International Social Networking: Facebook in German, LinkedIn in France
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | March 3, 2008 | Share This
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Two interesting developments in social networking localization: Facebook today released a German-language version of the site, and LinkedIn has entered the French market in a bigger way by signing a deal with popular job listing site Apec.
Facebook’s German translation took less than two weeks, thanks to 2,000 German-speaking users that contributed translations and then voted on the best German words for Facebook terminology like “poke” (that’s “anklopfen” in Deutsch). Application developers will soon be able to use the same crowd-sourcing to get their apps translated. TechCrunch reports a French version is on the way soon.
LinkedIn’s deal with French job site Apec is not about translation but lets LinkedIn use Apec’s API to get Apec members signed up on LinkedIn. Apec will get a referral fee for each new user LinkedIn gets, and LinkedIn gets more global by invading Apec via application.
And speaking of translations, and French, and social network globalization, this very interesting map (in French) shows popularity of social networks in different parts of the world. Facebook is fourth in Europe, so perhaps a German translation will bump it up soon. LinkedIn does not appear on this map.
Topics: Facebook, International, Social Media |