Setup company that will sell to blogs – 10 steps
We’ve been getting quite a few pingbacks coming from foreign blogs lately. They cover countries such as Germany, Isral, France and Spain. We can be forgiven for not understanding what they’re saying about us. But can we be forgiven for not understanding a blog based in Ireland just because it’s written in Irish? Sorry Conn.
It’s actually embarrassing to say I don’t understand what the blog is saying about us. Perhaps I should have waited for the team to start in the morning before writing this post. Lord knows they’re all more intelligent than me and will probably know (I hope). I’m sure our friends in Cork and Galway will be fluent in our mother tongue. So, John and Tom, let’s see who’s the first to come back with a response 
So, I got thinking (as I wrote the above paragraphs)… I wonder if there’s a scalable business opportunity for a translation service for blogs, that’s quick and low cost. Not only would I subscribe to such a service, I’d actually pay for an automated service if it was half decent (even if not entirely accurate).
So, if you’ve got a little time and want to set up a company offering such as service, here’s what you should do
- Register translateblog.com and blogtranslations – I’ve checked, they’re both available
- Setup a company in Galway where Enterprise Ireland appear to have all the brains and the most of the money to fund you. It doesn’t matter if it’s post box. Also, corporation tax in Ireland is just 12%
- Go with a self-hosting solution to ensure you can provide a reliable and scalable solution.
- Use WordPress to create your blog in minutes (watch out for our new site and blog!)
- Edit your theme using Web 2.0 colours – ensure you use shadows and reflections in images to give it that Web 2.0 feel
- At the same time, knock up a 2 page business plan and hand it to an investor who gets this space
- Have a chat with a friend of mine who runs a translations company in London or
Get in touch with University of Southampton and speak to Wendy Hall. It will be quite easy to get an agreement to use students to do the translating. They’ve got over 100 languages under 1 roof. - Offer your service for free to some mainstream bloggers so they can test it and talk about it to your potential customers about how great your service is
- Speak to WordPress about adding a plugin based on a revenue share deal
- Give me the credit for giving you a great idea.
7 Responses to “Setup company that will sell to blogs – 10 steps”
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Alternatively, outsource the work using Mechanical Turk and save yourself a fortune!
Love the idea behind Mechanical Turk and will give it a go.
However, I’d like to see something automated for a blog translation service. So, as soon as our blog is pinged by another blog, we get a translation in our native language (ahem, ok, so I need it in English!)
Sounds like a nice idea, but I wonder how state of the art translation services compare with BabelFish, which must be the most used translation service online.
Of course I think I’d more interested in translateboards
especially since I’ve sold boards.es and boards.at to boards.ie – it’d be handy for me to know what people on those sites are talking about!
BTW Conn was saying how much easier it is to organise blog meetups now, citing your CurryCamp
LOL thanks John, you win first prize for telling me what Conn said. So, why don’t you setup translateborards.ie and get the public to do it for one another. Congrats on the Sale! Beer is on you
I still think there’s a business case for a plugin (not necessarily a service).
BTW, we also get emails in different languages. We have a partner programme for Web accessibility that’s worldwide, so it’s difficult to tell if these emails are spam or prospect partners that canned.
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