San Francisco based CityTools LLC announces the beta release of a next-generation multi-language news and information site that offers people the ability to read, write and share content in any combination of 13 languages.

CityTools combines shared stories, original user-generated stories, group publishing capabilities and a geographic approach that allows a unique view of the world.

“One could say this represents the launch of a global user-generated news site,” said CityTools founder and CEO Robert Cauthorn. “And despite the scope of the project, this site has an infinitely flexible view with respect to what is local – depending on the perspective and desires of a user, it's a global site or a hyper local one and user may effortlessly toggle between the views.”

With the opening of the public beta of multi-language support, CityTools is now available in English, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Tagalog.

As the beta progresses, Hindi, Chinese, Hebrew, Arabic and Russian will be coming in the fall.

“We're excited about all the things under way at CityTools and what you see today is a fraction of what we're working on” Cauthorn said. “With the arrival of multiple languages on the site, we can introduce something incredibly cool: bilingual stories, lists and soon classifieds and other content.”

“Throughout the world, people live their lives in multiple languages. Yet until now, there hasn't been a site that could serve people who, for example, want to operate in Spanish and English at the same time,” Cauthorn said. “Depending on the choices the user makes, you can see multiple languages at once or operate entirely in one language. In other words, if you're an English speaker, you might not know that there's a whole French discussion taking place on CityTools. But if you speak French and English, you can see both. Or if you want an exclusive French site, it's there for the asking.”

And behind the scenes all of the user rankings and contributions are adjusted for the combination of language, place and topic the user has selected.

“Place matters A LOT on CityTools,” Cauthorn said. “All content is organized in a special geographic model that allows users to see the entire universe of information or, with a single click, just content that is local to them. Most sites force users to accept the site designers view of that “local” means. At CityTools the user tells us what they think of as local and the site shifts context to reflect that.”

“So, if you feel that the West Village area in New York is what is local to you, that's what you see when you toggle to 'local view.' At any time, however, with a single click you can expand that view to include all of New York City, all of New York State, the United States, North America or the world.

Until now, the notion of web personalization has been somewhat shallow and based almost entirely on topic. If place mattered at all, it was only for the purposes of something like weather reports.

“At CityTools, we don't talk about personalization per se,” Cauthorn explained. “We talk about context. Tell us what you think of as home, tells us what languages you want to speak, tell us what groups you want to work with, and we'll flip things to meet your needs. And, because nearly everything has user rankings on CityTools, all ranking is adjusted based on the context you've selected. In other words, if you want to see ranked shared news and original stories about business in Spanish in London you can do it with a couple of mouse clicks.”

CityTools alters the existing landscape for citizen journalism, shared news and, soon, classifieds. Think about this: if the Polish speaking community in Paris wants a its own local shared news and citizen journalism site, it now has one. If a user wants a site in Swedish and French, it's there. And by the way, if you want a French-only site for Paris, you have that too. And if you live in Boise, you just got your own local shared news site in English as well. Or Tucson. Or Beirut. Or....

Cauthorn added that in a few weeks classifieds and special commercial services will be offered with the same geographic and linguistic flexibility. “What this means is if you speak, for instance, Spanish and English in San Francisco and you want to create or read local classifieds in both languages, you can do so. However, if you speak English exclusively, you only see English classifieds. And we can do the same all over the world. And of course all classifieds in English will flow into our public network and made available to publishers who subscribe to our commercial services.”

Going forward, CityTools will offer language- and place-specific online-only advertising, Cauthorn said. “And we've got some very special things in the works that we're not talking about at this point.”

As befits a beta, the language support is deep but there are gaps, Cauthorn said. At this point the core pages to read, write news and create lists are available in all the languages. However error messages and context sensitive help and how-tos remain entirely in English.

“These shortcomings will change over the coming weeks as we make he remaining pages 'language aware' ” Cauthorn said. “Also, we need to refine our existing translations – some of them are not quite spot on. All of this will be fixed in coming weeks as we get feedback on the language beta.”

Outside of the US, CityTools has started discussions with media partners on exclusive national relationships. As these partnerships develop, the media companies can influence the translations.

Cauthorn noted that the multi-language support is in testing for one of CityTools most unusual features: its “living lists.”

CityTools lists are unique in that they're actually consensus engines, Cauthorn explained. For instance, if you make a list of favorite pizza places in San Francisco and someone disagrees with you, they can make their own list linked to yours. Then, at any time, a reader can click a button and see the combined, ranked view of the best pizza places. As more related lists are linked in, the “consensus view” is updated to reflect the combined wisdom of the list owners.

Just as it works for pizza, it can work for lists of problems in society, or anything else.

Another feature unique to CityTools – the ability to collaboratively create content – is now multi-language enabled, Cauthorn said. Using CityTools “teams,” groups of people may work together to share stories, create original stories, create lists and, soon, work on photos and classifieds.

All team content has its own RSS channel that readers may subscribe to and all the headlines from a team can appear on external websites. All of this, of course, is free to users.

CityTools collaborative editing approach is robust enough so that one could, for example, use CityTools to create an entire online newspaper, the headlines for which show up on another site. There is even a “how to” guide to show school classrooms how to make their own school newspaper using CityTools.

“Also, we've got tools to allow teams to do live, real-time collaborative reporting as events happen,” Cauthorn added. “This means that scores and scores of people can create a real-time story together without steping on each others toes.”

The next version of the software, due in a few weeks, will add support for classifieds, photos and enhance some of the social aspects on the site. At that time CityTools, which is dedicated to charitable giving, will unveil a radical new approach for corporate support of non-profit organizations.

People who create a free account on CityTools may specify their preferences for language, their home geography and topic.

However, readers may see content in native languages without signing up as well by using the "languages" option on the left hand menu on the main Citytools pages or by using one of the URLs below.

Bear in mind, however, that as a community news service, there will only be content in specific language is users have supplied it.

English: http://www.citytools.net/english/
Spanish: http://www.citytools.net/espanol/
Swedish: http://www.citytools.net/svensk/
Norwegian: http://www.citytools.net/norsk/
Danish: http://www.citytools.net/dansk/
Dutch: http://www.citytools.net/nederlands/
French: http://www.citytools.net/francais/
German: http://www.citytools.net/deutsch/
Italian: http://www.citytools.net/italiano/
Polish: http://www.citytools.net/polski/
Finnish: http://www.citytools.net/acne/
Portuguese: http://ww.citytools.net/portugues/
Tagalog: http://www.citytools.net/tagalog/