MeGlobe.com - Free Browser-based IM for Instant Translation in 15 Languages & IMTranslator's Virtual Keyboard for 31 Languages

What can you use other than Skype.com?

1. An interesting discovery for those wanting to flexibly and instantly communicate in a browser-based IM chat in various languages outside (out-world) and within (in-world) SecondLife.com (or otherwise).

MeGlobe.com accommodates 15 languages (English, French, Spanish, Italien, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, Greek, Korean, Arabic, Swedish, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified).

Thus actually more languages than all of the free in-world tools featured within Second Life (the Hank Ramos Universal Translator HUD accommodates 24 languages and must be purchased for Linden$375), and the application is also easier to handle as compared to the in-world HUD tools of Second Life. Even if Second Life crashes, which still frequently happens, you continue to remain in touch.

Indeed, this enables multi-lingual communication and training support in conjunction with Second Life. A group function will soon be rolled out, which will then significantly enable and support multi-lingual and virtual training workshops in Second Life, and in any other 3D virtual world (even for WizIQ.com, and Moodle.org).

There is no software to download and install. Just perform the registration process, verify the process via your e-mail, then login and operate it web-based from a browser.

Of course, both chat participants need to do this first, and put their mutual addresses or names on the chat list.

MyGlobe.com chat name: eurominuteman

http://meglobe.com/about

2. IMTranslator.com only offers 7 languages for the support of browser-based IM chat translation (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish), but a variety of further services may be helpful, such as the translation, back translation, voice, spellchecker, dictionary, and decoder services. This service does not connect to a chat partner, it only delivers "backoffice" support.

Yet, the most useful service in the context of Second Life and IM chat in virtual worlds would be the browser-based keyboard service, which accommodates multilingual text input in 31 languages (Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, Finish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Urdu):

http://imtranslator.com/

In summary, the advantages of both applications directly overlap for 7 languages as marked in italic. The total language sum of both applications amounts to 37 languages.

3. Follow-up chapter: Using Google Talk

http://www.googletutor.com/2008/07/11/using-gtalk-to-chat-in-different-languages/

Google Talk name: eurominuteman

4. Follow-up chapter: Using Oovoo.com

This one is a killer application for audio/video talk sessions in groups.