Babel Fish was an online language translator. It was an easy-to-use way to get a quick translation of a word or phrase on the fly. The Babel Fish platform was the predecessor to Google Translate. But Google Translate took a large majority of the Babel Fish users and expanded into the influential translation tool it is today, eventually causing Babel Fish to disappear entirely. After getting its start in 1997, Babel Fish was originally called the AltaVista Translation Service (or Systran), under the URL babelfish.altavista.com: Systran, the precursor to Babelfish, in 1999 So why did AltaVista pick Babel Fish for its URL? Douglas Adams wrote a book called the, which featured a species of fish that could translate for humans. Therefore, the Babel Fish website took this name as a reference to this science fiction classic. The Babel Fish in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Jonathan Davies. CC BY 2.0 The original Babel Fish website is not functional anymore, but it sends you directly to the Yahoo. (A currently operating site under the domain name BabelFish.com has no relation to the AltaVista Babel Fish service, but it does offer translation tools for free.) How Babel Fish Eventually Went Extinct Although the Babel Fish website was a rather revolutionary development, it was plagued by near constant acquisitions. Therefore, it never seemed to gain footing with one organization, and instead, left itself open for Google to make and improve a similar program under one roof. For example, the Babel Fish system was launched in 1997, but in 2003 a company called Overture Services, Inc. Bought Babel Fish. Then Overture Services company was taken over by Yahoo later that same year.
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