Motionpoint Performs Web Site Magic

April 8, 2005

BY ED DUGGAN

When the Broward Center for the Performing Arts (BCPA) wanted to tap the rapidly growing Hispanic market online, it chose a new cost-saving technology offered by MotionPoint.

It's easy to see why the market was a priority for the BCPA. Nationally, Hispanic purchasing power is expected to grow from the estimated $683 billion it did in 2003 to more than $1 trillion by 2010.

A logical first step for the BCPA was to duplicate its Web site in Spanish. It was easier said than done.

"The traditional way is to duplicate the entire infrastructure and we started to look into it, but the cost held us back," said Linda Birdsey, BCPA director of marketing and public relations. "Then we heard that MotionPoint had a different way to accomplish the same thing without the rebuilding route - and the cost was within our budget," she said.

The MotionPoint patent-applied-for technology can produce translated sites at 20 percent to 25 percent of the traditional cost of duplicating the entire architecture with a new language. It also delivers faster, with a typical 30- to 60-day turnaround time, versus six to nine months by the conventional method.

MotionPoint charges a fee for the initial language conversion, then a monthly licensing, maintenance and support fee that produces a growing, predictable income stream.

The five-year-old, 70-employee firm has 15 employees at its headquarters, plus 35 translators in a Miami office. It doesn't actually design or build original Web sites; it only creates "ghost" translations of existing sites.

"We actually get a lot of referrals from traditional Web designers who are familiar with our work," CEO Will Fleming said. "And we've never lost a bid where the client was familiar with our technology."

He explains the two-fold process as a software-overlay on an existing Web site's architecture, accompanied by teams of MotionPoint's in-house, human translators.

Proprietary software tools notify the firm of changes to the English-language Web site, so updates in the companion language site are made within hours, sometimes minutes and sometimes zero time.

Fleming, COO Adam Rubenstein, CTO Enrique Travieso, and a group of investors capitalized the company with about $2 million. It turned a profit in last year's second quarter.

Web site costs can range from a few thousand dollars up to half a million dollars for multiple sites and multiple languages.

Fleming won't reveal the company's revenue, but says it will more than triple this year.

E-mail technology writer Ed Duggan at eduggan@bizjournals.com.

Copyright© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.