Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 24th June 2009
16 COMMENTS 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
This is one of those applications I highly recommend you bookmark immediately.
BabelWith.Me lets you set up a simple, gorgeously designed chat-room in a matter of seconds. You’re then provided with a unique URL to share with whomever you’re looking to chat with – no matter what language they speak – and get chatting as you would normally.
The service supports up to 45 different languages and (more…)
Written on 26th May 2009
1 COMMENT
Pieter-Paul,
Language is an obvious barrier for foreign companies trying to tap into the Chinese Internet market. Many foreign entrants have underestimated its impact and the distinct market characteristics it has resulted in. To name two: language has contributed to the autonomous character of the Chinese web and as lots of netizens are not familiar with the commonly used Pinyin input system they prefer to click instead of type.
In some cases also the name of a company entering China can be a problem. In this respect Facebook is not very lucky with its name: some people say that in Pinyin it sounds like ‘fei si bu ke’ which means ‘doomed to die’. Also Google has not proven to be a good name. Zhang Tao, International Sales Manager at Baidu, expressed: “I believe that around 15 percent of the Chinese people cannot spell Google.” To cope with this – to make it easier for Chinese netizens to remember – Google has acquired the domain name G.cn back in 2007.
Back in 2006 Google was looking into adopting a Chinese name. Eventually it was decided the 
official Chinese name was to become Guge (谷歌), which means ‘Harvesting Song’ and sounds very much like Google in Mandarin. Google’s officials said it expresses “the sense of a fruitful and productive search experience in a poetic Chinese way.” Alternative sound-likes opted by Chinese netizens that filled in an online poll at news portal Sina.com were: NoGuge, Gougou (dog dog), Goule (enough), Gugu (auntie), Gugou (ancient dog) and Gege (elder brother). (more…)
Written on 11th November 2008
1 COMMENT
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The Google ‘Reader team’ has announced a pretty cool feature for people interested in the rest of the world: automatic translation in Google Reader!
The integration of Google Translate into Google Reader was done by Brett Bavar, a Google Employee, as part of a 20% project. As you might know Google employees (only in the US) can spend 20% of their time on products and services of their own choosing.
The new integrated translation tools allow you to follow any blog in Google Reader which will then be translated on-the-fly, in your reader.
We all know that computer translated texts don’t always make sense. This is especially true for personal blogs which often use their own style, slang and typos which make it extremely hard to translate for someone or something not familiar with the subject.
Still, it is pretty cool to be able to read blogs in Japanese, Spanish and Chinese from within your Google Reader. If you don’t speak or read English now is your chance to also follow this blog in your own language. Or, as Google would say:
Chinese:
如果你不说话或阅读英语现在是你的变化也遵循这一博客在自己的语言。
Japanese:
話せない場合や英語を読む今も自分の言葉でこのブログに変更されています。
Spanish:
Si usted no habla Inglés o leer ahora es el cambio a seguir también este blog en su propio idioma.
Swedish:
Om du inte talar eller läser engelska är nu din förändring för att också följa den här bloggen på ditt eget språk.
Polish:
Jeśli nie rozmawiać lub czytać angielskie teraz jest również zmiana tego bloga w swoim własnym języku.
Russian:
Если не говорить или читать Английский сейчас ваши изменения, также последуют этому блогу в вашем родном языке.
Arabic:
إذا كنت لا يتكلم أو يقرأ الانجليزية الخاص بك الآن هو تغيير أيضا لمتابعة هذا بلوق في لغتك الأم.
Written on 28th August 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
English has always been the language to go when reaching out to as many Western Internet users as possible. Well, it’s even better now since YouTube offers a subtitle feature. So here’s an example. What about Top Gear in French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish? Just click CC on the video page.
Good news for anybody who has a hard time with English. When taking my experiences on several conferences in account, I realize this is a problem that several web professionals face. So start-ups, when you upload your introduction or promo movies, make sure you include some French, German, Italian, and Spanish captions as well.
Written on 7th July 2008
4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Ok, maybe the headline isn’t fair, as I don’t speak more than three words of Spanish. But the episodes of Lingus.tv look pretty cheesy to me – with build-in laughs and all. But hey, maybe I would say the same about Seinfeld in Spanish. Anyway…, let’s get to important part of this post, since I’d like to introduce you to a new way of learning Spanish.
The Lingus team
Sergio Gazeau, Toni López, and Joan Balañá wanted to create a new way of learning Spanish, in which laughter would play a major role. Sergio had over six years experience in the language teaching business, so he knows the theories. He approached Toni and Joan for the technological and entertainment aspects. Together with thirteen other workers – including actors – and two Sony XDCAM high def cameras, they’ve created a web channel.
Lingus.tv features different episodes from a sitcom – divided in three levels, from beginner to advanced -, which all come with an outline, translation (those taught me the episodes really are cheesy) and several sound files of the hardest words. I guess Lingus.tv doesn’t work when it’s the only language learning tool you use – unless you try really, really hard. But it sure can be useful when you combine it with lessons. That’s probably the reason why Lingus.tv also sells licenses to schools that teach Spanish.
[Via: Loogic]
Written on 22nd June 2008
0 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
When you favorite blog or news site has a slow day, you might wanna turn to different news sources. A good alternative is Eufeeds, this site is fed by 500 hundred feeds from European newspapers. People from 28 different countries can check what their nations’ journalists are writing about.
When you see a headline that arouses some curiosity, the article opens in a fancy Ajax layer – you know the type: inner screen pop-up that fades the original site away. A selection of countries is easily made with the collection of flags in the top.
There’s one minor problem though: most Europeans speak only two languages – their native one and some English. Of course some exceptions can be made, in Dutch high schools for example, students can learn French, German, and Spanish as well. But for most Europeans, an integrated translation tool would be essential.
When you think of it, this page is just a Netvibes universe on steroids. Or an European Alltop rip-off. However, when you’re in the need of some news, and you need it fast, eufeeds.eu is the place to go to.
Written on 28th May 2008
5 COMMENTS
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
I don’t often get excited enough about a new application to actually use it, let alone write about it, but given this is a European focused startup amplifier, there could be no better home for an article about this application.
From an ideas point of view, it is very interesting. Using the bombardment technique abused by marketeers to indoctrinate you, Learnit are instead using indoctrination for a productive purpose, teaching you a new language.
Teachers know something, they say you have to repeat the process you are trying to learn 50 times before it sinks in. Learnit does this by repeating and repeating the ten words that it allocates you to learn that day.
As an analytical mindset, I find learning French very hard, I don’t do well with teach-yourself CD’s, schools seem to be inefficient and a drag on time. There must be a better way to learn a language.
The beauty of Learnit is the elegance. It tells you what the curriculum for the day is and then silently just hangs around in the background waiting for that moment that your attention wanders and you’re ready for another dose. It’s like learning in your time when you want rather than having an agenda that is set, such as traditional methods – miss this class and you miss an episode.
A great example of elegant design
From a technical point of view and as an app developer myself, I’m also impressed. This is a fine example of merging and mashing up data and tools provided by others to create something unique and, most importantly, elegant.
So if you’re struggling away learning a new language, try Learnit. It just might stick on my own radar for longer than most of the ‘five-minute wonder’ apps you see these days.
Written on 27th April 2008
3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
San Francisco was flooded by Finnish companies last week. They’ve teamed up to organize a meeting at the uber-hip restaurant Foreign Cinema to meet with well-known web professionals as Loic le Meur, Scott Rafer and Howard Rheingold. Boris and me were there and really enjoyed meeting all these ambitious entrepreneurs who prove that Finland’s technology industry consists of more than just Nokia. This week I’ll highlight some of the companies, starting with XIHA Life. This is the world’s first multilingual social network, targeted at people living outside their home country.
Howard Rheingold speeching during Finnish meet-up
Juhani Polkko, VP Business Development, told me users can select not only their native language, but as many languages as they understand or want to learn, and the content on the site is filtered based on the preferences. So imagine that you’re an English-speaking person from Germany and have a friend in France. When you check out his profile, you’ll only see the English content on his site. The French comments and messages have been filtered out.
I like the idea of their service, as learning other languages or keeping up with the ones you speak a bit are valuable assets. Moreover, the numbers of languages they offer is impressive (see below). Though I’m slightly disappointed Polkko and his team have built another social network. Why didn’t they create an overlay service on top of existing social networks?
Polkko: “We are initially building a niche social network and target the people who have the natural need to use multiple languages in their everyday life, like expatriates and exchange students. The next step is to create mash-ups for content from other social media websites and apply our language recognition and filtering algorithms. This is somewhat limited because you would need to build the algorithms inside other networks such as Facebook, but they can be applied to all the content which is available through open APIs and XML-feeds, or other content which the users own the rights to.”
So whether you like XIHA or not, these Finnish guys do offer us a glimpse of the possibilities when social networks adopt open standards. We could filter out content we don’t understand and use every network in our own language – without excluding other people. Let’s hope it’s not an utopia.
Written on 28th March 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Craigslist, the website that brought classified ads from newspapers to the web in 1995, has joined the translation train. Like other American Internet giants, they saw the need to support more languages than just English (and Spanish).
Founder Craig Newmark originally created the service for the San Fransisco Bay Area. In 2000, he started conquering more and more cities in the U.S. As of September 2007, Mr. Newmark’s company has established itself in 450 cities in 50 countries. The site counts 27 million unique visitors monthly.
Yet as TechCrunch reported last month: competitor Kijiji – owned by Ebay – is picking up speed and even claims to surpass Craigslist one day. The eBay executive in charge of Kijiji explained to TechCrunch why they started Kijiji in the first place:
We did not believe Craigslist was going to be successful internationally with an English-only site. Craigslist has had zero localization. It is all English, run out of San Francisco.
This tough talk must have made an impression on Craigslist’s staff because normally they ‘tend to do stuff without much announcement‘, but now they ‘figured you might want to know that we implemented multiple language support for craigslist in November. Just Spanish then, but last week we added more languages’.
These languages are Italian, French, Portuguese and German (click for examples). It seems like more and more major companies think of multilingual support as the key for further growth. Although Craigslist might be pushing it too far: “Basque, maybe Klingon, are next”.
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
