Microsoft's New Web translating widget

The beauty of adding a translator widget to your website is it can make your site more internationally accessible especially to visitors from foreign countries who visit your site. There are plenty of translation tools out there which allow users to convert the site into a variety of languages. For instance, Windows Live Translator, Google Translate, etc offer the same service. However, most of these translation widgets or website translators tend to require users to stray from the original page and go to other websites for the translation.

What it offers: It provides a simple interface to anyone that visits the web page to select and translate content into a different language. You can see a demo on this page.

What is cool about it:

Innovative: Unlike other (including our) existing solutions, it does not take the users away from the site. The translations are in-place and instant. Users can hover over the translation to see the original. image
Easy to Use: Adding it to your page is as easy as copy and paste. Using it on the site is as easy as select language and click the button.
Customizable: You can pick the colors that best blend into your site design. You can pick the size that would best fit into your design (in fact the widget has an adaptive layout that better uses real estate when very wide). image
Thoughtful User Experience: Progressive rendering allows for the page to get translated progressively – without having the user stare at a white space while the translation is being performed. The translation toolbar that appears when the translation is kicked off provides a progress indicator, the languages selected and a way to turn off the translation.
Localized: The UI is available in multiple languages – so users that come to your page with their browser set to a different language will see the widget in their language.

What does it cost: It is completely free. You can put it on any site – commercial or non-commercial. You are only limited by the invite codes available at this point, but over the coming months we plan to make it more widely available.

To tackle this practical defect, Microsoft at the company’s Mix Conference in Las Vegas has announced the release of a new translation widget which allows Web developers to let users translate their website into other languages without having to leave the page. This new translation widget allows website developers to offer users a pull-down menu to translate a Web page into multiple languages. With this service, users do not need to leave the page even when converting in into another language. Users can see and try out how the widget works via the link here.

Web developers who want to bring in real-time, in-place translations to their websites can get the new translation widget via the link here.