手機搭成鵲橋 中國興起手機約會應用

For singles in China under pressure to get married, there are plenty of professional match makers, and busybody parents. But for young people seeking to avoid such interference, there is now a bevy of smartphone apps offering a less formal approach.

對於中國面臨結婚壓力的單身人士來說，除了足夠多的專業紅娘以外，還有好管閒事的父母。但對於試圖避免這類干擾的年輕人來說，有一大堆智能手機應用可以提供相對來說不那麼正式的約會服務。

Momo, the most popular of China’s mobile dating services, uses a phone’s GPS to help users find the profiles and photos of people nearby that they can talk to online, or offline. It has added 30m registered users since July – giving it 80m.

中國最受歡迎的手機約會應用陌陌(Momo)，使用手機的全球定位系統(GPS)，幫助用戶找到他們周圍其他人的資料和照片，用戶可以在線上與線下與之聊天。自今年7月以來，陌陌的用戶人數已經增長了3000萬人，總計達到8000萬人。

“Everyone uses it just for fun, not taking it too seriously,” said one man who asked not to be named. “We are too young to get married, too young. Maybe some girls’ parents want them to get married so early, but my friends haven’t.”

一位不願透露姓名的男士表示：“大家使用陌陌的目的都是爲了好玩，沒有太當真的。我們還很年輕，結婚爲時過早。或許一些女孩的家長希望她們早早結婚，但我的朋友中還沒有結婚的。”

Other new Chinese dating apps include Zhantai, which matches users who live by or commute through the same subway stations, and Dou Jiang You Tiao, a launch with backing from Irish venture capital group SOSventures.

中國新出現的其他約會應用包括：站臺(Zhantai)，它將沿同一條地鐵線路通勤或居住的用戶配對起來；以及豆漿油條(Dou Jiang You Tiao)，該應用得到了愛爾蘭風險投資集團SOSventures的支持。

Jiang Yucheng, a project manager on Blued – an app for gay men that has 2m users and $3m in funding from a Shanghai investor – believes apps have a great advantage over dating websites, which are generally designed for desktop PCs. “People can use a phone app in their down time, and we think a person’s down time is actually the majority of a person’s day.”

Blued是一款面向男同性戀者的應用，現已擁有200萬用戶，並從一位上海投資者那裏得到了300萬美元融資。Blued的項目經理蔣雨城（音譯）認爲，手機應用相對於約會網站來說有一個很大優勢，後者通常都是針對個人電腦設計的。“人們可以在關閉電腦的時間裏使用手機應用，而且我們認爲一個人一天當中的大部分時間其實都不在電腦前。”

For other developers of dating apps, such as Tinder, making money in China can be more of a challenge than elsewhere.

對於Tinder等其他約會應用的開發商來說，在中國賺錢比在其他地方挑戰更大。

One difficulty is that marriage preferences in China remain traditional and focused on family background or economic status, said Rui Ma, who runs the seed investor 500 Startups in Beijing. As few matches on Momo are likely to turn into something long-term people are less likely to pay a lot for the service.

掌管種子投資基金500 Startups北京業務的馬睿表示，一大困難在於，中國人在婚姻問題上的取向仍然傳統，並且看重家庭背景和經濟條件。陌陌上配對的男女很少能轉變爲長期關係，因此人們不太可能願意爲這種服務支付高價。

She noted that, at offline dating events, “people bring their parents because your whole family’s buy-in is needed”.

她指出，在線下約會活動中，“約會者會拉上自己的父母，因爲結婚需要整個家庭的投入”。