As if propelling Facebook into world domination weren’t enough, Facebook Connect is branching out. Now they’re making it easier for non-developers to add Facebook to their sites, and they’re adding translation as one of their services.
The “Connect Wizard” distills integrating Facebook Connect into a website into three steps. Many popular websites have long used Facebook Connect as a method of signing in to comment, and this effort expands that capability to any size website, even those without awesome tech staff. Facebook reminds us on the developer blog that Facebook Connect gives participating websites “identity for a great registration system, and immediate access to 300 million active global users.”
As part of the effort to bring Connect to the masses, Facebook is also launching a playground. Wait! Before you all run outside for recess, you should know that this playground doesn’t come with a merry-go-round or monkey bars. Says the blog, it “provides code samples for adding profile pictures, user names, and friends to your site.”
Talk about your disappointments.
Just before they announced the Connect Wizard yesterday, Facebook also announced a new translation feature through Facebook Connect. Unaccountably called Translations for Facebook Connect (where do they come up with these names?!), the service can translate participating pages, widgets, IFrames and apps into any of the 65 offered languages.
(You know, as well as machines can.)
(Unless this is secretly a Mechanical Turk. I hear that Facebook is really popular in Turkey.)
Naturally, if you don’t want the most popular search engine in the world handling your site translation, you might be happier with the most popular social network in the world doing it for you. Plus, Facebook has fourteen more languages than Google—though I’m not sure if that includes the regional varieties they offer for Facebook itself. Like English Upside Down. Very useful.
What do you think? Will you add Facebook Connect now that it’s just three easy steps? If you already use Connect, have you seen any advantages? Will you use it to translate for you?
