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An idea for Google or Meebo: IM + Translation = International Nirvana

If you read this and turn it into some kind of acquisition-worthy business, save a slice of the pie for me, OK?

Anyway: quick and simple - follow with me:

1. You know how you can translate a string of text (or a web page) via Google or BabelFish, right?
2. Well… messages in an IM conversation are strings of text.
3. If you can get a web translation service to work fast enough (Google should be able to make this happen if anyone can), then you can translate an IM conversation in REAL TIME.

That is to say, imagine the following usage scenario:

1. Set your language in your profile. In my case “English.”
2. If you’re speaking to someone who’s profile is set in different language (Spanish), the IM software picks that up.
3. The software then translates each side of the conversation into the correct language so that each participant sees the other’s messages in their native tongue. My English gets translated into Spanish, their Spanish into English.
4. This is all transparent: you don’t even see the untranslated messages unless you choose too. As far as you can tell, you’re talking to someone that speaks English.

Ok, so online translators are notoriously quirky in their translations: so be it. If speed can be addressed such that the process doesn’t add too much lag, I could see this being a great tool for business, and for generally furthering conversations across borders & cultures.

Personally, I’d see a natural home for this in Meebo: they’re the greatest innovators in the IM space in my eyes. They’d need access to a fast, scalable, and low cost translation API, however. Google - while not on the edge of the market - has the necessary infrastructure pieces ready to go (GTalk, and their translator), the resources to do it, and the corporate chutzpah to try it regardless of business-case shakiness.

So: what’s your take - is there something to this? Has it been done already?

In other news, AltaVista still exists! Who knew?

altavista, babelfish, culture, gtalk, ideas, im, innovation, language, linguistics, meebo translation

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Meshly - diggable IM bookmarking

RedWriteWeb points us to Meshly: an IM bookmarking service that takes del.icio.us, adds digg-style voting, and uses IM as a front end. Bookmarking on Meshly works by IM’ing a Meshly chatbot (AIM: meshly, GTalk: meshly@gmail.com, MSN: meshly@meshly.com), and entering simple commands to initiate a stream of prompts:

Pages that you bookmark through IM show up on the Meshly site in your user profile, and can be voted on my Meshly.com visitors:

Even the signup process takes place via IM:

The bottom line is that Meshly provides a well executed digg/delicious alternative with a gimmicky-yet-valuable twist in the use of IM as primary UI. Its fast and easy to use, and if you’re a regular IM user (I hit meebo a few times a day), it fits into your regular workflow nicely, and is about 10x faster to submit to than Digg. The MyMesh tab on the website (once you’re signed in) provides channel and tag indexing for your bookmarks, making for a similarly powerful user-experience as that provided by del.icio.us.

Josh Catone rightly suggested that the concept of channels and tags overlapped and created redundancy. I can see what Meshly intends (user created content areas), but along Josh’s thinking, I’m not sure why tags can’t form the basis of this. Del.icio.us makes a single layer folksonomy easy-to-use, so can Meshly. Josh also suggests adding a del.icio.us-style bookmarklet to enable people to use Meshly without IM; while it sounds good conceptually, doing so might dilute Meshly’s source of differentiation - I’m not sure if utility outweighs branding or not here. Meshly could also use a web sign-up - presently registration is only through IM client.

One other question I had was Meshly’s business model: If much of the Meshly activity takes place via IM, is their ability to advertise and make money compromised? I’d be curious to see a by-activity breakdown on del.icio.us traffic and see how big a slice Meshly is missing by going IM.

In any event, Meshly is hitting a chord and getting good coverage around the web. I think Twitter has really primed people for more in the way of “instant” services… prepare for more to come down the pipeline.

1. Rexduffdixon suggests that with email overload becoming a hotbutton issue, IM may be ready to get more attention as an alternate transaction channel.
2. Libraryclips suggests also taking another look at clipmarks, spurl, and netvouz.
3. 901am compares Meshly to enabling digg-voting on every inane Twitter that you put out - personally, I don’t think the comparison applies, as Meshly is (for now) more bookmarking than just Twitter-babbling.
4. Muhammad Saleem sums up Meshly as “not greater than the sum of its parts” - suggesting that all of its functionality is available elsewhere in more established services already.

aim, bookmarking, clipmarks, delicious, digg, dodgeball, gtalk, im, meshly, msn twitter

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