Re: Company Translation Tool

by "Dennis J Keibler" <dennisk(at)louisville.edu>

 Date:  Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:23:23 -0400
 To:  <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
  todo: View Thread, Original
>>> "David Brown" <dbrown(at)appliedlanguage.com> 10/11/2004 8:02:51 AM >>>
I was hoping that people here might be prepared to have a look at it and
let me have your thoughts on improvements or general reasons why it
isn't being used.



First of all, I didn't know about your service. Then I wonder, how =
accurate are the translations? Can you provide references & testimonials? =
Although your service is free today, will there be a cost some time down =
the road, perhaps to remove your advertising link? Why is this better than =
using a free Bablefish link?

I used your product, http://www.appliedlanguage.com/trans/free_website_tran=
slation.aspx, to generate a Chinese translation link for a web page I'm =
working on.
>From a web developer's point of view, the generated code is nice to have. =
The html should be cleaned up, however, so that I can paste it into my =
xhtml document and still have it validate. For example, why have colspan=3D=
100 in the table row tags? And is it a necessary requirement that you =
specifying the table background color for the cell with the link? While I =
appreciate that you want the generated code to display a link back to your =
website (in exchange for the free service), but using two out of the three =
links for this seems like over kill. I would much prefer to customize the =
return link or use something like a smaller banner button or other small =
graphic.

Once you have a good product, that's been well tested and documented, you =
can then begin the process of marketing your offering to your target =
audiences. Learning how to market your translation service effectively on =
the web will take some time to learn, but fortunately there are a lot of =
good resources available. If your business plan didn't account for this =
learning curve, it might be worth your time to contact a marketing =
professional. Someone who specializes in web marketing has skills and =
experience which are important for long term success.

I think the product you are offering has a lot of potential for certain =
audiences, and I'll likely keep it in mind (bookmarks aplenty) as another =
one of the tools for building sites.=20

I look forward to seeing your site progress, and hope you find something =
useful in the comments.

Bonne chance
(Best of Luck),
*
Dennis K

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