Facebook Connect adds website translation tool

Facebook has added a ground-breaking new translation application to Facebook Connect – making it easier than ever before to change the language of a website.

Using a solution developed in-house which quickly helped the social-networking site change the language settings on Facebook, the Translations application has now been rolled as a free tool for any developer who fancies making their website that little bit more bilingual.

Web driven by people

The reasons for adopting this tool are myriad: it could be used for tourist boards and travel sites, basically anybody who wants to attract non-English speaking visitors to their website.

Speaking about the tool, Cat Lee of Facebook said: "we're excited to see what you can do with this tool. As a technology and platform company, we believe services like this can serve as building blocks for a web driven by people, where you can connect with anyone or anything you care about, anywhere you choose and now in many different languages."

So, when we were all laughing/frowning at Facebook adding English (pirate) and more recently English (upside down), it seems the site was actually showing off how effective its Translations tools is.

Demo available

If you are a website developer and want to try the tool out, Facebook has issued a handy demo of how the app will work. Be warned, though: you will have to be handy with HTML to use the tool

Translations uses XFML – Facebook's own mark up language, which is an extension of HTML. Essentially this means, that when you have created a translated version of your website, it will be accessible to users after they log into Facebook Connect.

The Translations for Facebook Connect app is to be announced officially at this year's Future of Web Apps (FOWA) conference in London.