So, I'm not likely to pursue my own idea (though I registered a domain name a long time ago and have a MVP that's rough around the edges) -- but I don't want to be an idea-hoarder, I'd like to see where you guys go with this, so I want to make suggestions (if you don't mind, I'm really not trying to sound uppity at all)
- I don't think that starting with machine translation to maintain coherence in style is a good idea, while AI is still in it's infancy. Things like sentiment detection, NLP, etc are still too infant in my opinion -- this is baked into the premise of the idea as a whole... We still NEED humans to write good translations - it seems unreasonable to start at the assumption that you will get high-quality output from the imperfect machine process that you are trying to improve (if that makes sense).
I think at best, you will START with bad style, at worst, people will essentially re-translate the chunks to make more sense anyway, and you're left with the hodge-podge.
- If your method WAS suited for medium/long-form, I would suggest adding another tier of worker-bee: the proof-reader. Allow worker bees to apply/become proof readers, and create multiple proofs for large documents. These workers would have qualified for longer-form proofing and possibly editing. A possible increase to the relative pay of the proof-readers (as they are even more closely linked to your revenue and customer satisfaction, and are doing more work to boot), and providing multiple or a combined proof to the customer (up-charge for this) would be a great addition to what you already offer. This will probably do wonders for quality control, and will remove the problem above (I think, to the extent humanly possible). This also gives the people who work with you chance for improvement, chance to build a personal brand, and a chance to take pride in their work (and maybe even build personal/business relationships/trust that benefit the company).
- Why not play in all the vertical space that you guys are in? Part of my version of this service dictates a flat rate for a certain length, and a CLEAR indication that that kind of service is for people with small blurbs to translate. Some companies only need to translate small blurbs (disconnected paragraphs, tag lines, etc), and could benefit immensely and constantly (if you make a brochure for your company, or even an earnings report, etc, you would need this service EVERY month/year, for example). I don't think you would have to make too many structural changes to accommodate such a group of potential customers.
- I have not operated a system like this at scale, so all my suggestions are largely baseless (keep that in mind please)
Oh and my idea was to rid the world of "Engrish", especially at the corporate level.