A similar product to ChatStat that I described before is SpeakLike. Launched just last month this is a real time, instant messaging, service using a mixture of automatic machine translation (MT) and human translators to edit the results. The service is currently available in English, Spanish and Chinese and other languages are to be added soon. This is a great development and I wish SpeakLike all the best of success.
There is a huge demand for a real time native quality translated chat service and I have often wondered why the major chat software companies like MSN, ICQ, Skype etc. don’t offer a similar professional quality translation service themselves. It has to come; the first major player to do it will have introduced a killer app that takes the web another giant stride down the road.
MT systems today are developing and being enhanced all the time and, in my estimation, a top end system now should give at least 50% accuracy/usability for general subjects. This basic translation then edited by a professional translator should deliver excellent results for most chat needs.
It goes without saying that if a business can have real time native quality chat with clients and potential clients around the world it is an amazing opportunity and, once again, shows the power of the web for marketing and overcoming international boundaries.
SpeakLike is available at: www.speaklike.com
