Comments on: Zlango Launches Web Play

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Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:20:38 +0000

[...] came across a couple of articles at SCIAM and TechCrunch about Zlango, a new Israeli company that created a new language and associated application for SMS [...]

By: Kozmo

Kozmo — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:08:51 +0000

Well Seth,

If ordinary people are allowed to comment here, so do Zlango enthusiasts, employees or others. Visual language is something the world needs, wants and uses.

Let the market decide, ok?

(BTW, what’s wrong with the Indian? I love them!

By: Seth

Seth — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:28:50 +0000

Kozmo and other Zlango employees, please don’t disturb the free flow.
I am afraid this will be remembered as one of the icons of the second bubble age. It is not what young teens want, it’s what 30+ VC’s imagine is “cool” and if somebody argues, well, he is too old to get it… nice, ah? when you take 200 icons and try to make a pure language they become letters , well, 200 letters is a lot. It will end up being icons or substitute for certain shortcuts that already exist. It is enough to read the funding announcemetn in Zlango to see how lame it is, like indians talking in an old non politically correct movie. Oh, and the english to Zlango latest feature edition is great, all you need on the other side is Zlango to English and boom, no problem at all!!

By: Language and Humor Blog » Blog Archive » Picture this: Zlango linguistic icons for cellphones and Web

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 03:37:41 +0000

[...] You can liven up your cellphone/mobile phone messages and send Web messages and E-cards with Zlango icons (note: includes a few off-color terms) (via TechCrunch). [...]

By: Kozmo

Kozmo — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:08:48 +0000

interesting comments… I share some of these views, but for my part, you may all be forgetting one thing – FUN!… Zlango does add FUN to a boring, very technical, black&white… messaging environment, be it email, IM, SMS or any other kind of text-driven phenomena.

Just go to their website http://www.zlango.com and try it… you will be laughing your asses off just looking at these cool icons:-)

By: Uri Baruchin

Uri Baruchin — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:35:49 +0000

maurizio:
“It will never be a language to express something more than the teenager chat things.”

agree completely, not it should be. “teenager chat things” are more than enough to make them successful.

By: Lola

Lola — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:17:19 +0000

To no. 7:
they DO have a “banging” icon, and it’s a banging-cool one!

By: maurizio

maurizio — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:01:42 +0000

Zlango could be a success because of the coolness factor, but PLEASE don’t try to convince me (us) about the “new language” thing or the “international language” thing. It will never be a language to express something more than the teenager chat things.
To express real things you need precise words (or symbols). If you want to try it with that kind of language you need way more symbols. There is a reason why we use letters to express ourselves and the reason is that we can easily combine them to form more difficult concepts.
Try to write my comment with Zlango symbols.

Anyway I think it will be successful on its field.

By: Uri Baruchin

Uri Baruchin — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:01:28 +0000

I worked with Zlango in the past, and my first comments, when i was first introduced to the product were skeptical as well.

However, then you see how quickly teenagers learn and embrace it, and you realise the potential is astounding. In Israel they even have a TV quiz spin-off.

And there’s also the potential of people communicating across different languages.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 08:57:05 +0000

Zlango requires a screen, let’s not forget.

English only has 26 letters and can be written with a pen. Crossing ethnic boundaries with Zlango could be one of its overall positives – however, the world is become more English focussed, is it not so that is also doing the same job? Furthermore, those not learning English, as would be seen in underdeveloped nations are unlikely to be accessing Zlango, so maybe my premise would not be entirely true for it to bridge ethnic barriers.

However, implementing Zlango’s protocol in a handheld translator could make travelling easier.

By: Andrew Lockwood

Andrew Lockwood — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 02:27:02 +0000

Adrian,

Couple of points…

One of the great things about Zlango is there are only 200 icons, compared with hundreds of thousands of words (English) or characters (Chinese).

The starting point will be young people, but this is not an “only”, as todays young people are tomorrows population. Also, Zlango is making a good start on normalizing the concept by producing books, e.cards, merchandise etc. And don’t forget, lots of older people already use abbreviated shorthand language.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:58:44 +0000

One things for certain: it could enable people to speak without the barrier of language getting and for that it may be worthwhile for older people to learn.

However, there are advanced digital translators around that can cost around $100 yet don’t include all languages, that could also be used instead of Zlango:
http://www.fran...ds/translators/ without requiring the necessity that two interacting people learn it, only one.

Zlango in the end will only be used by young people, and making sounds from a limited number of character(English) seems better than learing 1000s of characters (ie Zlango or Chinese), but Zlango might prepare western kids for learning Chinese by exercising those mental abilities whilst young. Also, once a child learns it, they’ll have it for the rest of their lives possibly and if enough people around the world know it, that could serve them well.

By: Andrew Lockwood

Andrew Lockwood — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:43:06 +0000

A lot of these comments are a little short sighted, and US centric.

The “longhand” language we have today was created for a much slower world of quill pen and parchment. It is not fit for purpose for the instant and rapid, multiple communications which technology now enables, and which lifestyles now demand. People are tired of writing, and dragging their eyes across endless lines of text. That is why so much invention of replacement intuitive shortcut symbol language is already happening (much of it user generated) particularly in the mobile environment where screen and button size, and time and attention are such constraints.

Symbol/icon languages are not new. Cuneiform script, a system of pictographs, was created in 3000BC. Chinese languages are partly pictographic, and Egyptian hieroglyphics are the same (but 2000 characters).

I think Zlango is onto a winner. The world needs a new “shorthand” language that is fast, intuitive, colorful, visual and expressive, to match the explosion of communications devices, opportunities, and technologies. Good to see that Nokia share that Vision.

By: ZiZi

ZiZi — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:52:13 +0000

zax, i agree with you on some points especially tech-crunch readers not being a target.
but asking a person or a kid for that matter to take “days or weeks” as you put it to relearn texting is were i disagree with you.
kids and people already use shortcuts for words and these shortcuts became the standard, i dont see how you can ask people to change these well established rules.
take this for example, one kid takes a week to learn these symbols and he starts talking to his friends with these symbols yet his friends are still using familiar short cuts, his friends will get frustrated with him and probably stop replying to him, if you can convince one kid to learn it there is no way you can convince all his circle of friends, there is no way no how.
as far as 1,8000,000,000 SMSs a year, thats a huge market and thats where i might see them having a chance, if they can convince a very small sector then they have succeeded, although highly unlikely they do have a chance. i have seen much worse startups on tech-crunch just this last week alone.

By: zax

zax — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:28:03 +0000

Well, it seems many people are surprised, that a company that may change the face of the ~1,800,000,000 SMSs a year worldwide, gets funding for 12M$ . i find it surprising that serious people are surprised.
the language is not intuitive at first, true, and for me (34) SMS is something more pragmatic than fun, but still i do have some icons replacing words in my IM programs, and i do like it and i do understand it.
zlango as it appears is a language, learning Spanish or French can take forever, learning 200-300 icons ….. will take me days or weeks at most, and since i have finished sending formulas in chemistry over SMS, i guess many of the things i say over SMS will be easy to create/replace with icons.
the funds are not high at all compared to the market, and the people who read techcrunch are not the target audience for zlango, so maybe this can cause some misunderstanding of what we see here, personally, i predict this company a very big future, sending black text in SMS is what i have been doing for the past 16 years, the time for change has come. younger people will love and use it much more than i do, i imagine zlango will also find its way to IM and greeting cards, and also will be a bug thing for small kids, who at the age of 4 can read a story with icons, but not with letters, regardless of their native language. Good luck guys, it will be interesting to see where this goes.

By: vish

vish — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:38:07 +0000

guys,
Zlango makes a lot of sense to younger kids

4-9 will use it like crazy, it is so more cool than “writing text”

At 4, most kids know already how to use a mobile phone (how to find all the games inside of it), how to browse the internet, but they don’t really know or like to write much.

I believe that older people will also find some limited use for it, like sending my girlfriend “I love you” message with Icons

Even that this is a VERY simple idea, you have to admit, it is going to be a very interesting play…

By: andy

andy — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:27:58 +0000

What is the revenue model here?

By: Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:07:15 +0000

Looks waaaayyy too juvenile for my taste.

http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com

By: Shai

Shai — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:54:48 +0000

I don’t think the big surprise with Zlango is that they got funding, but more the size of the funding that they raised. I still believe this company has the potential for creating a phenomenon for the 10-16 year old set.

This new move into the Web is an interesting one. I wonder whether they are working on something for IM, which would seem to be the natural medium for the age group they are targeting.

By: ZiZi

ZiZi — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:58:23 +0000

i have to agree with Dawson, that said, best of luck to them from the bottom of my heart.

By: Eze

Eze — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:07:04 +0000

Roi, keep up the good work!

By: Adrian

Adrian — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:58:52 +0000

Keyboards spelt the end of handwriting capabilities now Zlango spells the end of words.

By: Jim King

Jim King — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:18:15 +0000

Many of these comments are probably sour grapes, but it is amazing to see something like this get funding. I would like to know how the venture process worked with Zlango. Given the process they must have revenue now, great management team, killer idea, and a good roadmap towards awesome revenue growth. To get $12 million in Series A – the things above must be stellar in nature and the company valued above $50-100 million (?). I don’t see it, but we don’t have a copy of their business plan. Best of luck to Zlango! There is hope for the rest of us.

By: Andraz

Andraz — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:59:39 +0000

Looks like stripgenerator, just done a bit more nicely in GUi sense of way I guess. Hats off to those who managed to get funds for this idea.

By: ChandraB

ChandraB — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:55:35 +0000

Sorry I don’t get it. It’s not intuitively obvious what the icons mean…and exactly what can icons/graphics do that words can’t? (esp. on the web). I’ll spend more time deciphering the icons than reading words.

Who’s going to created the F-ckedCompany.com for current bubble?