Facebook today announced the
first step in a broad plan to internationalize the site with translation
into Spanish. German and French versions of Facebook are expected in the
coming weeks. Nearly 1,500 Spanish-speaking users on Facebook chose to be
part of the effort and translated the site from English to Spanish in less
than four weeks.

    Current users who want to view Facebook in Spanish can change their
language preference from their account settings. Beginning on Monday, Feb.
11, any person who goes to http://www.facebook.com from a Spanish-speaking
country will see the site in Spanish. Facebook currently has more than 2.8
million active users in Latin America and Spain.

    "Over 60 percent of Facebook users are now outside of the U.S., and
many live in countries where English is not the primary language," said
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. "Our goal has always been to
allow people to use Facebook in their native language so we built an
application to enable users to participate in translating the site into
their local languages and dialects. We really appreciate the contribution
from users in translating Facebook."

    Users who added the Facebook translation application were allowed to
submit translations inline while browsing the site. The community then
approved all translations through a voting system. For example, users
agreed on "dar un toque" to describe the Facebook-coined term "poke."

    Many translators are motivated by the impact of their contribution to
making the site available to millions who speak their language. The leading
Spanish translator was responsible for 1,284 of the winning sentences,
almost 3 percent of the entire site.

    As the company releases new features, Facebook will continue to empower
its users to make these available in their local language. In addition, the
translation application will soon be available to Facebook Platform
developers who want to have their applications translated by the community.

    Facebook users can now also access the mobile site in their supported
language through any mobile device with Web capabilities. To sign up for
Facebook, users can go to http://www.facebook.com or visit m.facebook.com
from any mobile device with Internet access.

    About Facebook

    Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps
people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and
coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of
information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's
real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact
with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a part of
millions of people's lives and half of the users return daily. Facebook is
a privately-held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif.