Babelbee Blog

Did you know Babelbee provides sponsored translations to non-profits? Well, we do. How nice of us, eh?

How does it work? The jobs are posted on Babelbee as regaular translation requests for bidding by translators. After a the job has been assigned, Babelbee provides the non-profit client with funds to pay the translator.

Babelbee has just agreed to sponsor Fair Pen. We like their work in encouraging journalism in Africa, and we are happy to support it with free Dutch-English translations.

If you are a non-profit and need translations, email us (support-at-babelbee.com) and present your case. We may be able to offer you discounted or fully sponsored translations.

As of today, the Babelbee website is available in a new language: Dutch. So no all those “Nederlandse vertalers” can see the site in their own site (and clients as well of course).

We will keep adding other language-versions of our site. Next up are Russuan, Hindi and Japanese. Please let us know if you want to work on those (we’ll pay you, but the salary is modest )

Today, BabelBee is launching a new *free* service for translation companies.

With BabelBee Places, you can have you own private space on our web site, with the same features that make BabelBee a hit among translators, and additional features to simplify and optimize the logistics of your translation project management

• get bids from your translators or assign jobs to a designated
  translator.
  
• exchange files with your translators easily and securely.
  
• centralize all communications in one place, while still receiving alerts,in your own e-mail inbox.
  
• view the status of all your pending jobs in your personalized control panel
  
• grow your translator network, by tapping into the public pool of Babelbee freelancers as needed.
  
• increase your business by bidding on public jobs.
  

And of course we will never share the files, names or email addresses from your space with others.

What’s in it for BabelBee?

In cases where your translation needs are not met by your own network of translators, we hope you will consider posting your request in the public area of BabelBee. If you are coping with sudden *spikes in workload*, or if you are looking for very *specific language pairs*, you can tap into the large, worldwide pool of translators that are current BabelBee members. Also, if you decided to process payments through our site, we would charge a commission as we do in our public area. But if none of that happens, no worries – you are still welcome to use our system for *free*.

*How can I start?*

Sign up at BabelBee, then follow the link to start your private place. Let BabelBee Places solve your communication headaches.

We get many good suggestions from you all the time. Some are no-brainers that we try to implement right-away. But a lot of them have pro’s as well as con’s and require some careful thought. Today we are talking about one of the latter category. Many of you told us that while some requests are asking for volunteers, they would like to put in a (paying) bid anyways. On the one hand, we need to respect the client’s choice, on the other hand I think that we may actually serve clients with this function. If they have found a volunteer, they will likely already have accepted the bid. If not, they may be interested to know, if they were willing to pay, what the job would go for. So as of today, Babelbee allows commercial bidding on volunteer jobs.

OpenId has been rapidly gaining popularity and we think it is a great idea (if you want to know how it works, check here). So as of today, we are now accepting OpenIDs as an alternative way to log in or register. To add openIDs to your account go to your Profile page and click “add open ID”.

We received some suggestions that the “profile” format was too restrictive. Members said they wanted to be able to tell a bit more about themselves and have an opportunity to mention any degrees, diploms, experience or special skills. OK, we heard you. You can now enter a free-text description of yourself in your Profile page. (BTW, a mini-poll: do you think we should include photos? Let us know at “support.at.babelbee.com”).

Ever heard a foreign phrase in a movie or on the radio and wondering what it means? Wondering about a song-title? Need your company’s tagline in Chinese? Got an email from that girl you had a fling with in Italy?

We set up Mini-Translations for these situations. A free bulletin board where you can post short translations – a few lines typically – and ask volunteers to come up with translations. It’s all free (sorry, no money to be made…) and it’s all public (maybe better not post that email?!). We hope that you will all have a lot of fun with it!

We got a new language! Our interface is now available in Spanish as well: www.babelbee.com/ES