Facebook users have been working hard to translate the site into a number of new languages. In addition to adding localized versions of languages including Spanish, Facebook has completed translation of Norwegian, Japanese and Polish. I can foresee Japanese being one of the most popular languages on the site. Facebook is also working to finish up Chinese as their copycat in China, Xiaonei, recently raised $430 million.
While Facebook doesn’t have the most translations of any social networking site/platform currently, they have been the quickest at getting out new languages thanks to their translations application. The translations application crowd sources the translation process to Facebook users, enabling them to create a dictionary of different word translations and vote on which words are accurately translated.
Facebook has close to 20 languages that they are actively working to translate into but they have suggested that they will be adding more in the near future. The site is now accessible in 8 languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish and Norwegian. New languages will be added in the coming weeks. Crowd sourcing has proven to be an effective model for Facebook.
The true test will be if Facebook becomes as dominant internationally as they’ve become domestically.
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I wonder why they didn't support any RTL Languages till now as Hebrew and Arabic
Comment by Hisham Sadek — May 6, 2008 @ 7:56 am
I wonder why they didn’t support any RTL Languages till now as Hebrew and Arabic
Comment by Hisham Sadek — May 6, 2008 @ 11:56 am
[...] a week ago I wrote about Facebook launching their service in 3 new languages. Over the past 24 hours I have received countless emails notifying me of the news yet again. [...]
Pingback by Facebook Announces New Languages - The Unofficial Facebook Blog — May 15, 2008 @ 10:55 am
I wonder if they will be including Esperanto next. I hope so. There is a worldwide diaspora of Esperanto speakers who would welcome such a service.
Take a look at http://www.esperanto.net
Comment by Bill Chapman — May 16, 2008 @ 2:38 am