Crowdsourcing: Convenience or Confusion? [Podcast]

LinkedIn did it. Facebook does it. And so do other top global brands. Some of the world’s leading companies are leveraging the linguistic abilities of their massive global networks to translate and localize their worldwide communications. But does the cost-saving convenience of crowdsourcing outweigh the problems that working with non-professional translators can cause? What are its advantages and limitations? When should crowdsourcing be — or not be — the localization solution of choice?

In the 4th episode of the Globally Speaking Podcast, Moravia’s Renato Beninatto and Michael Stevens tackle the topic of crowdsourcing. They not only discuss its pros and cons from the language industry’s perspective, they also dive into how crowdsourcing’s benefits can differ between translation and localization specifically.

Topics covered include:

• The origination of crowdsourcing and why the concept isn’t as new as you might think.
• Does collaboration guarantee reliable results?
• The importance of quality control when using the services of non-professional translators.
• Why crowdsourcing isn’t as good of a value when translation accuracy is critical.
• The hidden costs a business could incur through crowdsourcing.

To listen to the episode, click “play” in the player below. You can also listen and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play (USA or Canada), Stitcher, or via RSS.

Additional reading:

• Facebook Translation App FAQ
• The Rise of Crowdsourcing, by Jeff Howe, Wired Magazine, 06.01.06
• The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki, 2004, Wikipedia article about the book
• Crowdsourcing Translation: Professional Quality from Non-Professionals, by Omar F. Zaidan and Chris Callison-Burch, Dept. of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University
• Crowdsourcing for Grammatical Error Correction, Ellie Pavlick, Rui Yan and Chris Callison-Burch, University of Pennsylvania

Globally Speaking Radio, sponsored by RWS Moravia and Nimdzi.

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