BabelTrade: A Real Estate Multilingual E-Marketplace

Start Date: 01/01/2000
End Date: 30/06/2001
Funding: MLIS
Project Leader: Piperidis Stelios

This project’s objective was the development of a multilingual «rent-a-real-estate» and «sell-a-real-estate» electronic marketplace. This marketplace will serve the interests of European citizens who want to offer for rental or sale their Real Estate properties as well as the interests of those who want to rent or buy a Real Estate property. European citizens in search of Real Estate property in Europe face the barrier of multilinguality. The final outcome of the project provided a solution to this problem by developing an multilingual electronic marketplace facilitating the Real Estate business throughout the whole process, including publishing, communication and negotiation. The service combines the two dynamic approaches of contemporary marketing, multilinguality and online services, in order to ensure Europe-wide access and acceptance in the actual globalising economy. BabelTrade supports 8 languages: French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Finnish, and Swedish through specialised linguistic tools. Furthermore, this multilingual service will be extended to other market areas. The multilinguality of Europe poses an obstacle for a successful European-wide marketplace, such as ebay. The proposed service will reduce the “distance” between European citizens allowing them to communicate and mingle.