Facebook now offers German

Zia Daniell Wigder | March 03, 2008, 12:13 PM

In addition to offering a Spanish-language version of its site, Facebook just launched in German. A French-language version is said to be in the works. That a German version arrived in advance of a French one is somewhat surprising: the company has more users in France than in Germany, and certainly more in French-speaking areas of the world altogether than German-speaking ones. Indeed, there were fewer Facebook users in Germany than in several other non-English speaking countries including Turkey, France, Sweden and Norway.

Though the speed of the community-based German translations may have prompted the quick rollout - the company indicated it took users less than two weeks to translate the content - there are several reasons why a German-language launch should be a priority.

First, Facebook’s current lack of a German audience suggests there’s room for improvement in its German strategy; a native-language rollout is an obvious first step toward attracting more users. Facebook is competing with numerous existing German services including StudiVZ, Lokalisten and Kwick.de, as well as MySpace and others that have translated their content into German. With German users’ strong preference for networking in their own language, a German-language version is essential.

Second, Germany accounts for approximately one-quarter of all online ad and retail spending in Western Europe; it’s the second largest market in Europe for both after the UK. Lionbridge’s Zeitgeist tool, which provides a snapshot of the localization vendor’s translations, places German a close second to French in 2007 (Spanish for Spain, Latin America and the US are all listed separately, resulting in lower individual rankings).

Finally, although Germany offers a robust online marketplace, current participation in social networking lags behind other European countries: just 10 percent of Germans visit social networking sites weekly or more often. Social networking providers are thus viewing the German marketplace as one with enormous potential growth.

Stay tuned for more research by my colleagues Nate Elliott and Nick Thomas on the evolving social networking landscape in Europe.