Last week, INBOUND introduced you to Jeenie™, the first “live interpreter in your pocket” App. Jeenie is the brainchild of Kirsten Brecht Baker, who will be sharing a booth (#343) with TourOperatorLand.com, a division of the NAJ Group, which publishes INBOUND. In our last issues Baker explained how Jeenie works. Essentially, she told us, “it’s three swipes with your thumb and you’re talking to a real person through facetime of simply audio.”
This week, we posed the question, “Why would anyone use Jeenie when there are auto-translate apps like Google Translate or ‘Speak and Translate’?” She answered: “When talking about language on a cellphone, it’s not actually about interpreting. We’re talking about people who speak the local language—in real time—to help you solve a problem. When you have 10 people behind you in line with 40 percent of them typing something into a phone, or with some of them turning the phone around to view, it’s a challenge. It’s not real time. Google language is great. I use it. But when they’re can’t handle speed, nuance or context … Jeenie works. It’s live. It’s real time.”
In the next issue of INBOUND, Kirsten Brecht Baker explains who Jeenie recruits as interpreters. For more on Baker’s professional background, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsten-brecht-baker-7b866/.
