Recently, NetEase.com introduced its very own artificial translation service platform. The total number of orders for human translation has surpassed one million, marking a significant milestone for the company. Launched in mid-2012, Youdao Human Translation is a professional translation platform under NetEase, leveraging the vast user base of Youdao Dictionary to offer comprehensive translation solutions.
The Youdao Human Translation platform operates on a user-driven and translator-driven order system, providing two distinct modes: rapid translation and document translation. These options cater to the diverse needs of users, delivering efficient and high-quality services. Interestingly, some translations can be completed in just one minute, showcasing the platform's speed and efficiency. Additionally, the platform boasts an impressive NPS (Net Promoter Score) exceeding 80%, indicating strong customer satisfaction and advocacy.
Despite the seemingly niche demand for human translation, it has proven to be a game-changer in the translation industry. With over 700 million users across various products like Youdao Dictionary, search engines, and educational tools, NetEase has successfully tapped into a high-income user segment. This extensive user base, combined with a decade of product matrix accumulation, has allowed Youdao to provide end-to-end translation solutions. Moreover, this approach has paved a unique path for authentic human translators to transition from serving individual consumers (C-side) to working directly with businesses (B-side).
Unlike traditional translation agencies, Youdao has effectively addressed numerous overlooked "long-tail" small and medium-sized translation requests. Users can easily place orders on the official translation website, while platform translators can claim them independently. Once an order is placed, users can track its progress in real-time and leave feedback upon completion. Currently, Youdao hosts over 3,000 professional translators, including more than 800 senior translators with over three years of experience, catering to over 500,000 satisfied customers.
Customer demands for professional human translation exhibit a clear bimodal distribution. While some orders involve small quantities with minimal overall demand, others consist of larger volumes requiring significant translation efforts, particularly from SMEs. According to Youdao Artificial Translation statistics, nearly 70% of customers place orders less than four times, while 30% are repeat customers placing orders more frequently. For corporate clients with consistent needs, Youdao offers a "corporate VIP" channel, enabling personalized, "one-on-one" professional translation solutions. Presently, Youdao maintains long-term partnerships with major institutions such as the Ministry of Health, Tsinghua University, and Amazon, providing top-notch translation services.
Innovative technology plays a pivotal role in enhancing translation efficiency. Earlier this year, Youdao unveiled its groundbreaking human-machine translation service. This service leverages independently developed neural network machine translation technology, boasting superior accuracy compared to global competitors in news and English learning corpora. Its BLEU score (used to assess translation accuracy) surpasses rivals by nearly 10%.
Human-machine translation combines the speed of machine translation with the precision of human editing, significantly boosting efficiency while reducing costs by approximately 50%. This hybrid model has already been adopted by corporate clients with specific needs. For instance, a pharmaceutical company utilized human-machine translation to efficiently and accurately translate vast amounts of medical content by training and optimizing models using domain-specific corpus data.
According to the 2016 China Language Services Industry Development Report by the China Translation Association, the translation industry generated nearly 300 billion yuan in output value in 2015. With over 1 million orders and the rise of human translation platforms, Youdao is poised to make a substantial impact on the industry. As an internet-based professional translation platform, Youdao will continue to harness its product and technological strengths to drive further growth and innovation in the translation sector.
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