Elise Marie Trent

ETrent@syr.edu • 703.927.8109 • 417 Comstock Avenue #208 Syracuse, NY 13210 • @EliseMarieTrent • www.EliseMarieTrent.com

Twitter Translation Center: Social Media Platform Looking to Support 10 Languages

Over 100 million Twitter accounts were opened in 2010 and Twitter is looking to continue this

momentum in 2011 by re-launching its Translation Center. Twitter product manager Jinen Kamdar

explained the Translation Center is “a major step toward making Twitter more easily accessible by people

around the world. . . The Translation Center allows us to crowd-source translations from our passionate

users in order to more quickly launch Twitter in additional languages.” This is not the first time Twitter has

attempted to use crowd sourcing to translate into new languages, however, it is the most centralized, open

effort by the company thus far (Jinen, 2011).

The Twitter platform is already able to support English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Korean,

and Japanese. Through the Translation Center, Twitter is looking to branch into more languages in a series

of stages (Jinen, 2011). The purpose of the current translation center is to assist Twitter in gaining or

improving its ability to support French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish,

and Turkish (Twitter, 2011).

Mobile Implications:

With over 5.3 billion mobile phone subscribers, the Translation Center carries heavy mobile

implications for Twitter (eMarketer, 2010). According to the International Telecommunication Union, the

rise in mobile phone sales is being driven by demand from the developing world; China alone is expected

to grow from 747 million subscribers in 2009 to 1.3 billion in 2014 (Elkin, 2010). Twitter’s ability to tap

into the mobile phone market with the official company application, mobile Twitter site, and third party

applications, like HootSuite and TweetDeck, will undoubtedly influence the platform’s ability to grow

successfully. By opening up to more languages, Twitter may be able to successfully tap into the predicted

exponential growth in the international mobile phone market.

 Elise Marie Trent
ETrent@syr.edu • 703.927.8109 • 417 Comstock Avenue #208 Syracuse, NY 13210 • @EliseMarieTrent • www.EliseMarieTrent.com

International Protests:

In 2009, the world witnessed a “Twitter Revolution” during the Iranian elections (Hudson, 2011).

Most recently, Twitter proved to be a “valuable organizing tool for protesters in Egypt and Tunisia” (Olivarez-

Giles, 2011). The capabilities of Twitter and other social media platforms to be used for organizational

purposes will directly depend on the platforms’ abilities to function on mobile devices. Not only were social

media sites able to connect Egyptian protesters, but they also facilitated the dissemination of information

around the world to news outlets and interested individuals (Sullivan, 2011). “#Egpyt” was a trending topic

used to link tweets on the revolution together into one aggregated feed on Twitter for any user to access,

thereby increasing the spread of information and ideas surrounding the revolution.

International Communication:

As a public relations intern for the Central New York Chapter of the American Red Cross, I am developing

an extensive social media strategic communication plan for our local chapter. The use of social media in the

recent Middle East revolutions sparked the question of whether or not social media could be a useful tool for

communicating disaster services and relief aid to refugees for the American Red Cross’ partner organization

- the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Currently, the organization is using

cell phones to assist Libyan refugees in communicating with loved ones, however, social media have potential

to assist disaster relief efforts in a larger way depending on mobile phone penetration in developing regions.

Conclusion:

Overall, “the idea of crowd-sourcing translations fits nicely with Twitter’s history as a community-

driven platform. Hashtags and many other Twitter features were first introduced by the Twitter community”

(Dugan, 2011). While the future of social media is yet to be seen, by supporting more languages, Twitter is

undoubtedly increasing the likelihood that we will be hearing about Twitter in an international light for years

to come.
 Elise Marie Trent
ETrent@syr.edu • 703.927.8109 • 417 Comstock Avenue #208 Syracuse, NY 13210 • @EliseMarieTrent • www.EliseMarieTrent.com

References:

Dugan, L. (2011, February 14). Twitter announces Translation Center. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from All
Twitter: The unofficial Twitter resource website: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-
announces-translation-center_b3338

Elkin, N. (2010, March 17). Looking beyond the staggering mobile stats in the BRIC countries. Retrieved
February 24, 2011, from eMarketer website: http://www.emarketer.com/blog/index.php/staggering-
mobile-stats-bric-countries

Gunelius, S. (2011, January 10). Twitter users evolve with more tweets and more followers. Retrieved
February 19, 2011, from Newstex website: http://www.newstex.com/2011/01/10/twitter-users-evolve-
with-more-tweets-and-more-followers/

Hudson, J. (2011, January 31). The ‘Twitter Revolution’ debate: The Egyptian test case. Retrieved February
22, 2011, from The Atlantic Wire website: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/
The-Twitter-Revolution-Debate-The-Egyptian-Test-Case-6784

Kamdar, J. (2011, February 14). Translating Twitter into more languages. Retrieved February 19, 2011, from
Twitter website: http://blog.twitter.com/2011/02/translating-twitter-into-more-languages.html

Mobithinking. (2011, February). Global mobile statistics 2011. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from
mobiThinking website: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats

Olivarez-Giles, N. (2011, February 14). Twitter translation center uses crowd-sourced translations for
new languages. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from L.A. Times website: http://latimesblogs.latimes.
com/technology/2011/02/twitter-translation-center-announced.html

Sullivan, B. (2011, February 4). Told in tweets, Egypt conflict riveting, confusing. Retrieved February 24,
2011,from MSNBC website: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/02/once-you-look-its-hard-to-
look-away-the-tweets-seem-to-come-right-from-the-center-of-the-conflict-in-egypt-despite-the-bl.
html

Twitter. (2011). Start translating Twitter today. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from Twitter Translation Center
website: http://translate.twttr.com/welcome