RKNet Blog… thing

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Do you have RSS feeds for sites that you like, but they aren’t in your language? Don’t you wish you could get those feeds translated and delivered in the language you’re most comfortable reading? Of course you do! Well, the internet is full of surprises and helpful little whatnots, and one of those items is a site called Mloovi. Mloovi is a Web 2.0-ized spelling of mluvi, or “to speak” in Czech (probably because they couldn’t get mluvi.com I’d be willing to bet! domaining is a harsh mistress).

This site will provide you with a widget linking to your RSS feed in 24 languages (including English), with the translations provided by Google. The only catch is they display ads in the bottom of the feed. In other words, certainly not perfect but a big help for making a single language feed available to speakers of other languages. I’ll be providing this widget for RKNet (check the sidebar at the right), and I would love feedback from people who speak the languages in the list on how well it translates, and whether or not you like the mloovi feed format.

Initial Feedback: This concept is clearly still in its infancy, and it does have some flaws:

• The widget generator produces an iFrame, which is not the most standards-compliant solution.
• I had to configure the height and width of the widget myself (160 by 600, in case you use the generator for all languages like I did).
• They maintain a directory of translated feeds, but the directory does not appear to be searchable, or even have a break down by date range or alphabet to make it easier to find previously translated feeds.
• You CAN sort the directory by language to find feeds already translated into your language, though.
• If you choose the widget generator, and have it translate your feed into multiple languages, it will show you progress on how many translations it has completed. (That’s a good thing!)
• There are quick links in the directory to add translated feeds to online feed services: NetVibes, Google, Yahoo, AOL, and PageFlakes. (This is also good! But it should be available as an option with the widget also.)
• The project owner encourages feedback, and I will be sending this list, along with some other suggestions, as soon as I get an opportunity.

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