, very frustrated.

環(huán)顧一下四周。 無論是在地鐵、公園、機場、餐館， 甚至現(xiàn)在這個會議上， 每人手里都有一部手機， 或者身上揣著手機。 你們有多少人帶著一本書呢？ 幾乎沒有， 對吧？ 這正是我走出辦公樓時， 每每映入眼簾的景象。 我周圍是一大群20幾歲的專業(yè)人士， 他們都手機不離手， 沒有一個人手里拿的是書。 這點曾讓我非常、非常沮喪。

00:44

I was a bookworm all my life. Books formed the milestones of my life. The first man I fell in love with was Mr. Darcy. I first read "Harry Potter" when I was 21, on a summer break from college. And I remember the first night I spent in a little flat I bought in my mid-20s, very proudly, and I spent the whole night reading "The Da Vinci Code." And then I'm going to make a terrible confession: even today, when I'm low, I get into bed with "War and Peace." Don't laugh.

我一生都是個書蟲， 書籍構成了我生命中的里程碑。 我愛的第一個男人是Mr. Darcy (注：《傲慢與偏見》的男主角)， 21歲那年的大學暑假里， 我第一次讀了《哈利波特》， 我還記得在25歲左右時買的 一套小公寓里度過的第一個晚上， 我對此非常自豪， 我通宵讀了《達芬奇密碼》。 接下來，我還要坦白告訴各位： 即使在今天，當我心情不好時， 我還會讓《戰(zhàn)爭與和平》陪伴我入睡。 請別笑。

01:14

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

01:16

But I was also like all those people I saw around me: I, too, lived on my phone. I ordered my groceries online, and soon my app knew that I needed a monthly dose of diapers. I booked my cinemas on my phone. I booked planes on my phone. And when I did the long commute back home like most urban Indians, and was stuck in traffic, I passed the time on WhatsApp, video-chatting my twin. I was part of an extraordinary revolution that was happening in India. Indians are the second-largest users of smartphones in the world. And data prices have been slashed so radically that half of urban India and even a part of rural India now have a smartphone with a data connection in their hands. And if you know anything about India, you'll know that "half" means, like, all of America or something. You know, it's large numbers.

但我也和周圍的人一樣： 離不開手機。 我在網(wǎng)上買食品和日用品， 很快，我的應用程序就知道 我每月都要購買一次尿布。 我在手機上訂電影票， 在手機上訂飛機票。 和多數(shù)印度城里人一樣， 我下班的通勤時間很長， 當堵在路上時， 我會通過在WhatsApp上和 雙胞胎姐姐視頻聊天來打發(fā)時光， 我也親歷了發(fā)生在印度的偉大革命。 印度的智能手機用戶數(shù)量位列全球第二， 數(shù)據(jù)流量價格的持續(xù)大幅下降， 讓印度一半的城市人， 甚至還有一部分農(nóng)村人 用上了能上網(wǎng)的智能手機。 如果你對印度略知一二的話， 就會知道“印度城市人口的一半” 幾乎相當于整個美國的人口， 是的，很多人。

02:12

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

02:14

And these numbers are just growing and growing and growing. They're exploding. And what they're doing is empowering Indians in all kinds of extraordinary ways. And yet, none of these changes that I was seeing around me were reflected in my world, my world of books. I live in a country the size of Europe, and it only has 50 decent bookshops. And Indians just didn't seem to want to read for fun. So if you look at all the best-seller lists in India, what you'll always find in the best-seller list is exam and professional guides. Imagine if you found the SAT guides as the "New York Times" number one seller, month after month.

智能手機用戶的數(shù)量還一直在上漲， 確切來說，是暴漲。 他們從各個不同方面 正賦予印度新的活力。 然而，我看到的周圍這些變化， 對我的世界，書的世界 卻沒有產(chǎn)生任何的影響和改變。 我生活的國家和整個歐洲差不多大， 卻僅有50家像樣的書店， 印度人好像對讀書并不感興趣。 如果你看一下印度的暢銷書排行， 上榜的總是一些 考試和專業(yè)技術指南類書籍。 就好比“紐約時報”排名第一的 暢銷書總是SAT考試指南一樣， 如此日復一日，年復一年。

02:53

And yet, the smartphone revolution was creating readers and writers of a different kind. Whether it was on Facebook or WhatsApp, Indians were writing and sharing and reading all kinds of things: terrible jokes, spurious pop history, long, emotional confessions, diatribes against the government. And as I read and shared these things, I wondered to myself, "Could I get these writers and these readers, could I turn them into my readers?"

然而，這場智能手機革命 卻催生了一個不同類別的 讀者和撰稿人。 不管在臉書上，還是WhatsApp上， 印度人都在創(chuàng)作，分享和 閱讀各種各樣的題材： 低俗笑話、虛假流行歷史、 長篇情感告白、 抨擊政府的檄文。 我閱讀和轉發(fā)這些東西時， 常常暗自思忖道： “我能找到這些撰稿人和讀者， 把他們變成我的讀者嗎？”

03:27

And so I left my plush corner office and my job as the publisher of India's top publishing company, and I set up on my own. I moved into a single large room in a cheap bohemian district of Delhi, with a small team. And there, I set up a new kind of publishing house. A new kind of publishing house needs a new kind of reader and a new kind of book. And so I asked myself, "What would this new reader want? Would they prize urgency, relevance, timeliness, directness -- the very qualities they seem to want from their online services, indeed, the qualities they seem to want from life today?"

于是，我離開自己寬敞舒適的辦公室， 辭去了印度頂尖出版公司的發(fā)行人工作， 開始自己創(chuàng)業(yè)。 我搬到了位于德里市房租便宜的 波西米亞區(qū)的一個大房間， 建立了個小團隊， 在那里，我創(chuàng)辦了一個新型出版社， 一個需要新型讀者 和新穎出版物的新型出版社。 所以我問自己：“新型讀者想讀什么呢？” 他們會注重緊迫性、相關性、 及時性、直接性—— 這些看似是他們想從 網(wǎng)上服務中獲取的品質， 是眼下生活中他們想要的品質嗎？

04:11

I knew that my readers were always on the go. I'd have to fit into their lifestyle and schedules. Would they actually want to read a 200-page book? Or would they want something a little bit more digestible? Indians are incredibly value-conscious, especially when it comes to their online reading. I knew I had to give them books under a dollar. And so my company was formed, and it was born. It was a platform where we created a list of stories designed for the smartphone, but it also allowed amateur writers to upload their own stories, so they could be showcased along with the very writers they read and admired. And we could also enter into other people's digital platforms.

我深知，我的讀者們總是忙個不停， 我必須去迎合他們的 生活方式和時間安排。 他們會想閱讀一本200頁的書嗎？ 或者，他們想讀一些更簡單易懂的讀物？ 印度人具有令人難以置信的價值意識 ， 尤其是在網(wǎng)上閱讀方面。 我知道，給他們的書必須低于 1 美元。 于是，我的公司正式成立了。 這是一個平臺，我們在平臺上創(chuàng)建了 一個為智能手機設計的故事列表， 同時，也允許業(yè)余作家將 自己創(chuàng)作的故事上傳到平臺， 這樣一來，他們的作品就可以和 自己所仰慕的作家的 作品一同展示出來。 而且，我們和其它 數(shù)字平臺也建立了聯(lián)系。

04:57

So, imagine this: imagine you're a receptionist, you've had a long day at work, you book your cab in your ride-hailing app, it shows up, and you get into your car, and you lie back on your seat, and you put on your app. And you find a set of stories waiting for you, timed to your journey. Imagine you're a gay young woman, in a relatively conservative city like Lucknow, which lies near Delhi. There's no way your parents know about your sexuality. They'd completely freak out. Would you like lesbian love stories written in Hindi, priced under a dollar, to be read in the privacy of your phone? And could I match readers to the events that were taking place around them in real time?

試想一下這樣的場景： 設想自己是一名前臺接待員， 在工作中度過了漫長的一天， 你在打車軟件上叫了車， 車來了， 你上了車，靠在椅背上， 打開手機上的應用軟件。 這時你會發(fā)現(xiàn)一組故事已經(jīng)準備好了， 就像為你的旅程而定制一樣。 設想自己是一位年輕的女同， 住在德里附近類似勒克瑙 這樣一個相對保守的城市， 父母不可能知道你的性取向， 否則他們肯定會崩潰。 你是否喜歡在手機上 秘密閱讀印地語寫的， 售價低于 1 美元的女同愛情故事？ 我能否為讀者匹配 他們周圍實時發(fā)生的事情？

05:44

So we published biographies of very famous politicians after they won big elections. When the supreme court decriminalized homosexuality, an LGBTQ collection was waiting on our home page. And when India's Toni Morrison, the great writer Mahasweta Devi died, our readers found a short story by her as soon as news hit. The idea was to be relevant to every moment of a reader's life.

那么在著名政治家贏得重大選舉后， 我們就出版了他們的傳記。 當高級法院判同性戀合法化時， 我們應用的主頁就是一份LGBTQ （同性戀、雙性戀和變性人請愿書）。 當被稱為印度Toni Morrisaon(美國作家)的 偉大女作家Mahasweta Devi去世時， 消息剛出來，我們的讀者就會 同時讀到她寫的短篇小說。 我們平臺的主旨，就是與讀者 生活的每一刻都息息相關。

06:15

Who are our readers? They're mostly young men under the age of 30. There's someone like Salil, who lives in a city where there isn't a modern bookshop. And he comes to our app almost every day. There's someone like Manoj, who mostly reads us during the long commute back home. And there's someone like Ahmed, who loves our nonfiction that he can read in a single sitting, and that's priced very low.

我們的讀者是誰呢？ 他們大多是30歲以下的年輕男性， 有位叫Salil的讀者， 他生活在一個沒有一家 現(xiàn)代書店的城市里， 他幾乎每天都訪問我們的手機應用。 另一位叫Manoj, 他一般在下班乘車回家的 路上讀我們推送的內容。 還有一位叫Ahmed，他喜歡定價低、 一口氣就能讀完的非虛構類讀物。

06:42

Imagine if you're like a young, techie boy in India's Silicon Valley city of Bangalore. And one day, you get an in-app notification and it says that your favorite actress has written a sexy short story and it's waiting for you. That's how we launched Juggernaut. We got a very famous ex-adult star, called Sunny Leone. She's India's most Googled person, as it happens. And we got her to write us a collection of sexy short stories that we published every night for a week. And it was a sensation. I mean, no one could believe that we'd asked Sunny Leone to write. But she did, and she proved everyone wrong, and she found this immense readership.

設想你是一名科技青年， 在印度“硅谷”城市班加羅爾工作。 一天， 你收到應用里的一個通知， 說你最喜歡的女演員 寫了一篇性感的小故事， 已經(jīng)為你準備好了。 我們的數(shù)字出版平臺 Juggernaut就這樣應運而生了。 我們有一個很有名的前成人明星， 名字叫Sunny Leone。在印度，碰巧她的谷歌搜索量排第一。 我們請她寫了一個性感的短篇故事集， 連續(xù)一周，我們每晚推出一期， 這一舉措大獲成功。 要知道，沒人相信我們 會請Sunny Leone寫故事。 但是，她的確寫了， 她證明大家都錯了， 而且還找到了自己的巨大讀者群體。

07:27

And just as we've redefined what a book is and how a reader behaves, we're rethinking who an author is. In our amateur writing platform, we have writers that range from teenagers to housewives. And they're writing all kinds of things. It starts as small as a poem, an essay, a single short story ... Fifty percent of them are returning to the app to write again. Take someone like Neeraj. He's a middle-aged executive, wife, two kids, a good job. And Neeraj loves to read. But every time Neeraj read a book that he loved, he was also filled with regret. He wondered to himself if he could write, too. He was convinced he had stories in his mind. But time and real life had happened, and he couldn't really manage it. And then he heard about the Juggernaut writer's platform. And what he loved about it was that he felt this was a place where he could stand head and shoulders, equally, with the very writers that he most admired.

正如我們重新定義了什么是書， 以及讀者會有什么樣的行為一樣, 我們正在重新思考 什么樣的人可以成為撰稿人。 在我們的業(yè)余寫作平臺， 從青少年到家庭主婦， 他們都是我們的撰稿人。 而且他們寫的東西也五花八門。 從小到一首詩、 一篇文章， 一個短篇小說....開始寫起， 他們中有50%的人會再次回到 我們的應用平臺，繼續(xù)寫作。 以Neeraj為例， 他是個中年高管，有妻子、 兩個孩子，和一份好工作， Neeraj熱愛讀書， 但每當他讀了一本自己喜歡的書， 內心都會充滿遺憾。 他暗自想， 自己是否也能寫作。 他確信自己心里有故事。 但現(xiàn)實是殘酷的， 他真的做不到。 后來，他聽說了我們的 數(shù)字出版平臺Juggernaut， 而他最喜歡的是，在這里， 他覺得自己可以和最欽佩的作家 平起平坐。

08:29

And so he began to write. And he snatched a minute here, an hour there, in between flights in airports, late at night, when he had a little bit of time on his hands. And he wrote this extraordinary story for us. He wrote a story about a family of assassins who lived in the winding lanes of Old Delhi. We loved it, it was so fresh and original. And before Neeraj knew it, he'd not only scored a film deal but also a second contract to write another story. Neeraj's story is one of the most read stories on our app.

于是，他開始了創(chuàng)作。 他這里擠 1 分鐘，那里湊1 個小時， 在機場等候轉機的間隙，或者深夜， 但凡他手頭有一點時間，都用來寫作，最終，他為我們寫了一個超級棒的故事。 這個故事是圍繞一個刺客家庭展開， 這一家人都住在老德里蜿蜒的小巷里。 我們很喜歡這個故事， 它是如此鮮活和新穎。 很快， Neeraj不但 有機會將故事拍成電影， 還簽了第二個故事的合約。 Neeraj 的故事是我們平臺上 閱讀量最多的故事之一。

09:05

My journey is very, very young. We're a two-year-old company, and we have a long way to go. But we already, and we will by the end of this year, have about half a million stories, many priced at under a dollar. Most of our readers love reading and trying out authors they've never, ever heard of before. Thirty percent of our home page reads comes out of the writing that comes from our writer's platform.

我的創(chuàng)業(yè)旅程非常、非常短， 公司成立才兩年，我們還有很長的路要走。 不過我們會在今年年底前， 擁有大約 50 萬個故事， 很多售價不足 1 美元。 我們的大多數(shù)讀者喜愛閱讀， 并且會嘗試閱讀那些他們 以前從未聽過的作者的作品， 我們 30% 的主頁閱讀 來自于我們平臺上撰稿人的作品。

09:34

By being everywhere, by being accessible and relevant, I hope to make reading a daily habit, as easy and effortless as checking your email, as booking a ticket online or ordering your groceries. And as for me, I've discovered that as I entered the six-inch world of the smartphone, my own world just got very, very big.

憑借無處不在， 唾手可得，和與讀者生活息息相關的優(yōu)勢， 我希望讓閱讀成為一種日常習慣， 就像查看電子郵件一樣容易和輕松， 像在網(wǎng)上訂票 或訂購日用品一樣順手。 對我而言， 我發(fā)現(xiàn)，當我進入 智能手機方寸的世界中時， 自己的世界就會變得無限大。

10:00

Thank you.

謝謝大家！

10:01

(Applause)

（掌聲）