Facebook launches in Spanish
Facebook has unveiled a new Spanish-language version of its social networking site, the company has announced.
From next week, users logging on to Facebook from a Spanish speaking country will automatically be directed to the Spanish version of the website.
In a statement, Facebook revealed that around 60 percent of its 64 million users are based outside the United States and that almost 3 million live in either Spain or Latin American countries.
It is user power that has driven the development, with the translation of the website carried out by 1,500 members using a translation application. Translations were suggested by browsers and then voted on by the community for approval.
Using a similar system, Facebook plan to roll out French and German versions of the website within the next few weeks.
Facebook, which was founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg while still at University four years ago, has recently seen impressive growth that has transformed it into a business valued today at an estimated $15 billion (Microsoft invested $240 million in 2007 for a less than 2 percent share).
The company will hope that the addition of wider ranging language support will help it to close the gap on News Corp. owned rival MySpace; currently the most popular social networking site.
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