Thanks to the beautiful invention of web2.0 we have websites such as facebook and Flickr that allow us creepers/artist/social butterflies/loners/photographers/journalist, etc to network with each other, post our work and share it with the world. And while Europe and other countries have developed more of a western culture in their hometowns–english, whether we choose to believe it or not, is not the only language spoken on our beautiful earth. These articles about Flickr and Facebook show how the websites are recognizing this fact and also that, hey-they’re available to everyone in this world. The wonders of the internet.
Facebook just recently, as in Feb. 11, 2008, released their site in Spanish with German and French to follow. Flickr on the other hand made this change in June of 2007 and has seven languages available to their users. Both websites promote good business by saying they’re here for the users. Very touching. So for all those Miami students, if you’re on Facebook instead of studying for your spanish exam, now the best of both worlds are combined. Study and stalk at once!
i am somewhat surprised at how recently facebook translated over. considering how long the site has been around and, (seemingly) popular, i would’ve thought they would have breeched the language gap a long time ago. i don’t know how much stalking and creeping are connected to facebook in my mind but, it’s pretty cool that they are working on translating.
for us miami students learning italian, any idea when the best of our worlds will combine? or flickr?
i wonder if the two sites will attempt to get the amount of languages wikipedia has working within it… that’s a solid goal i would guess…
anyway, cool article info. and hey, nice page theme.
Yay, western culture expansion! Now even more people can experience the joys/horrors of facebook. Wow, though. This just happened. I would have figured this had already occurred. Regardless, the decision to release their sites in different languages is definately a smart business move. I wonder how many of the popular sites we use have made the international jump? btw, did you know when the french version would be coming out? I’ve been meaning to parler et ecrire en francais de plus
That would be really cool and convenient if there was a button that would automatically translate everything for you. We could read papers from other countries which would educate us about different cultures and how they think of the U.S.
Isn’t it amazing how Web 2.0 has grown in terms of language! You should take a look at this CMS (Content Management Service) called Bitrix Site Manager 7.0 by Bitrix. It allows businesses to create multilingual websites simply using UTF-8 coding that accommodates the language needs of users and customers using a Web 2.0 format. This is really something special.