Written on May 15, 2008 – 2:00 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
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So I’m am the Next08 conference watching some start-ups that give a five minute elevator pitch. I can’t understand them all, as not all the German entrepreneurs here are as smart as Amazee, Jupidi, Mikestar and Toksta, since they present in German. I’m sure this is more comfortable for them as it’s their native language, and of course, most of the services are focused on the German market, but something doesn’t feel right here.
There have been many discussions about the advantages of building a start-up in Europe. The most mentioned advantage almost always is that we Europeans speak several languages, which makes us localization experts. Yet after a few months of traveling through Europe and visiting start-up communities in London, Geneva, Paris, Brussels, Gent, and now Hamburg, I’m starting to believe the language thing is our biggest weakness as well.
You know, most of these young aspiring entrepreneurs are obviously giving a good show here, since the German-speaking audience here is really excited, to say the least. But do they realize that there are some of the most influential web professionals walking around here, who don’t understand a word of what they’re saying? While hundreds of start-ups are dying for some attention from influentials like Steve Rubel and Stowe Boyd, these presenting entrepreneurs just ignore them by speaking another language.
So whether you’re from Germany, Holland, Italy or France, an international attitude really pays of at an international conference. Even if it’s just a mention on a blog, like Amazee, Jupidi, Mikestar and Toksta got. Viel glueck!
Written on March 3, 2008 – 5:05 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
As the major social networks are working their way into Europe, interesting news about localization features keep popping up my feed reader and mail inbox. The two major headlines today: Facebook launches a German version and LinkedIn is partnering up with a big French job listing service.
The one million German speaking Facebook users now have access to an interface in their own language. I’m sure they appreciate that, since the German voice-over business has been a booming industry since the rise of television. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that 2000 German users voluntarily fixed the translating job in less than two weeks.
It’s only the third language version of Facebook. The choice for a German version is kind of weird if you consider the fact that Germany or other German speaking countries are not listed in the top 10 countries for Facebook users. After the United States, Britain is number two with 8 million active users and Canada is third with 7 million users. Turkey is fourth, followed by Australia, France and Sweden. So if you just consider the user numbers, Turkey would have been a more logical choice. Yet Germans have more money to spend, and in that light, a French version will probably be next.
In that country, LinkedIn did a pretty good job expanding their market reach. TechCrunch reports that they partnered up with Apec.fr, a job listing site that claims they have about 1.2 million unique monthly visitors, 600,000 registered users and 35,000 registered companies. Those users can now register for LinkedIn and start using the service without leaving the French interface of Apec. If I were working at European LinkedIn competitors Viadeo and Xing, I’d be scared.
The way LinkedIn and Facebook approach Europe - just offer language support - is pretty effective. One of Europe’s largest social networks Netlog can certainly confirm that. They hired two two Turkish students to translate the service for a 1000 dollars. It took the students a week, four months later the Turkish version had 2.5 million users.
Yet I prefer the MySpace approach. They are already based in France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and soon in Russia and Turkey. When they launch, they install a local team who knows what’s hot and what’s not in the country and throw a great party. I’d thought I would never say this about a company owned by Murdoch but here we go: It feels like MySpace respects the cultural differences more and really wants to make an effort. I hope it will pay off.
Read this post by Patrick de Laive about possible Facebook acquisitions in Europe.
Written on December 27, 2007 – 10:41 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
Last week we wrote about Netlog, a successful European Social Network that lets members translate its service into different languages. They are currently offering 8 different local versions of their service and is close to reaching 30 million members and 4 billion page views every month. They built a Turkish version in less than a week which grew to 2.5 million members in only four months.
It seems that Facebook came to the same solution recently when it was searching for a way to start offering localized versions of its service. Mashable reports that Facebook will launch a new app titled Facebook Translations (link wasn’t active when I published this!) that will help members translate Facebook into different languages. Facebook wants to make Facebook “available to everyone, everywhere, in all languages”.
They claim to have more than 800 translators working on several different languages right now. In recent years we have noticed that simply translating a service isn’t enough to claim a local market and users often prefer an existing local product over an imported and translated foreign one. Still, Facebook is not just a social network but a great platform with more benefits that just networking.
It is going to be an exciting year for European Social Networks as Facebook comes available in more languages.
There have been many discussions about the advantages of building a start-up in Europe. The most mentioned advantage almost always is that we Europeans speak several languages, which makes us localization experts. Yet after a few months of traveling through Europe and visiting start-up communities in London, Geneva, Paris, Brussels, Gent, and now Hamburg, I’m starting to believe the language thing is our biggest weakness as well. 
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