By: Jason Lee Miller

Google took the lid off a new service today, an extension of its Translate service called Google Translation Center that connects translators with people who need content translated into other languages. All compensation arrangements are left to the individuals involved, but Google will store results on its own servers.

Already the new service has been compared to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service, which matches up people/companies needing services with those who can provide them. Google doesn’t take a cut of whatever arrangements are made, leaving lots of speculation as to how the new service fits in with the search company’s overall strategy. More on that later.

A little detective work at Google Blogoscoped blew the whistle on the service perhaps before Google intended: Philipp Lenssen’s thorough analysis of what the Translation Center can do suggests the service was briefly online before disappearing. Subsequent posting around the Net may have prompted it into a permanently live status.

The idea is pretty simple: Those in need of translated documents can browse translators and work out the details with them, and can submit the material via the Translation Center and post a request. Translators can post their services and make use of Google’s new “easy-to-use translation tools.”

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