A few days ago, I met with the founders of ViiKii, a Valley-based startup specializing in sharing subtitled international videos. The husband-and-wife team originally come from Korea and they have extensive startup experiences under their belt. They started ViiKii a few years back when Changseong Ho (the husband) was still at Stanford MBA. Now the site is a booming and bustling place, where lots of subtitle creators and viewers interested in watching international videos hang out. Also the service is already profitable with ads and donations, they say.
People gifted with translation skills can create subtitles for videos produced in foreign languages. Right now translators do not make money directly from their work, but they get reputation among the community - which is enough of a motivation for so many subtitle creators that there is sometimes even competition going on among them as to who gets to translate a certain piece of video.
Thanks to the contribution of those subtitle creators, viewers can watch various international videos without so much of language barrier. The site's reputation system makes translators do a good job, and after a quick spin I find the general quality of translation very good. The site has clean design and has all necessary features like sharing, embedding, comments, etc. You can call this a Youtube of translated videos.
As the world becomes more globalized, more and more people will develop interest in foreign culture, as observed in the recent popularity of Korean pop culture among other parts of the Asia. That means the number of people who want to consume subtitled international videos will only increase, suggesting a bright future for ViiKii.
TAG viikii
