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Google Translation Offers New Features

With the power of the Internet, we are able to connect with just about anyone. 

Back in middle school and high school, I had an online pen pal who lived in Munich, Germany.  I personally know about two words of German, while my pen pal was trying to learn English.  While we were worlds apart, we had a lot in common and always had lots to talk about.  However, there was that language problem.  What we ended up doing was writing our e-mails into a translator, trying to be polite to one another.  Of course we all know that the translations don’t translate word for word and sometimes make for an interesting read. 

Google Translator, however, has rolled out three new features which should make translations much easier. Fifty-one languages are supported by Google Translator and according to Google that’s 98 percent of the Internet community.  (more…)

Facebook Fails to Capitalize

With users now in the range of 200 million, Facebook has become the stethoscope which monitors the pulse of the modern world.  But despite a near unlimited amount of potential, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his board of directors refuse to tap into the potential revenues from their presiding ownership over a global online community.  Shiv Singh, VP of Razorfish, believes that Facebook is sitting on a gold mine of untapped potential. Singh’s advertising agency pays brand monitoring firms between $5,000 to $40,000 a year for insight into what online consumers are saying about their clients.  Singh also says he would pay Facebook twice as much for a similar service. 

Facebook has a free service called Lexicon which compiles and analyzes millions of Facebook Wall posts and provides a database of searchable trends.  However, people like Shiv Singh are looking for a Lexicon that does much more than just that.  Singh outlines a Lexicon that includes these features:
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