Despite the growing quality from machine translation and other related software, language barriers are still strong and a lot of quality content or news are still not readily available to the whole world. This is why Looah’s mission: To take down the language barrier on the web. One post at a time is so appealing. Despite it being a formidable challenge, Looah is a breath of fresh air to the current slew of social media-related, fitness, mobile gaming apps that is currently offered by new ventures.
Simply put, Looah is a social translation platform for readers, translators and language learners. Users chooses their native language and language that they are learning upon registration. They can then choose to translate the articles / tweets / photos or other content on the site, post up new content to be translated or simply enjoy reading content that was once inaccessible to them.
Looah is launched in January 2012 and it currently has around 2000 translators, with around 10-15 times the number of readers. The site is now offered in 6 major languages: English, Korean, Spanish, Japanese, French and Chinese. Currently, there are nearly 1300 articles translated, with the majority in English or Korean. Users can also leave comments, feedback or suggestions for each translated article.
Looah has also launched the beta version of ‘Exercise’, where language learners can practice their translation skills and ability by translating quotes and other short sentences. The service is currently offered for English to Korean translations, but there are plans to include all 6 languages in the near future.
Chester Roh, CEO of Ablar Company, is one of the judges in the competition and he asked about Looah’s target market and business model. CEO Tyhoon Um responded that there are two business models, one of which is setting up Looah as a marketplace and then receiving commission by connecting translators and clients (the market is worth over 10 billion dollars just in the U.S.). The second model is for Looah to become a publisher by directly translating content from around the world.
Go Young Ha, Chairman of Go Venture Forum, offered the following advice to Looah.
Silicon Valley’s Viki also has the similar concept of social translation. The company managed to received investments from Silicon Valley and in order to achieve that, they appointed an American CEO with networks and contacts in the industry. I hope that you will also work hard to achieve investments from Silicon Valley in the future.
If you are interested in social translation or needs an article translated, check out their website below.