Discussion: Crowdsourcing Translations. Press the Play button in the player controls to view the video.
A successful Facebook's crowdsourced translation project is probably known to everybody. Not language service providers, but volunteering users of Facebook translated this large website into many languages in the twinkling of an eye. And did that job perfectly well.
However, not all crowdsourced translations are high quality products. And they are not necessarily free of charge or cheap.
Now the question is: Can your company crowdsource translations and how can it be done?
If your content/software/websites/documents are confidential, highly technical or require a top-notch translation, crowdsourcing is not the option you should use.
Otherwise, why not try it? You'll get your translation quicker and at a lower cost.
There are translation companies (you can find them on the Net) that crowdsource translations. They will find translators or bilinguals and manage the full translation process for you using crowdsourcing translation tools.
If you have enough translators or bilingual users interested in translation of your projects, you can arrange crowdsourcing yourself.
In this case, you will need a web-based crowdsourced translation engine. There are open-sourced (e.g. tr8n, Translations for Facebook Connect, Worldwide Lexicon Project), and paid engines. Also, you'll need translation project managers who will perform coordination and oversight over the translation community and who will manage the whole process ensuring quality and consistency of translations.