week5 - 全球購物狂歡節(光棍節)

More than $1 billion worth of goods were sold over Alibaba Group’s e-commerce platforms within the first 20 minutes of this year’s 11.11 Shopping Festival, with nearly half of all transactions taking place via mobile devices.

The milestone—$1 billion in total GMV (gross merchandise volume)—was reached on Nov. 11 at 12:17 a.m. During the 24-hour sale last year, it took about an hour to reach the $1 billion mark for all transactions on Alibaba Group’s retail platforms.

Nearly 48 percent of the sale's first $1 billion in GMV were transactions placed by smartphones and other mobile devices. Mobile GMV surpassed RMB 1 billion ($163 million) less than five minutes after the sale began.

The start of the annual e-shopathon was witnessed by more than 500 journalists who were on hand at an auditorium at Alibaba Group’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China. There, they watched  the sales totals climb on a large monitor, which displayed other near-real-time statistics and geographical data such as regions in China where online purchasing was hottest.

Alibaba Group is rolling out the sale worldwide this year. The strongest overseas traffic was coming from Hong Kong, the U.S. and Taiwan.

“Behind the scenes and behind the numbers are millions of merchants and millions of partners who worked together with us to create this festival for consumers,” Alibaba Group COO Daniel Zhang told reporters prior to the start of the sale. The largest 24-hour online sale in the world, the 11.11 Shopping Festival this year involves some 27,000 merchants and brands selling over Alibaba shopping websites Tmall.com, Taobao Marketplace, AliExpress and Tmall Global.

Last year’s 24-hour sale saw $5.8 billion worth of goods transacted over Alibaba Group’s Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace platforms, making it the biggest shopping day in the world, topping the sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

The sale this year will be another test of Alibaba’s expanding e-commerce ecosystem, which includes not only its online shopping platforms but also affiliate companies such as e-payments provider Alipay and China Smart Logistics, a consortium of shipping and delivery companies. “This is a very unique phenomenon for the ecosystem,” Zhang said of the 11.11 Shopping Festival. “This cannot be done by just one company but it can be done by an ecosystem.”

With more and more Chinese consumers shopping on mobile phones this year, Zhang said prior to the sale, Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace used so-called “big data” technology to optimize the 11.11 shopping experience, using software algorithms to predict and display items they may like on their mobile phones. “What we are doing this year is to give people a more data-driven and personalized (mobile) pages so people can access the content they are interested in,” Zhang said.

Previous 11.11 Shopping Festivals have been limited largely to the mainland. But for the first time this year, AliExpress, Alibaba Group’s English-language consumer shopping platform will be participating, offering 50 percent off on one million products to customers overseas. The AliExpress sale will start at midnight PST. Chinese consumers will also be able to buy discounted imports through Tmall Global.

http://www2.alizila.com/online-shopping-binge-gets-strong-start

Structure of Lead:
WHO- Alibaba Group
WHAT- over 1 billian worth of good were sold by Alibaba group
WHEN- November 11st
WHERE- not mentioned
WHY-  not mentioned
HOW- through mobile devices

Keywords:
1. transaction  交易
2. gross merchandise volume 商品交易總額
3. surpass 超過
4. roll out 推出
5. affiliate 子公司
6. optimize 優化
7. algorithm 算法
8. retail platform 零售平台
9. headquarter 總部
10. geographical 地域

week4 - 長江船難

Chinese salvagers have fully righted the ship which capsized on the Yangtze River, on which more than 400 people are thought to have died.

The Eastern Star overturned late on Monday after being caught in a storm.

Just 14 of the 456 passengers and crew are known to have survived what looks set to be China's worst shipping disaster in more than 60 years of Communist rule.

Authorities say the chances of finding anyone still alive were "slim".

"In a situation in which the overall judgment is that there is no chance of people being alive, we could start the work of righting the boat," Transport Ministry Spokesperson Xu Chengguang had told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

Why did cruise ship capsize?

Rescue workers on the upturned hull, which was just barely visible over the brown waters of the Yangtze, were towered over by two cranes.

Hooks were welded onto the ship and a net stretched around the entire structure in preparation for lifting it.

By first light on Friday, the ship could be seen lying on its side with its name visible just above the water. Xinhua state news agency later tweeted a picture of the righted vessel, its roof apparently crushed.

As the ship is righted, the focus of emergency workers at the site in Jianli, Hubei province will switch from attempting to find survivors to searching the ship's 150 cabins for bodies.

Mr Xu said on Friday that the next step was to raise the ship entirely above the water to conduct the search.

So far 97 bodies have been recovered, some after three holes were cut into the vessel's upturned hull. The holes were later welded closed in order to preserve the ship's buoyancy.

Mr Xu said there had been no further signs of life inside the ship, Xinhua news agency reports.

He said officials would "absolutely not cover up anything" in the investigation, state media reports.

Chinese President Xi Jinping promised a thorough investigation into the cause of the disaster, after angry relatives protested at the scene.

Authorities tightly controlled access to the site, leading family members and journalists to complain about a lack of information.

Most of the 14 people known to have survived jumped from the ship as it began to sink. Three were rescued by divers from air pockets in the upturned hull.

The cause of the sinking is not yet known, but survivors have spoken of an intense storm which flipped the boat over in minutes.

The captain and chief engineer, who were among those who escaped, have since been detained.

Maritime agency records showed the ship was investigated for safety violations two years ago. It was held alongside five other vessels in 2013 over safety concerns.

China's deadliest maritime disaster in recent decades was in November 1999, when the Dashun ferry caught fire and capsized in the sea off Shandong province, killing about 280.

The Eastern Star could become China's deadliest boat accident since the SS Kiangya sank off Shanghai in 1948, killing somewhere between 2,750 and 4,000 people.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33011557

Lead of Structure:

WHO- Chinese government

WHAT-  It seemed that more than 400 had died

WHEN- not mentioned

WHERE- Yangtze River

WHY- Due to the capsized

HOW- not mentioned

Keywords:

1. salvager  打撈

2. capsized  翻船

3. righted  糾正

4. buoyancy  浮力

5. hull  船殼

6. cruise  巡航

7. maritime 海上

8. upturned  翻過來的

9. crane  起重機

10. weld  焊接