Kontrib, First Multilingual Social Bookmarking Site, Upgrades Features to Meet International Customer Needs

LOS ANGELES – June 18, 2007 – Kontrib, the world’s first multilingual social bookmarking site and a subsidiary of automated translation software developer Language Weaver, has upgraded its look and added functions to meet requests of its international users. Launched just two months ago and still in beta mode, Kontrib is the first news bookmarking site to accept news, offer user interfaces and integrate automated translation of stories in languages other than English, including French, Spanish and Arabic. Currently, 65 percent of the site’s users come from countries other than the United States and traffic on the site has increased almost 3,500 percent since its launch.

In addition to a cleaner look and more universally-appealing colors, Kontrib has added and upgraded several features to deliver a better user experience. The changes fall into two general areas:

Easier access to multiple languages for stories, news items and comments

Stories are grouped on the home page into top stories and newest stories, by most recent date; the user has the ability to add tags in their preferred language that will make it easier for international search engines to find them.
Once uploaded into the Kontrib site, a story can be viewed in its originating language on the Website where it initially appeared, with a pull-down bar that allows users to view the story in other languages in context.
Comments can be written in any of the four languages and translated into the other three languages for others to read in their preferred language.
Users can read stories in other languages without having to change their interface language.

Increased personalization and social networking capabilities

The user can add photos or an avatar to his/her public profile.
Users have the option to search, link and display Flickr™ photos on submitted stories, based on tags or keywords.
Social networking friend files are enhanced, allowing search by name or email address and the ability to view user profiles of your own friends and those of others
Requests to add new friends can be prompted quickly from both story and comments pages.
Users can easily invite non-users to become Kontrib users.

In addition, a form has been added that will allow users easily to send additional suggestions and recommendations to Kontrib developers for additions and changes to the system. As always, readers can let Kontrib know if the translation was helpful as well. Developers at Kontrib say the company’s ultimate goal is to foster communication on the Internet by breaking down language barriers, allowing people from many cultures and languages to see each other’s postings in their own local language. New languages will be added periodically.

Kontrib uses Language Weaver’s automated language translation software, a proprietary software engine developed using statistical methodology to automatically translate human languages. The software from Language Weaver returns natural-sounding translations that allow readers to get the gist of the topic with many accurate sentences and has the potential to improve with greater content feedback.

Kirti Vashee, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Language Weaver, said, “Our goal in developing Kontrib is to show how current language technologies can help to build and increase the dialogue across societies in spite of language barriers. While we understand that the translation is imperfect, we hope to attract community feedback to improve the quality over time. We’re gratified to see that more than six of every ten visitors come from international locations; we will continue to expand our base of languages to draw an even larger international community into a shared dialogue.

Portals interested in linking to Kontrib.com for multilingual capabilities should contact the Kontrib Web team at info@kontrib.com. Kontrib promises user generated content available to a larger audience of readers on the Internet. More localization will translate into more eyes viewing the content with corollary potential advertising implications. Users benefit by getting to see what’s important to others through the stories and opinions posted by their counterparts in other parts of the world.

For more information, see www.kontrib.com and www.languageweaver.com.