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Web-based translation memory (TM) is a recent and little-studied development that is changing the way localisation projects are conducted.

how it shapes the translator’s working environment.

Google Translation Center is a straightforward and very clever way to gather a large corpus of parallel texts to train its machine translation systems.

If Google releases an API for the translation management system, it could establish a de facto standard for integrated machine translation and translation memory, creating a language platform around which projects like Der Mundo can build specialized applications and collect more training data.

On the other hand, GTC could be bad news for translation service bureaus — especially those that use proprietary translation management systems as a way to hold customers and translators hostage.

For freelancers, GTC could be very good news; they could work directly with clients and have access to high quality productivity tools. Overall this is a welcome move that will force service providers to focus on quality, while Google, which is competent at software, can focus on building tools.

That strategy would also eliminate a potential conflict of interest

translation professionals are understandably wary of contributing to something that could put them out of work

as well as avoid channel conflicts with partners who will be their best advocates in selling to various clients

my guess is Google will make this a free tool for the translation industry to use, and it will figure the money part out later. It can afford to be patient

I remain convinced that a multilingual web will be a reality in a short time, and that a menagerie of tools and services will emerge over the next few years — some geared toward helping translators, some toward building translation communities, and others that make publishing multilingual sites and blogs easy and intuitive.

the web will begin translating itself, and within a short time

The Translation Centre helps Google to reach out to non-professional translators (the ‘crowd'),