Mark November 10th on your calendars as the day that the Russian internet became accessible to the whole world. Google announced yesterday that they added their Google Translate engine as a feature within Google Reader. This is very big news for all of us who may read and speak some Russian but not enough to efficiently scan the Russian online newspapers, magazines, blogs, portals, and info services.
Until yesterday, the only way one could automatically translate Russian language RSS feeds into other languages was to create a mash-up at Yahoo Pipes and then import that feed into their feed reader. I am a wanna be geek so I actually did create a couple mash-ups of some Russian language RSS feeds. However, it was quite cumbersome to set-up and invariably the feed would break after a while.
I wrote a blog post a while back pleading with Google to combine their respectable translation engine, which I use a couple times per week, with my own favorite feed reader. I had thought my request had fallen on deaf ears but as I found out today while reading Mashable.com apparently some other people must have also requested this awesome marriage of two of Google’s best services.
Let me take a moment here to reiterate just how big of a development this new “Translate into my own Language” could be for the development of understanding between Russia and America. It could be huge!!
The way it works is that you go to “View Settings” for a particular feed and click the Translate into my own language option. That is it. The feed in question will now be automatically translated into your language for you to read. Simple, clean, and revolutionary.
I can now subscribe to dozens and dozens of Russian language RSS feeds and read the news for myself. What’s even cooler is that when you click on a item/post within a feed to see the original website Google Translate will automatically open the page in your language of choice.
Now remember, the Google translation engine is not perfect. Not even close. BUT it is a huge step forward in bringing the online world closer together.
Go check it out. I think you will be as excited as I am.
Here’s the feed for Kommersant Newspaper:
http://www.kommersant.ru/rss/main.xml
