February 15, 2008

Web-Based Translation Service Lingtastic Launches in Closed Beta (Invites)

Erick Schonfeld

44 comments »

A new startup called Lingtastic is coming out of stealth today that wants to lower the cost of professional translation services. Using a distributed team of freelance translators around the world, customers will be able to call in, and the translator with the lowest bid will take the call. Instead of $100 an hour or more, CEO Chas Watkins expects the hourly rate to be as low as $18. (Lingtastic will take 20 percent as its cut).

The service launched in closed beta today for Spanish-English translations. Other languages will be available when the site launches publicly in March. If you want to try it out, send an e-mail to TC [at] Lingtastic [dot] com saying why you want to use the service. TC readers will get preference in being accepted to the beta.

Lingtastic will provide both live interpreters and translate text messages from one language to another. Watkins imagines many scenarios for his services. Any hotel or car rental agency across the world can have a live interpreter by simply calling. Sales people trying to reach potential customers in foreign countries could use the service. Or simply someone trying to flirt with someone they meet on a social network who lives in another country. Text translations can be sent via e-mail, SMS, or posted to Websites. There is a developer API as well. Here is how Watkins describes the service:

In the live release next month a customer with an account will be able to request a live interpreter from our website and they will receive a call from that person in seconds. They can specify language, specialty, max price and skill level and the interpreters compete for their business. That call can come on a normal phone, cell phone, skype, Yahoo, Google talk, or MSN. We can even conference in a third party on any of those applications too!

The most important aspect of our service though is the interface we have built to this system. That allows developers to quickly add our service (or resell it) from their own software or social site. This will allow people to quickly develop applications that can translate text, or have live interpreters call them to chat with friends from within any website or service.

Watch this slide show for more info.

Sphere It

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Damien

February 15th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

Damm, I just choked on my coffee!

We’ve just raised the funding for a very very similar service, even down to the name!
No holiday for the dev e-team now !
chino66

February 15th, 2008 at 4:49 pm

Ugh. This sounds horrible.

I just checked out Language123 and got 45 responses to my project in about 10 days. The only thing was that over half of the responses were from people who were obviously not great translators (I’m an amateur translator myself).

So, how does someone, who doesn’t speak the language, know they’re getting an accurate translation? Is Lingtastic going to guarantee the translation? Will the language be country specific? In Mexico, “torta” is a sandwich. In Spain, “torta” is a cake…

My Sixth Sense: I see “Deadpool”
Josh

February 15th, 2008 at 5:11 pm

You’ve raised funding for a site without even checking whether the domain you are pitching with was available? Why would you expect people to give you money when you didn’t have enough faith in the project to spend $10 out of your own pocket to reserve the name?

On topic, the site looks to be very useful, as long as there is some way to guarantee quality. Their front page is pretty tragic though: five separate animated Flash movies all competing for attention. Ack!
Damien

February 15th, 2008 at 5:30 pm

@Josh It’s a similar name, obviously not the same name. Although on further reading there was no mention of medical services as this seems more aligned with personal translation services. Utilizing Skype sounds quite a good idea for this.
Andrew

February 15th, 2008 at 5:33 pm

They’ll never pull it off.

This is more useful:
http://www.blahblahfish.com
Gordon Gekko

February 15th, 2008 at 5:37 pm

@3 — he said very very similar
Brian Zafron

February 15th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

Our world is a melting pot, so is our web 2.0 Expect more linguistic services in the future. And that’s a Brian Zafron guarantee. BRIAN OUT.
James Peter

February 15th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

I quite like the idea actually. I was just looking for some quick translation services for my app, so this suits me perfectly.

The API is the best part. When I update my app I want to be able to quickly get a range of translations for a very limited amount of text. If the service works well enough I might use this instead of relying on user translations.

I wish they had a few more languages, though.
Nikolay Kolev

February 15th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

Their overly “flashy” website is so Web 1.0! Yeah, I also sense a deadpooler here.
Jon

February 15th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Interesting site but my concern would be quality when you don’t know the language yourself to double check accuracy. My parents run a translation company and I have seen more then my fair share of “professional translators” who are everything but professional or translators. For 18$/hour you aren’t getting people with Masters degrees in Translation, that’s for sure!

Jon
http://buzvia.com - Share Influence
Philip Kaplan

February 15th, 2008 at 7:27 pm

I used 1-800-TRANSLATE once to call a store in Japan that sold a watch I wanted. It was a pretty cool service. Though I never ended up buying the watch.
EH

February 15th, 2008 at 7:55 pm

Do they translate PHP into Ruby On Rails?
Kay

February 15th, 2008 at 9:03 pm

@ Jon: that’s why you need a service like Proz.com. You can find out how good a translator or a translation agency is from their ratings before hiring them.

I’m not sure if this would work. Professional translation involves trust. Companies trust translation agencies who’ve a network of translators they can trust. Lingtastic claims to do away with middle men for translators. This model doesn’t work.
Peter Andrews

February 15th, 2008 at 9:07 pm

Sounds like an excellent idea, what I would have given for this to be available whilst traveling through Central America. From looking at the site it appears that the concept is you can chose what level of translator you require from a conversational translation through to a professional with a Masters degree. Entirely based on what you require, where you require and by whatever medium you require.

Sign me up for the service when it is available for the public!

Peter
geomark

February 15th, 2008 at 9:23 pm

I must agree with #10 and #13 based on my personal experience. I run a small translation service focused on one language pair. Despite living in the country where the target language is the native language, finding a decent translator is very difficult. Significant editing is almost always required even when the job is farmed out to one of the larger “professional” translation shops located here. Finding a decent freelance translator is very tough.

This service might be ok for casual conversations but the trust factor needs to be addressed for anything more serious.

Also agree with the comments about their front page, tragic overuse of flash is quite a fitting description.
EMR and HIPAA

February 15th, 2008 at 10:35 pm

Healthcare uses this type of service all the time too. Imagine trying to treat a patient or give medical instructions to a patient who doesn’t understand english. Pharmacies are the same. Imagine giving instructions to a patient on how and how often to take a drug and they don’t understand English. They use a call in service for this type of situation. Could be a good market for this company.
nistor

February 16th, 2008 at 1:20 am

great post
http://www.i-guide.ro/blog/Ro/en/
Gb

February 16th, 2008 at 1:37 am

Being a professional French translator , i can tell you that there is no secret: if you’re looking for quality then you’ll have to pay.
micfo.com

February 16th, 2008 at 3:20 am

You share 20 percent what you earn to them, it’s seems quite reasonable.
micfo.com

February 16th, 2008 at 3:48 am

You share 20 percent to them what you earn through their system, its seems quite reasonable.
Blake Robinson

February 16th, 2008 at 6:16 am

I can’t really see a lot of people using a translator to flirt with people who speak another language, so hopefully that isn’t any significant source of their projected income.
Omer

February 16th, 2008 at 7:21 am

@Blake , dont underestimate any thing before it effects the world.
Ilan

February 16th, 2008 at 9:00 am

@21 Blake, you’d be surprised how many use messengers for business chats.
Wasaty

February 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am

The most important question is - where are they going to find the translators? There are already some sites on the Internet, where translators can bid with lowering prices and my experience is that you won’t find there any *professional*, self-respecting translators with decent skills. You have to pay for them. I’m translator myself and I already have too much offers to accept them all, so what is the point of seeking new, for less money?
Andrew

February 16th, 2008 at 10:58 am

I took one look at the site and “blah” if they are going for a professional base they should change their look. Its funny but looks like a web infomercial not something I would trust.
Larry Larrikin

February 16th, 2008 at 11:16 am

First of many people (including Erick) seem to be using translator and interpreter interchangeably. They are quite different things, require different skills and typically have different people doing the job.

Secondly, the only way this can work is if they have very strict requirements for getting listed on the site, including references and testing. I don’t think just a user rating and feedback mechanism will generate enough trust.
dave

February 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm

hmm, smells like it will never be able to scale…also, smt for spanish and other languages is already getting very good so not sure where they plan to carve out markets and leads and pricing advantages (versus free and ‘workable’)
DM

February 16th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

I don’t think professional localisation companies and freelancers have much to worry about - the number of spelling errors on the website is a warning of the quality of translations that will undoubtedly emerge.

Also, from the the “About Us” page:

“Funny Chas should choose a South American country. He doesn’t speak Spanish. That didn’t stop him! It made him more fired up. Everyday became a small battle living and working in a Spanish speaking environment without the language. Sending an email became monumental. A text message was impossible. “Life should be easier than this.” thought Chas. “

Did it never occur to him to actually learn the language of the country in which he was living?
Mike

February 17th, 2008 at 3:52 am

for the last 3 years I’m been using Translated (http://www.translated.net) through their developer API.

From their website: 1400 language pairs, 26.000 professional translators (they claim to be the largest network of managed translators), developer API and they already serve customers such as IBM and HP.

have a look also to worldlingo.com and appliedlanguage.com
dc crowley

February 17th, 2008 at 4:29 am

Why do I get a stamps.com feeling reading this story and all the comments?
Francesco

February 17th, 2008 at 5:37 am

Lingtastic website seems a little confused and over animated
VentureDeal

February 17th, 2008 at 6:53 am

Amazing they can get venture capital for an unfocused site and service. Don’t really know who they’re selling to.
Isabel Fernandez

February 17th, 2008 at 9:02 am

In translations, as in everything in life, you pay peanuts you get monkeys….
iguide

February 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am

cool new blog
http://www.i-guide.ro/blog/Ro/en/
Chas Watkins

February 17th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Dear Tech Crunch readers,

As an avid reader of TC it is strange to now read the comments about a company that I am so deeply involved with and I would like to address some of the thoughts and issues some of you raised.

With regard to the coffee choking startup founder, good luck. This is the future of translation so we knew there would be others developing similar ideas.

The translation market (both interpreter and translation) is worth over $10 billion and growing. The goal of Lingtastic is to dominate every aspect of the interpreter business and a large section of the text translation business. The translation of books, legal documents, in fact any document of length is not part of our focus.

This service was born out of frustration. Some of us just do not have a skill for learning languages. For those of you that have travelled or intend to travel abroad extensively without local language skills, having a friend or a local with you that can translate for you is wonderful and removes much frustration from travel and business activities. Yet to hire an interpreter on the phone is prohibitively expensive. But hiring a local who can speak both languages competently enough for you to do what you need to do is extremely cheap. This service is meant to bridge that gap.

I will deal with interpreters and text translation separately as the market, delivery method, and quality issues are extremely different.

Interpreters are available on the phone anywhere from $90 an hour to $300+ (no joke) an hour! Yet even the most professional interpreters receive only a small fraction of this amount. Many Spanish/English interpreters work out of call centers in Argentina, The Dominican republic etc and are paid in the region of $8-15 per hour. Some are US based and are paid a lot more but they are the exception, not the norm. However they are still paid far less than the amount charged to the customers. We are trying to remove the EXPENSIVE middle man and provide these same services via many other mediums such as VOIP applications where there is little or no cost for the connection.

The level of skill, quality, and trust with language interpretation is most definitely an important issue and concern. Lingtastic gives the customer the opportunity to chose the skill level or quality of their transaction. Our selection will include professional translators with degrees and years of experience. They, being more skilled, will obviously charge more for their services. We will also have people who grew up bilingual, have great internet connections, and can live in their location happily on $8 an hour. You will choose what you need. I know if all I need is someone to help me talk to a shop assistant to buy some goods in a foreign language I do not need a master interpreter specializing in medical terminology; nor am I willing to pay such an extravagant amount for something so simple.

We will vet our interpreters and assign them a skill level based on their experience and abilities while attempting to err on the side of caution. Quality is of extreme concern to us but so is the customers opportunity to choose the level of ability and hence the price. As to the question of “where are we going to find the translators?”, without any significant effort on our part we have over 250 qualified applicants for the Spanish beta, far more than we actually need.

To ensure customer satisfaction the interpreters will be restricted to translating into their native language only. In addition the customer will be given a short period of time at the beginning of each call to judge for themselves free of cost whether or not this specific interpreter meets their needs.

Text translation is a far different issue and one where the challenges are more exciting. A text translator must have command not only of the spoken language but grammar and spelling skills as well. Lingtastic will have strict minimum skill restriction with regard to text translation so that a satisfactory translation is always obtained. Lingtastic will also restrict our translation to blocks of text such as emails and SMS messages only. We are committed to having translators from varied regions and differing dialects. All translation will be done anonymously yet you will be given the chance to give feedback as to the quality of the transaction.

The phrase “compete for work” used in the article above may give the impression of an auction. That is not how the system works. Interpreters and translators establish for themselves what they want to be paid for work. We assign their skill level using master translators who must have years of professional experience. Once a customer makes their selection of available criteria either the best price is found for the criteria or the most skilled for a maximum price. All criteria being equal the translator with the best feedback is chosen. This happens in seconds and the job is assigned immediately. Our software has received a request to translate text, assigned the job, the translator has translated the text, and the service has sent the translated SMS message within a minute.

Interpreters and translators can work when they want and for whatever fee they want. We expect to cover every possible language eventually, and our goal is to be able to deliver to our customer via whatever medium they need from us. We are convinced that our service will provide a beneficial service and bring interpreters to the mass market.

I hope this addresses some of the above issues and I am always willing to listen to any comments on a personal basis via my email cwatkins [dot] Lingtastic [dot] com

Regards
Chas Watkins
Founder Lingtastic
New Fast Browser

February 17th, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Intuitive.

http://www.jhatak.com/Buckler/BucklerHomePage.htm
Alex

February 17th, 2008 at 2:59 pm

The future of translation is NOT in people doing translations.

I’d put my money on the first company to figure out automatic CONTEXTUAL translation. I know Google’s been looking into it for some time but I have no idea where they are on that.

Once a computer is trained to translate documents based on context rather than by-word then we won’t need these ancient services from people called “translators”. They’ll function just like calculators.
Mike

February 18th, 2008 at 5:53 am

Alex, you are right the FUTURE is not human translation. Google is working on tiny technology that can be placed close to or even in your ear. First iterations look like a fish
Roger

February 18th, 2008 at 7:11 am

Chas,

While it doesn’t appear that you’ve put enough thought into the business model itself, I admire your innovative thinking. I would encourage you to review your site again for grammatical or spelling errors since it will discourage someone from using your service if they anticipate the same results. I might also suggest catering your message more to the professional community rather than it sounding like a FaceBook chat. While I appreciate the “casual” tone of your message I’m not sure that it conveys properly to your target audience (i.e. those who have the resources to support your business).

My sincere best to you and your venture.
Phillip

February 18th, 2008 at 4:57 pm

Hi,

This services already exists (except interpretting - maybe chances to work together Chas?) at http://www.livetranslation.com

Launched in 2005, we offer two service levels - Translation Only and Translation with Proofread (by a second translator).

We manage the quality procedures internally and can therefore offer a quality guarantee. I managed the online business for one of the top 3 translation vendors were quality was taken very seriously and I have tried to bring this to our business.

Pricing - From $1.99 for non-proofread and $14.99 for proofread. Why so cheap? No bidding, no quotes just accept the job or don’t. Most of our translators are working on larger projects for international companies and find our jobs actually help them stay focused mentally by providing a welcome break that also pays!

Our Translators - all hold a degree, all have at least one years experience and all are native speakers.

We welcome Chas and the Lingtastic team into this niche as the more people become aware of these services, the better for everyone.

Oh, and did I mention we have API’s available for integrating into Email, CMS, SMS and any other system that requires an integrated translation service.

LiveTranslation - Powered by People
Professional Translation Service

February 27th, 2008 at 11:50 pm

I’m concerned about quality and training. This is like outsourcing your call center to India. Sure it is the cheapest provider but not the best quality.

Interpreting is a very difficult skill to acquire and master. You need to be very accurate in translating the idea not the words immediately.

There are other options available that are more affordable yet not Walmart interpreting.

Professional Translation Service
Jeff

March 1st, 2008 at 4:45 am

Hi Chas, I admire what you guys are doing. It’s filling a big demand, and you are taking an innovative approach to it. And I’m impressed to see you have an API already. Kudos, and all the best.
Pro Translator

March 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Yet another reverse auction site like proz.com (on which the “ratings” mean almost nothing) to further drive prices down, which ensures that experienced professional translators and interpreters will continue to leave the industry while unemployed “I speak another language” wannabes will take on the work at incredibly low rates because “it’s fun”.

Well, taking medical interpreting as an example, it’s only fun until someone screws up. Then it’s deadly. Would you want your mother to be communicating a health-related issue through someone being paid less than the guy who sweeps the floor? That is already going on.

This is a prettier idea, though, since it doesn’t seem like a reverse auction, but it really is. Get ready for a swarm of people from overseas who “speak very good Japan language”, as one submission I received from a “professional translator” once proclaimed.

I smell a monolingual running things.
Nuno

March 3rd, 2008 at 10:03 am

Traduwiki.org also provides the basics to get a document translated. The service pioneers into collaborative translations: people translate text portions they like or find easy, update others’ contributions, discuss on word meanings and/or jargons. From essays to textbooks, everything I guess could be included. I think it’s a good way to share texts and eventually help people get a better education.