中小学英文阅读E09-Predictive advertising

 Predictive advertising

①　Script 文本

Every time we make a phone call, search online or buy something, we leave information, or data, about our habits. And the amount of data is getting bigger, by 2.5 billion gigabytes every day. All that data is worth a lot of money.

每次我们打电话、上网或者买东西的时候，我们都会留下关于我们习惯的信息或数据。数据量也在增加，每天增加25亿千兆字节。所有这些数据都值很多钱。

Mike Baker is a ‘data hunter’. He collects data. He thinks this information is changing the way we live and the way we do business.

Mike Baker是一个“数据猎手”。他收集数据。他认为这些信息正在改变我们的生活方式和做生意的方式。

A few years ago, Mike decided to help advertisers. Why should companies wait for people to find their ads when it was now possible to bring personalized ads to everyone?

几年前，迈克决定帮助广告商。既然现在可以为每个人提供个性化的广告，为什么公司还要等待人们去寻找他们的广告呢?

Then he had another idea. If companies had enough information about people’s past activities, could they use this information to predict their future activities?

然后他有了另一个主意。如果公司有足够的关于人们过去活动的信息，他们能利用这些信息来预测他们未来的活动吗?

Mike felt that they could – that they could predict what people might want to buy.

迈克觉得他们可以——他们可以预测人们可能想买什么。

But it was difficult because there was too much data. He needed a program to understand and use the data.

但这很难，因为有太多的数据。他需要一个程序来理解和使用这些数据。

And he wanted to be able to use the data fast – to be able to predict what people wanted to buy, before they even knew it. But he needed help.

他希望能够快速使用这些数据——能够在人们还不知道之前就预测出他们想买什么。但他需要帮助。

So Mike found a partner with a superfast program. Together, they made the program do what Mike wanted it to do. The program looks at data very quickly and finds clues about what people might want to buy.

所以迈克找到了一个超高速项目的合作伙伴。他们一起让这个程序按照迈克的要求运行。该程序会很快地查看数据，并找到人们可能想要购买什么的线索。

Then it sends them personalized ads. For example, it might learn that you like Italian food and are interested in cars, so it sends you ads about those things.

然后它会给他们发送个性化的广告。例如，它可能会知道你喜欢意大利食物，对汽车感兴趣，所以它会给你发送有关这些东西的广告。

We now live in a world of personalized ads. Yes, you can choose not to have personalized ads, but you can’t get away from ads completely. So maybe it’s better to see ads for things you like than for things you don’t care about.

我们现在生活在一个个性化广告的世界里，是的，你可以选择不做个性化广告，但你无法完全摆脱广告。所以，看到你喜欢的东西的广告可能比看到你不喜欢的东西的广告要好。

②　GLOSSARY 词汇 

Habit： something that you do regularly, almost without thinking about it.

Advertising: the business of trying to persuade people to buy products or services.

Predict: to say what you think will happen in the future. 

Clue: a sign or piece of information that helps you to solve a problem or answer a question.