Facebook Gets a Leg Up in Going Global

Using a concept called "collaborative translation", a technique common amongst open-source programming, Facebook is translating its site so that it may be used in languages such as "Japanese, Turkish, Chinese, Portuguese, Swedish and Dutch to join versions in Spanish, French and German that launched this year". In order to do this translation Facebook has enlisted users to provide the information through an application that helps guide them in the translations. "More than 100,000 users have installed Facebook's translation application. Nearly 10,000 helped translate the French, Spanish and German sites -- the Spanish version in less than four weeks and the German one in two weeks." With the use of this application Facebook has enabled itself the ability to open itself up to new markets at almost zero cost, as its users provide the labor in a process that only increases the value of the site itself.