The question "Is Google Sending the Translators Home?" was raised in a blog that claims to be "a group weblog by the sharpest minds in online media/journalism/publishing." A week later, the blog was forced to admit that "Google Translation Tool Only Works Sometimes", with the final conclusion that "in most cases the translations are, I think, not really usable".

One could just as easily ask the question, "are blogs, wikis and community story selection sites like Digg sending the journalists home?" Obviously, the answer is no, if this weblog run by professional journalists is any indication. When USA Today and Netscape recently modified their content formats to be more hip and Web 2.0, this sparked a sizeable dropoff in the number of regular visitors to their sites.

As this WSJ article indicates: "Tech bloggers typically genuflect before Digg, regarding it as a founder of a new kind of democratic journalism.

As with any democracy, Diggers get what they deserve. Recent top stories have included a CNN report about a girl who found the severed head of her missing pet dog on her front porch, an interactive graphic featuring three women in halter tops at a car wash, and a posting about unusual urinals."

In much the same way, users of the Google machine translation tool get what they pay for.