Babelbee Blog

We get many good suggestions from you all the time. Some are no-brainers that we try to implement right-away. But a lot of them have pro’s as well as con’s and require some careful thought. Today we are talking about one of the latter category. Many of you told us that while some requests are asking for volunteers, they would like to put in a (paying) bid anyways. On the one hand, we need to respect the client’s choice, on the other hand I think that we may actually serve clients with this function. If they have found a volunteer, they will likely already have accepted the bid. If not, they may be interested to know, if they were willing to pay, what the job would go for. So as of today, Babelbee allows commercial bidding on volunteer jobs.

OpenId has been rapidly gaining popularity and we think it is a great idea (if you want to know how it works, check here). So as of today, we are now accepting OpenIDs as an alternative way to log in or register. To add openIDs to your account go to your Profile page and click “add open ID”.

We received some suggestions that the “profile” format was too restrictive. Members said they wanted to be able to tell a bit more about themselves and have an opportunity to mention any degrees, diploms, experience or special skills. OK, we heard you. You can now enter a free-text description of yourself in your Profile page. (BTW, a mini-poll: do you think we should include photos? Let us know at “support.at.babelbee.com”).

Ever heard a foreign phrase in a movie or on the radio and wondering what it means? Wondering about a song-title? Need your company’s tagline in Chinese? Got an email from that girl you had a fling with in Italy?

We set up Mini-Translations for these situations. A free bulletin board where you can post short translations - a few lines typically - and ask volunteers to come up with translations. It’s all free (sorry, no money to be made…) and it’s all public (maybe better not post that email?!). We hope that you will all have a lot of fun with it!

We got a new language! Our interface is now available in Spanish as well: www.babelbee.com/ES

Babelbee.com is in public Beta!

Choose a language: (come on, challenge yourself a bit…)

• English
• French (a.k.a. Français)
• Chinese (中文)
• Korean (한국어)

About a month ago we invited a dozen or so testers to the Babelbee private beta test. Some were posting requests, some were bidding on them. Bids were assigned, translations submitted, (virtual) payments made. And the results were shocking. Not because our testers did not like the concept. They loved it. They went wild with the system. And they came with literally dozens of suggestions for features that we had never thought of. Some of them will be on the “to-do” list for while, but many seem quite crucial and we’ll be busy for the next month or so to include them in version 1. Some examples:

• When posting a request, clients felt that they want to be able to see right away how many translators (either native or non-native speakers) will be available for a given language pair.
• Translators felt they needed a “forum” type discussion with each request where they can ask questions about the request.
• What to do when a translation is delivered but there is no reaction from the client? The current vote is to allow the client 10 days to respond, after which the translation is automatically approved and the translator is paid.
• Users felt it was important to have the website interface, as well as the email messages that the system sends out, in various languages. With so many translators around - that should be no problem! We have planned for the Babelbee interface to be available in English, French, Chinese and Korean initially, with Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and German to follow shortly.

Babelbee has gone in private beta today. Several translators, language specialists, web specialists and others are currently participating in a simulation exercise to test the functionality of the site. Thanks for all your help guys (includes gals)!

We have been doing a lot of research to find out how Babelbee can be made most useful. We had conversations with translators, translation companies and corporate clients who regularly need translations. In the coming weeks we will share with you some of the results.

Today I’ll start with the number one concern that (free-lance) translators have: “not getting paid”.

Sounds familiar? Not surprised? Well, personally I find it astonishing. Translations are not all that different from other services. Yet we did not hear the same complaints from graphic designers, programmers or other free-lancers. We heard many horror stories about clients that would pay late or not at all. Some companies were out to con translators by repeatedly asking them to do “tests” and asking them to translate a page or two, after which (unpaid) test they would of course never hear from the company again.Naturally some translators have become wary and will work only with well-know, reputable translation agencies. That way they take less risk, but at the same time they are probably missing out on a large number of very decent clients – if only they knew they could trust them….

So we know that one of the main things we want to address in Babelbee is getting payment sorted out in a fair way. Fees should be clearly defined at the outset. Translators should have a guarantee to be paid. On the other hand, Clients should have a full money-back guarantee if their translation is not delivered as promised. We know that if we can tackle this, we are already providing free-lancer translators with a luxury they have ever had.

Ciao for now. More next time.

Thanks for taking a look at the BabelBee Blog. We are designing BabelBee.com to become a very cool Translation Marketplace. We believe that translation and translators are undervalued. We believe that the way translators access their clients, get assignments and are compensated can be dramatically improved. And we are building BabelBee to do so. Many good friends are helping us with advice, interesting links and suggestions and we’ll use this Blog to keep all of you informed about the latest developments of the site and allow you to participate in its development. Email us at “blog(at)babelbee.net.

David and Lambert