What is Metcalfe’s Law and how does it apply to the globalization of social networks and real-time language translation?

By Robert Levin, CEO of Transclick ® Copyright © 2004

Almost 65% of all Internet users are in countries where English is not the 1st language, yet 70% of web sites are in English. This indicates that there is a pent-up demand for translating English web sites into non-English languages and that English static web sites should decline as a percentage of total web sites as the number of web pages doubles from 313 to 626 billion over the next few years. Its also an indication that most static digital web sites are still English-centric and that there is a demand for English. There is a $1 billion localization industry to translate static software including web sites. The World Wide Web is an example of Metcalfe’s Law in action. Robert Metcalfe founded the 3Com Corporation and designed the Ethernet protocol for computer networks. Metcalfe's law states that the value of a communication system grows as approximately the square of the number of users of the system (N²). Since a fax machine cannot connect to itself, the actual calculation is

N(N−1), or N²−N.

First formulated by Robert Metcalfe in regard to Ethernet, Metcalfe's law explains many of the network effects of communication technologies and networks such as the Internet and World Wide Web.

Metcalfe’s Law of Networks will one day be applied to global social networking, accelerated by the crashing of language barriers, thanks in part to Transclick. A meeting of minds can now happen on a global scale unprecedented in human history. We want to leverage the need of over 500,000 NGO’s, corporations and governments to network globally to share best practices, market their products and services, garner support and disseminate their ideas. We want to help closed societies communicate with the outside world and open up channels of communication across cultural, political and geographic barriers. This global network will be built on web-based collaboration portals that incorporate localization of static content and real-time language translation of dynamic content. Both components, static (no change in content) and dynamic (rapidly changing content such as news and text messaging), must be translated and that means, as web sites and real-time collaboration becomes multilingual (translated), network effects predicted by Metcalfe’s Law will kick in for the translated static and dynamic content.

The fax machine, for example, is of very limited utility if only you and one other person have a fax machine. If the entire global business community is on the system, then Metcalfe’s Law predicts that the network of fax machines becomes much more useful. Until a critical mass of end users globally is reached, global mobile access to globalization and real-time translation of messaging technology has a limited impact on society.

Once a critical mass of end users of real-time language translation of fixed line and mobile internet-based and wireless text messaging is achieved, then political and socio--economic systems, particularly in relatively closed and linguistically isolated societies will evolve at a more rapid rate. Why does more foreign direct investment into Brazil come from Portugal than any other origin?: the common language of Portuguese. Why does more foreign direct investment into Argentina come from Spain than Argentina than any other origin?: the common language of Spanish.

As language barriers drop, international networking increases, changing the patterns of investment so Brazilian society will not just speak Portuguese and the international business language (broken English)--it will be able to conduct business through wireless and online collaboration in over 15 languages. Transclick will build bi-lateral and multilateral language communication bridges between governments and between corporate networks---and indeed between entire societies. Transclick will build communication bridges where there are still enormous non-tariff barriers to trade and the exchange of ideas---the largest of which is the language barrier---between Asia and the West.

• Thus the focus of Transclick’s overarching long-term strategic plan is to build the most important language bridge between China, Korea and Japan on one side and the United States, Latin America & Europe on the other.
• This will require many partners Transclick ® will leverage existing digital networks including major global wireless carriers and existing distributors of business to business and personal desk-top messaging.

This is a plan that has important long-term economic development and political implications. With a trade deficit with the Far East that exceeds $200 billion annually, both the United States and Europe have a moral and strategic imperative to close that gap by engaging Asia in a constructive dialogue. Since it is more likely that Asians will learn English before Americans and Europeans learn Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Hindi, Thai, Malay and Indonesian, it is important for Europe, the United States and multi-lateral development banks to invest in globalization of communications and language technology infrastructure.

This will create tens of thousands of new jobs in linguistics, terminology and computational linguistics. Will a decline of language barriers stimulate economic growth? Just ask (in English of course!) the International Financial Corporation of the World Bank, as well Inter-American Development Bank, African Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank: “If the world could speak the same language and 1 billion people who are previously linguistically isolated begin to collaborate across language barriers over the mobile (wireless) internet, would economic growth grow or shrink as a result?” The answer is obvious: if we invest in bringing down language barriers and increase global collaboration over the wireless internet, economic growth will increase significantly, particularly in developing nations.

Source of Statistics: Global Reach

Important facts:

The Chinese government would like every young person to learn some English by time of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Beijing Today reported in late 2001: “Beijing's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games has encouraged both the government and inhabitants of the city to learn English. But the capital finds it lacks foreign teachers to offer the language training courses. The market for teaching English is set to grow steadily over the next seven years.

In fact, the English training market of the capital has been booming over the past decade as young people are seeking better jobs and opportunities to study abroad.

After winning the 2008 Olympic bid, the municipal government placed an order requiring its governmental officials to study English, while ordinary inhabitants should learn some English for communication with foreigners.

According to the order, municipal officials must take a three-month extensive training course. The municipal government even set up an office to coordinate and monitor the language training campaign. Each official will get a certificate as long he or she passes the examination.

Meanwhile, millions of everyday English dialogue prints have been sent to most of the service sectors in the city like taxi companies, hotels, department stores and shopping centers, as well as companies and entities of various industries. All employees of these sectors and industries are also asked to learn some basic English for communication with foreigners in the city.

All the above measures indicate a potentially huge language training industry in the making. But the city lacks foreign language teachers both in quality and quantity.”

Transclick will be used as a language learning tool by Chinese citizens as well as a cross-language border collaboration work tool by both US and Chinese citizens.

• The Trade Deficit between the US and China has grown to $123.96 billion, an all-time high, a net of $152 billion in imports from China and $28.4 billion in exports to China. The 2004 Trade Deficit is running at an annualized rate of about $120 billion through the end of March 2004. The Trade Deficit with Japan was $65.9 billion in 2003 after peaking at $81.5 in 2000. The Trade Deficit of the US with the European Union was $94.26 billion in 2003, an all-time high.

Transclick will be used an export promotion tool by US government
agencies as well as a collaboration tool by US exporters and importers.

Ask yourself: If 30% of young people in China learn "broken English", and 0.03% of Americans and Europeans learn Chinese as a 2nd language ("broken Chinese") over the next five years, and the labor rate and exchange rates remain the same, what will happen to the bi-lateral trade deficit of the US and Europe with China—will it get larger or smaller?

Now ask yourself: if all factors remain the same but now 50% of Americans and Chinese can communicate in Chinese using computerized language translation and collaboration technology with 75% accuracy for grammar and style but 100% accuracy for numbers and terminology (i.e. “broken Chinese”), will the West be less linguistically isolated, more engaged in a dialogue and export more good and services to the rising middle-class of China?

Larry Downes and Chunka Mui wrote a thesis in which they explained “the Law of Disruption”. The Law of Disruption states that where social systems improve incrementally, technology improves exponentially. As the gap between the two increases, so does the potential for non-continuous, disruptive, and potentially revolutionary change. The same is true for the relationship between Asia and the West if we break down linguistic barriers using language technology. Downes and Mui (along with Nicolas Negroponte of MIT) wrote a book called “Unleashing the Killer App”. A "killer app" is a good or service that "establishes an entirely new category and, by being first, dominates it, returning several hundred percent on the initial investment."

By this definition, due to the scalability of Transclick’s innovations as they are deployed globally over mobile smartphones and other computing devices, real-time translation of instant messaging, email and SMS translation may become a “killer app.”

Downes, Mui and Negroponte wrote: “Killer apps are examples of the Law of Disruption in action, a use of technology whose novelty turns the tables on some previously stable understanding of how things work or work best. In business, killer apps undermine customer relationships, distribution networks, competitor behavior, and economies of size and scale. Killer apps create global competitors where only local players previously mattered. They give customers, suppliers, and new entrants power, upsetting the careful cultivation of competitive advantages that were themselves based on technology, technology that is now suddenly obsolete.”

“The impact of globalization is felt throughout the production and distribution life cycle. In upstream activities, it is now common to have component sourcing and assembly provided by a global network of partners and suppliers. For time-sensitive processes, industries as varied as manufacturing and finance take advantage of the earth's rotation by passing work back and forth between Asia, Europe, and the Americas, engaging in 24-hour operation.

Downstream, customers are already used to the idea of borderless commerce. Given the chance, they are more than willing to shop on an international basis for everything from entertainment to software to cars and electronics, and even for many goods and services traditionally considered national or even local.”

Shannon Clark wrote on the “What Matters” page of the Minciu Sodas laboratory: “….as a group with members around the globe, we have an opportunity to collaborate together in helping bring a diversity of views and "ways of thinking" together on projects and opportunities. The next few years and decades will see some truly amazing shifts around the globe as our increasingly connected (and interconnected) world opens up many new opportunities while shifting many others - all types of jobs (and thus all types of investment) can in a globally interconnected world flow to the groups offering the best price/performance/skill combination. The opportunities are in finding innovative applications of regional knowledge and skills and in helping to navigate this increasingly connected world - many people, indeed perhaps most, will find their assumptions changing (often seemingly overnight). We may be able to profitably help people navigate this new future.”

Push to Talk. Click to Translate: TransClick ®.

Copyright © 2004