Facebook Seeking Free Labor to Translate and Localize Facebook Into 55 More Languages

Found via Orli Yakuel, Facebook has announced that they have opened their translations application to 55 more languages today. Back in February Facebook launched the Spanish version of the social network and currently they support 16 languages. I call dibs on Leet Speak!

For those of you new to Web 2.0 and social networking, the translations application inside of Facebook is a "crowdsourced" application. Using this nifty Web 2.0 dictionary, we’ve learned that crowdsourced = free labor.

With the amount of funding and a $15 billion valuation, they can’t afford to pay locals to help translate the service? Some of the people in these countries could certainly use the money.  Of course once this project has completed, Facebook’s local usage should move higher resulting in potentially additional ad impressions that will result in more income for Facebook.

Here are the languages they are seeking help with: Latin, Esperanto, Yiddish, Català, Ceština, Dansk, Deutsch, English, Español, Français, Italiano, Nederlands,  Norsk (Bokmål),  Polski,  Português (Brasil),  Suomi, Svenska,  Íslenska, Afrikaans, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Basa Jawa, Cymraeg, Eesti, English (GB), Español (Chile), Español (Colombia), Español (España), Español (México), Español (Venezuela), Esperanto, Euskara, Français (Canada), Føroyskt, Gaeilge, Galego, Hrvatski, Kiswahili, Latviešu, Leet Speak, Lietuviu, Limburgs, Magyar, Malagasy fiteny, Malti, Nederlands (België), Norsk (Nynorsk), Português (Portugal), Româna, Shqip, Slovencina, Slovenšcina, Soomaaliga, Tagalog, Tatarça, Türkçe, bosanski jezik, isiXhosa, isiZulu, lingua latina, rumantsch grischun.