14 DAY TRIAL // Google Friend Connect, which offers website managers the possibility to add a snippet of code to the site so that social features are available immediately without the need of programming, is now reported to include a new feature, developed for the sites that use it with the comment widget, namely comment translation.
Basically, the comment widget can now connect to Google Translate so as to offer readers the possibility to translate comments that have been written in another language than the one they understand. This new feature is expected to become quite useful to international sites, including Go2Web20, which use Google Friend Connect as a login system.
Those who use to access international sites that use the comment widget from Google Friend Connect will now be able to talk with people who live half-way across the world without the need to speak the same language as they do. Even if the translation is made through a machine, it should offer them the possibility to get the main idea of what the other person would like to say.
The comment widget comes with a “translate” link that pops up a menu of languages to choose from. After proceeding with the translation process, the translated comments are highlighted in yellow. The video bellow shows the way the feature actually works. Google’s Friend Connect gallery does not include only the comment translation feature, but also the event gadget, the polls gadget, and the Get Answers gadget.
According to Google, the new functionality could work with a wide range of sites, among which international non-profits like the World Wide Fund For Nature’s Earth Hour website are included. For example, the Earth Hour campaign sees support from 4,000 cities in 88 different countries, and visitors are now enabled to leave comments in their native language, while using Google Friend Connect’s comment translation to talk with others from the community.