Facebook Translates Itself Into Six Indian Languages

Here’s an interesting fact for you: India is the world’s second-largest country in terms of population.  And here’s one more detail: by unveiling Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu interfaces, Facebook has put itself in a good position to pursue India’s citizens. 

Don’t count on seeing Facebook’s user count quadruple (or even double) in the next week or two, though.  It’s true that Hindi is India’s official language, and a whole lot of people speak it.  But English is India’s "subsidiary official language," according to Wikipedia and the National Informatics Centre, and many folks already use it to conduct their online affairs.

The real opportunity for Facebook to achieve something with these translations lies in its chance to defeat Google’s social network Orkut.  Marshall Kirkpatrick noted, "Orkut is by far the dominant social network (and website in general) in India – but that could change in a big way if localization is pulled off effectively."

Then, Orkut would more or less only be left with a stronghold in Brazil, and Facebook would have badly hurt one of its deepest-pocketed competitors.

Facebook’s still very much on the move, too; a page of official statistics promises that over 50 translations are in development.