14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook may be the biggest social network in the world and one of the most visited web sites but it doesn't stop here. The company wants to get as many people as possible using the service and while the site is already the most visited destination online it aims to connect to its users even when they are visiting other sites. This is where Facebook Connect comes in, allowing any site or service to offer Facebook integration. And with the social network having such a big presence worldwide it was only a matter of time before Facebook Connect got internationalized.
Being the premier social network in the world, as it has officially passed 250 million registered users with only 70 million or so in the US, it’s easy to see why it would need a powerful localized experience and, in fact, Facebook is available in 64 languages already, just 18 months since the program was launched. And now Facebook Connect users can benefit from the same level of service, with all of the features currently available in their native language.
“Developers who've implemented Facebook Connect, including those who have installed social widgets like the Fan Box, now have the ability to decide in which language they want their Facebook Connect features rendered,” James Leszczenski writes on the Facebook developer blog. “When a user first connects to your site, or publishes something back to Facebook, the Facebook Connect content will appear in the language you specify. User-generated content continues to appear in the language in which it was written.”
Facebook Connect has been a resounding success for the site, having been deployed by more than 15,000 sites or services in a little over six months since its launch. The login standard has been adopted by several large companies already, allowing users to login with their Facebook credentials. The localization feature is easy to implement, with webmasters having to make just small modifications to their code.