Remote spell checking service Spellr.us has launched at Techcrunch50. Bloggers who have problems with spelling and grammar (like me, since English is my second language) can now count on the services of the Spellr.us scan. They remotely monitor your blog or website and send you updates when they find errors and typos. This service will eventually cost money, but is free for the first month.
In a triumphal email, the Australia-based service tells its beta users that it has also improved several features – like reporting and custom dictionaries. Spellr.us has also introduced RSS feeds of errors, scheduled scans, and content filtering.
Boris was the first Next Web editor to report about this service, which was then in closed beta. He expressed the hope that Spellr.us “don’t just do a regular spell check but also look for obvious mistakes like mixing up “there” “they’re” and “their”. These errors are common on a lot of blogs and unfortunately aren’t corrected by most spelling checkers.” I’m not sure Spellr.us has introduced yet, since the mistakes Boris discusses also pop up in Spellr.us emails:
Wonderful, but which language will they check in US English or dare I say it, ‘proper’ English. [ducks]
that’s exactly what I said ;-)
Ahem. Just spotted a typo in ‘See how spellr.us shakes it’s tail-feather.’
Like his or her tail-feather. Its tail feather.
It’s not short for ‘it has’ or ‘it is’ – so no apostrophe.
Not a promising sign!
Oh yes. Sorry.
Well picked up David and Ernst-Jan.
Whilst spellr.us does work wonders with typos, grammatical errors such as a wayward apostrophe are not currently picked up.
The writer got a little confused as to whether the apostrophe should be included to show ownership… which of course, it shouldn’t have. :)
This really just goes to show that no matter how many pairs of eyes you have peruse something before it goes live – mistakes can still slip through. Which is exactly why spellr.us has been developed.
Thanks for the great article!
You may want to check out our marketing site for spellr.us – 2 Mistakes A Day (http://2xmad.spellr.us) – where we scan high-profile sites each day for errors and then post two of them for the world to see!
I think you can choose, as they also offer custom dictionaries