Lingoz - the less attractive urban dictionary…sheesh..

02 October 2007 - By Ahson Rafiq - Filled in News, Webware

I was kinda shocked when i read a positive review of this on techcrunch, atleast once in our lives we have definitely visited the Urban Dictionary, its so obvious that lingoz is ripping it off the concept and some of the design/user functionalities as well. After staying at lingoz for 15 seconds i got pissed off and left.

They call it “user defined” information, so…what was the idea behind wikipedia again?

Basically a new wikipedia?…with a twist of urban dictionary…so basically just complicated terms with bad meanings?

It is retrieving most content from wikipedia so thats dup-content in my book, so basically its not really lingo…its not slang..its just a place where people add words they wanna know about and a heck load of duplicate info for google to index.

Ah well, maybe their next idea will be a bit better.

256Comments2007-10-02+22%3A06%3A01Ahson+Rafiq to “Lingoz - the less attractive urban dictionary…sheesh..”

Eyal Barzilay Says:
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Hi All,

My name is Eyal and I run the LingoZ operation at Babylon. I came across this review and I would like to comment on that.

We really like UrbanDictionary and think they are doing a great job in being a cool site for American slang, but LingoZ is fundamentally different.

LingoZ is first and foremost a multilingual (both in UI and in content), general-purpose dictionary, it invite users to contribute content on top of millions of authoritative definition from Babylon repositories. LingoZ is not about a certain niche (such as slang) but rather a comprehensive resource, starting from the basic terms to the most up-to-date and esoteric, addressing wide range of audiences; from laymen (average user, students, moms and pups) to professional and geeks.

LingoZ offers bi-lingual content in 8 languages. That means that you can lookup or contribute a definition in one language to a term in a different language, thus it is also a translation resource. It already includes over 4.5 million definitions from Babylon repositories (part of them user-generated long before this became a hype), complemented with concise wikipedia definitions provided to the users as a reference.

LingoZ is also introducing a unique glossary concept, encouraging users to contribute also by aggregating existing terms in topical lists for others to explore, and further cool features and APIs are in the works.

I hope this will allow the reader have a better understanding of what is LingoZ.

Any feedback or comment is most welcome.

Best wishes,
Eyal Barzilay
VenessTheClipper Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I wouldn’t worry to much about Dup content. Just after I hit the button to send my definition of ‘cat’ which I was amazed to find wasn’t in the Urban Dictionary, I noticed an advert for a book in the corner of the screen. I suppose the authors got out in Soho and asked all the crackheads if they could help out with THEIR content right? I don’t think so.
I don’t expect I’ll be getting paid for my entry should it ever appear in a publication (and this insult/description is very well known in London on the heroin/crack scne incidentally so I was really amazed it wasn’t in there). That’s just the way it goes though. We, the internet community, have provided the content. You don’t hear me moaning. I didn’t get off my backside and put up a site though……
VenessTheClipper Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Sorry about the spelling error. It’s a ’scene’. Could the mod change that? My dinner is on the table. I’m rushing. Cheers.