Internet Culture from London… and beyond
Social networks are lost in translation…
The Brits are notoriously bad at foreign languages. I have met so many people in the UK, including Brits, Kiwis, Ozzies, Saffas and Americans, who wished they could speak another language. There seems to be a common misconception that learning a foreign language is easy. My dear friends, you couldn’t be more wrong – learning a foreign language takes time, dedication and passion.
Most social networks seems to sadly only speak one language – English. On the one hand, I can totally understand why English is the primary language, but on the other hand they seem to exclude a huge chunk of the world’s population who may not want to use an English speaking website.
Facebook made a very smart move a little while back, by asking its community to help translate the site into different languages – and the community was happy to help!
I just had a look at Twitter tonight and discovered that the site is only available in English and Japanese.
Twitter is not exactly hard to use, but I think some local flavour might be nice… What do you reckon? 
| Print article | This entry was posted by Lolly on 07/10/2008 at 8:35 pm, and is filed under Transcultural Marketing. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
Checking in on Social Media in the US is a completely different story…
about 2 months ago - 2 comments
During my recent trip to NYC, I couldn’t help but notice how much more mainstream Social Media is in the USA. As Adam pointed out in his recent 10 Foursquare secrets worth making public post, Foursquare [and other services] is much advanced than it is in London. Here are a few interesting things I spotted
A brand engaged with me the other day…
about 3 months ago - 2 comments
As a consumer, I recommend and even occasionally express my discontent about brands via Twitter or my blog. As a social media pro, I spend most of my days managing online presences for other brands, engaging with both fans and detractors. And the other day, for the first in absolutely ages, a brand engaged with
Customer service 2.0 – Easyjet
about 7 months ago - 3 comments
I had a bit of an epic journey attempting to travel back to Lyon for the festive season today. I missed my 5AM train to Gatwick, jumped on a taxi and arrived at the airport only to be informed that my Easyjet flight was delayed. Armed with a good book and a very large cup
The Socialisation of TV Advertising
about 8 months ago - 3 comments
TV is becoming increasingly social. As Neil points out, Twitter went into complete overdrive over the X-Factor last Sunday following Lucie Jones’ shock eviction, with 8 out of the top 10 Twitter trending topics being X-Factor related*. I got rid of my TV when I moved in my flat last year; my flat is on
Adventures in Twitterland… (bring back the link love)
about 9 months ago - 2 comments
Funny things often happen in Twitterland… Today’s randomness definitely got me LOLing away behind my screen… Back in the old days, bloggers used to link back to one another other as a sign of appreciation, and an effective way of sharing content. Linking back also helped increase our Page Rank and Technorati authority; we (bloggers)
Bloggers, #LBM, Havana and a Twitter Treasure Hunt
about 9 months ago - 2 comments
Last week’s London Bloggers meet up was sponsored by Havana who managed spice our lives up by bringing a piece of Cuba to London. Thanks again guys for the delicious Mojitos and the lovely night! Havana an exciting piece of news they’d like to share with you hence the blog post… Havana Cultura, a global
Top Twitter Tools & Apps – September 2009
about 10 months ago - 5 comments
Here’s my selection of top Twitter tools for September 2009; in no particular order: 1) CoTweet: A fantastic service for managing multiple Twitter accounts, ‘CoTweet is a platform that helps companies reach and engage customers using Twitter’ and also lets you monitor trends for each account 2) UberTwitter: the must have app for your Blackberry,
Twitter + Music = Twitgigs
about 1 year ago - 2 comments
Since the explosion of micro-blogging service Twitter last year, Twitter-powered events have been mushrooming across London; think Twestival, The Shoreditch Twit, Aperitweat or Twitcamp. Whether you want to network, share your social media knowledge with other Tweeps or simply enjoy a drink or two, there’s something for everyone! Enters Twitgigs, London’s first ever social media
Susan Boyle, new media phenomenon
about 1 year ago - 3 comments
The Internet has not seen anything quite like Susan Boyle, whose online popularity is headed straight to the history books (figures correct at time of writing) – More than 100 million views on YouTube – 1,651, 232 fans on Facebook – Countless Tweets and Diggs To media observers, the speed and scope of Susan Boyle’s
Quick guide to finding celebs on Twitter
about 1 year ago - 2 comments
Everybody is talking about Twitter at the moment, and I couldn’t help noticing in tonight’s London Paper, yet again another article about the Sam Ronson – Lindsay Lohan break up and their arguments over Twitter. Finding celebrities is relatively easy if you are inquisitive by nature. The quick option is to follow a famous celeb
about 1 year ago
I had the opportunity to hear one of the Facebook executives last year, before the localised versions were deployed, and it was interesting to hear that the first European country in terms of users was not the UK but Turkey… Even if Turkish was not an available locale.
about 1 year ago
That’s interesting and I guess I should look into Turkish social media consumption in Turkey…
about 1 year ago
I think the social media development should reflect natural usage of languages (yes, linguists speaking:P) and it does happen to a certain extend: we see Facebook in English. Following that we see mirror tools appearing in other countries for local audience (PL: Nasza-Klasa, HU: iWIW, RU: vkontaktie – well last one seems to be a rip off of Facebook, still:)). Gradually Facebook opens towards foreign languages, just like the local sites incorporate English interface.
And it’s all good proven by iWIW in Hungary – they started locally, and once the audience was large and established enough they opened for other languages.
Twitter? Yes, I would love to see it in Polish! Poles tend to use other, mirror tools like Blipp.pl and still develop new ones! Polish Twitter users on the other hand use mainly English, which obviously restricts the Polish audience.
about 1 year ago
I will add some comments about Russian social networking. As you may suppose miserable amount prefers English-speaking sites thus we have two local national networks: odnoklassniki.ru and vkontakte.ru. As previous commentator mentioned, the second one is a clon of facebook.
However these two sites has different policy toward different laguages:
Odnoklassniki – only russian availiable
Vkontakte – russian, english, ukrainian, belorussian and two russian modifications – soviet style and sportive slang
The second approach actually wins the audience.
about 1 year ago
I saw that on FB too, definitely a great idea they’re sort of crowdsourcing the translation! As for Twitter, it’s true but given it’s mostly about the content, people just tweet in their preferred language, it would be nice to have the translation but I don’t think it’s a huge barrier in this case.