Crowdsourcing translation for mobile developers?

Posted by superg on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by superg
Published on 2010-07-24T08:54:03Z Indexed on 2012/10/09 15:38 UTC
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localization

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mobile

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translation

I am developing applications for mobile phones with different operating systems (Android, Symbian, iPhone). Applications are sold internationally so they need to be translated to different languages in addition to english version.

I assume most mobile developers do the translations using some paid external service each time. This approach does not look very cost-effective to me. Would it make sense to have a website where simple translations would be done using crowdsourcing (other developers)? Most strings in mobile applications are very simple and short, for example "OK, "Cancel", "Are you sure?", "Please enter your password". Also the same strings are used in hundreds of applications. Instead of paying for translating all strings, developers could save money by only buying their difficult application specific translations.

Does anyone agree with this idea? I have seen many opensource projects doing the translations succesfully using volunteers.

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