More and more companies are using translation communities to localize their software thanks to open source platforms based around the Translate Toolkit, a collection of useful tools for localization and an API for developers of localization tools. Some of the better known companies that are using these platforms for translating their software are Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Statcounter, OpenOffice and Drupal. Altogether, over 100 companies are using platforms based on this software.
The rising prevalence of crowdsourcing translations has invoked the ire of professional translators, who see this as a threat to their very livelihood. But for some software companies, it is a no brainer: localizing software into many languages can cost a fortune. And some of the software companies who crowdsource translations, like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, provide their product for free which makes it hard to justify allocating big budgets to localization. Furthermore, some of the social platforms like Twitter and Facebook are finding it easy to get people to contribute free work. continue reading…
