It’s always gratifying when our clients receive positive reviews for their products. Based in Marina del Rey, California, Language Weaver was founded in 2002 by scientists at the University of Southern California who were and continue to be on the forefront of statistics-based automated language translation.

Global Translation Weblog just gave Language Weaver partner Babylon a rave review for Babylon’s free online translation website (powered by Language Weaver), which is available at http://translation.babylon.com:

The result is impressive. The website design is pleasing to the eye and the user interface is very easy to use. Translation speed is excellent and you can see your results in near real-time. Translation quality of the few languages pairs we tested was high (considering that it is a machine translation). And the number of languages is staggering, perhaps offering the most language combos of any of the free online translation services available on the net.

This year Language Weaver reintroduced itself as a human communications solutions provider and now offers translation-powered business solutions in three core areas: customer care, digital content and business intelligence. They also continue to offer government solutions.

Language Weaver’s robust enterprise solutions are “trained” in vocabulary and usage based on the industries and specialties in which they are used. The training provides additional translation power to the system that’s unavailable with off-the-shelf services. Nevertheless, Language Weaver’s propriety translation technology offers a valuable experience for retail consumers as well, even those who’ve felt burned in the past by conventional rules-based online translation systems.

You can read the full review here. Congratulations Language Weaver!

Technorati Tags: Babylon, Business Intelligence, Customer Care, Digital Content, Language Weaver, Translation

Ira Tenowitz from Ad Age published a provocative story today. The morning after the historic election of our first black president, Tenowitz’s topic of the day is regulation anxiety for the ad industry, opening with this thought provoking line: “Now that the election’s over and Sen. Barack Obama is the president-elect, the real fighting can begin.”

Tenowitz raises legitimate issues that were already controversial long before Obama even announced that he would run for president; for example, the consumer backlash against direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads from pharmaceutical companies. Consumer advocacy groups have long been pushing for tighter regulation of many pharmaceutical ads that they deem misleading. Tenowitz’s main theme seems to be that a Democrat president and Congress will likely tip the scales toward tighter government control and regulation, which could hamper advertisers and marketers.

The article goes in-depth on a number of other hot-button issues relevant to anyone in the media and advertising industries. Whether or not you agree with Tenowitz’s portentous tone, it’s definitely worth reading.

Please share your views and comments.

In my view, Tenowitz is jumping the gun and feeding the fear mongers out there. He’s also doing his job by putting together a provocative headline and story to engage readers to react and respond.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Advertising Age, Congress, direct-to-consumer, DTC, Marketing, Obama, pharmaceutical, regulation

It’s the time of year when I dread answering my phone. I know that any day now, my clients are going to call and ask – “have you started looking at editorial calendars for next year?”

Editorial calendars used to be pivotal when pitching a publication. But times change, and for all intents and purposes, editorial calendars are tools for advertising sales reps to get clients to buy ads. If they can point to an issue and say “you need to be in this issue,” it makes it easier for them to sell space.

But from my point of view, editorial calendars are an archaic pitching tool. With print publications getting smaller, and more often than not outreach efforts landing on the web, calendars are a hindrance to good relationship building and outreach. And the web, being a 24×7 outlet doesn’t need to rely on a calendar. A calendar might, to my way of thinking, hinder the outlets ability to react to what is going on in the market.

Rather than contacting an editor because a calendar says a specific issue is a fit for your client (or worse, because you aren’t sure the topic is a fit, but if you squint your eyes and stretch like Gumby you can see a way to make it fit), how about establishing a relationship with the editor, knowing what he or she cares about and what they want to convey to their readers and then pitch them appropriately?

Until clients agree that the calendar, while great for advertising actually has little effect on PR efforts – and the coverage obtained – we’ll keep generating them.

Is that my phone ringing?

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, editorial calendars, pitching tools, PR, PR tools, publications