Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 4, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
As the company states in an announcement, the translated site is intended to contribute to the social network’s internationalisation. From now on, any user accessing the website from a German-speaking country can use their profile in German. Around 2,000 German-speaking Facebook users had previously taken part in translating the the network. Thanks to their help, the process was completed within two weeks.
The German version was announced last December. Alongside MySpace, which has also operated a German-language site for some time, Facebook’s translated version will compete in particular with the domestic network studiVZ. Facebook already has more than one million active users from German-speaking countries, according to Matt Cohler, Vice President Product Management at Facebook.
For its part, studiVZ launched an expanded offering under the name meinVZ http://www.meinvz.net, just a few days ago, now intended to appeal to users outside the student community as well. Whether the timing was chosen deliberately or the two platform launches happen to overlap remains unclear. “We announced the new portal some time ago and follow our technical planning, not other platforms,” is the explanation from Dirk Hensen, company spokesperson for studiVZ. The German portal accordingly does not want to enter into open competition.
Facebook is constantly being expanded with new functions, so users are also to be enabled to translate the new features into their language, the US platform says. In addition, the translation application will shortly be available to platform developers who want Facebook users to translate their applications into German. Beforehand, members who had added the Facebook translation application to their profile were able to make translation suggestions directly while using the service. The other users then voted on the suggestions to arrive at the best possible translation. For example, users chose the word “Anklopfen” instead of the English expression “poke”. In addition to the platform on the web, Facebook’s mobile applications are now also available in German.
