The social network is adding more language capability, further proof that growth outside the U.S. is vital for Facebook and MySpace Facebook is stepping up its international expansion. The Palo Alto (Calif.)-based company will introduce tools that translate the site into four additional languages: Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, and Polish, BusinessWeek.com has learned. In the coming months, Facebook also plans to include another 20 languages, including Chinese, says Javier Olivan, international manager at Facebook, in a telephone interview from Germany. Facebook already offers Spanish, French, and German translation tools. "The international component is really important for us," Olivan says. Expanding abroad has become a key source of audience growth for Facebook and MySpace, the largest U.S. social network. Of Facebook's 110 million users worldwide, more than 60% are outside the U.S. Non-U.S. users account for more than 30% of the 117 million people registered for MySpace, owned by News Corp. (NWS). What's more, audiences are growing faster abroad than in the U.S., where both sites are starting to plateau among the 18- to 34-year-olds most likely to spend hours socializing online each month. A Slow U.S. Ad Market The foreign audiences provide a key financial benefit, too. MySpace expects that advertising to non-U.S. audiences will soon account for 50% of the site's revenues, says Jeff Berman, MySpace's president of sales and marketing. The company has launched 29 country-specific sites in the past couple of years with Indian and Korean sites rolling out just last month (BusinessWeek.com, 10/8/07). The strategy is to expand to markets where the U.S. site has already generated buzz and where advertisers have interest. "We are being strategic about where we expand," Berman says. Getting big abroad is particularly important as social networks find it harder than expected to crack the U.S. online ad market. On May 13, eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson cut projections for 2008 U.S. social-network ad spending (BusinessWeek.com, 5/13/08) by $200 million, to $1.4 billion. She blamed an economic slowdown that's putting pressure on advertising budgets and social-networking executives who made overzealous revenue forecast estimates for the year. "Finding what works takes a lot of time and it is moving more slowly than these companies had expected," Williamson says. Teams vs. Translation While MySpace and Facebook see much future revenue coming from foreign friends, the companies have very different ideas of the best way to grab audiences abroad. MySpace has focused on rolling out country-specific sites, complete with a local MySpace office that tailors content to specific audiences. Facebook has instead focused on providing a technical solution—a one-click downloadable application—to translate the existing U.S. site into other languages. The company also invites users to help translate terms such as "poke," Facebook's unspoken equivalent of "hi," and then submits nominated terms for a vote. (In the Spanish-language version of the site, "poke" is "toques.") Both strategies have benefits. Facebook's strategy helps the company enter new markets swiftly. The company is able to reach a whole new base of potential users without first hiring people to run a local branch. "Through the translations we are seeing mass adoption in those markets," Olivan says. He adds that because the site is a communication tool, the company doesn't need to do much else to localize it. "The translation approach allows us to support literally every language in the world," Olivan says. MySpace's Berman says local bureaus can tailor the site to the tastes of users in specific countries, thus helping fuel adoption. For example, the site launched in Spain with a concert by the Smashing Pumpkins, an American band that is more popular in that country than it is in many parts of the U.S. Berman credits the concert with helping to hype the site. "Our teams are all based in local countries with local ad-sales teams," he notes. Critical Mass Another reason to bulk up abroad: MySpace and Facebook face competition from homegrown social networks and other social media. In China, for example, free instant-messaging service QQ is the main way many Web surfers keep in touch. Google's (GOOG) Orkut social network is popular in Brazil and India. Social network Hi5 is ahead in many parts of Central and South America. A key to outdoing the competition is the sites' developer workshops, where executives from MySpace and Facebook go to local countries and help people seeking to create programs for the social networks. The myriad programs created for the sites since opening up to third parties have helped fuel additional growth both in the U.S. and abroad. MySpace's development team has held so-called DevJam events in India, China, Japan, Australia, Sweden, and Britain, among other countries. On May 14, Facebook held its own Developer Garage in Germany. Olivan attended. The other big factor in the sites taking off internationally is simply having a critical mass of users. Friends bring their friends, who in turn bring other users. Olivan's hope is that the social network will become a critical communication tool, akin to the phone. "People use the phone all over the world," he says. So, why not Facebook? The world's Norwegian speakers will soon get their chance.

SNS网站增加更多语言功能，深刻表明了海外拓展是Facebook和MySpace的关键策略。 Facebook如今正在加快国际化步伐。据商业周刊了解到，这家总部位于加州帕洛阿尔托的公司即将开发出能将其网站翻译成荷兰语、意大利语、挪威语和波兰语的语言工具。Facebook国际部经理哈维尔奥利文表示，在接下来的几个月内，Facebook还计划把语言工具的翻译语种再增加20种，其中包括中文。此前，Facebook业已为用户提供了西班牙语、法语和德语语言工具。 奥利文说：“海外用户对我们非常重要。”海外用户已经成为美国两家最大的SNS网站Facebook和MySpace最主要的用户增长来源。根据新闻集团的数据显示，在Facebook的1.1亿用户中，有超过60%的用户来自海外；而在MySpace的1.7亿用户中，也有超过30%来自海外。 再者，在这两家网站所要持续拓展的18-34岁且最有可能长期利用网络进行社交活动的年青人用户群体中，来自海外的用户增速也比美国国内用户增速要快。 美国低迷的广告市场 同时，海外用户提供了最主要的盈利来源。MySpace营销总裁杰夫伯曼表示：“我们希望针对海外用户的广告收入能尽快占到整个网站收入的50%。”据商业周刊2007年10月8日资料显示，包括上个月刚刚上线运营的印度和韩国分站在内，MySpace几年间总共开设了29个具有不同国家特色的分站。这样的战略旨在扩大MySapce美国总站的广告市场，同时吸引更多的对分站所在国家广告市场感兴趣的广告主。“我们对海外分站的拓展有清晰的战略规划。”伯曼如是说。 在SNS网站发现美国国内网络广告市场比预期中的更难深挖的情况下，加快国际化进程就显得更为重要了。5月13日，网络营销分析师阿霍威廉森将2008年美国SNS网站广告市场预期（商业周刊2008年5月13日）调低了2亿美元，降至140亿美元。她将此归咎于经济低迷造成广告主的广告预算减少，以及SNS网站运营商对本年度收入过于乐观的估计。威廉森说：“找到解决问题的方案需要很长时间，而执行方案的时间比这些公司预期的更长。” 本土化团队与翻译工具的抗衡 MySpace 和Facebook都能预见到海外用户将能为自己带来的收益，但这两家网站在如何获取海外用户的手段上大相径庭。MySpace将重点放在外国特色分站的建设上，靠组建本土化团队来完成为特定用户提供特定内容的本土化MySpace。 Facebook则更愿意把精力放在为用户提供技术解决方案上——点击下载一个软件，就可以把整站翻译成其他语言。Facebook也欢迎用户协助翻译某些词条，例如Facebook里替代“hi“的专用语“poke“；网站还会提交一些词条供用户投票。（被翻译成西班牙语的Facebook里，”poke”是”女士帽子“的意思。） 两种发展战略都有其优势。Facebook的战略能让其快速进入新市场，网站可以无需成立海外分公司而直接在潜在用户中建立新的基础。“通过翻译工具，我们看到了海外市场巨大的用户需求。“Facebook国际部经理哈维尔奥利文说。他补充说，我们的网站本身就是沟通交流的平台，没必要花太多精力做海外本土化。他还提到：”毫不夸张地说，我们的翻译工具可以让我们的网站支持世界上任何一种语言的。“ MySpace营销总裁杰夫伯曼则认为本土化团队能够让网站能够适应各个不同国家用户的特殊要求，这样就可以对用户需求进行深挖。比方说，西班牙分站上对一个美国乐队Smashing Pumpkins演唱会的热情甚至超过了他们在美国本土大多数地方所受到的关注。伯曼认为这场演唱会的成功归功于西班牙分站的炒作，他特别指出：“我们的团队成员全部都是来自西班牙本土的广告销售精英。“ 庞大的用户群 进行海外扩张的另一个原因是：MySpace和Facebook都面临来自海外市场当地成长起来的SNS网站或其他SNS概念的社会化媒体竞争者。例如中国的免费IM软件——QQ，就是网民进行沟通联络的主要方式。Google推出的SNS网站Orkut在巴西和印度很受欢迎；而SNS网站HI5，则在中美洲和南美洲的大部分地区首屈一指。 赢得竞争的一个关键因素，是这两个网站的开发机构。MySpace和Facebook派出人员直接深入到当地去指导人们为它们开发程序。自从插件制作向第三方开发机构开放以来，这两个网站获得了大量的插件程序，并在美国本土和海外都得到了更多的增长。MySpace的开发团队在印度、中国、日本、澳大利亚、瑞典和英国等国家还了主持一个所谓的“德芙嘉姆”事件。5月14日，Facebook在德国成立了自己的开发工作室，奥利文亲自出席。 让这两个网站走向国际化的另一个重要因素是：拥有大量的用户群。朋友介绍朋友进来，进而介绍更多的朋友。奥利文的理想是能让SNS网站成为人们沟通交流的重要工具，就像电话一样普及。“全世界的人都会使用电话。”他说。那么，为什么不用Facebook？很快，全世界的挪威语用户就可以用Facebook进行沟通了。