The Facebook Blog

Last week, Facebook launched a Spanish version of the site that for the first time allows hispanohablantes anywhere to sign up and browse the site in their native language. And now, anyone on Facebook can set their language preference for their account as well as select a language for sending invites to their friends.

What made this launch remarkable is that the site was translated by the Facebook community using an application developed by Facebook. Although other translation projects have used similar collaborative methods, the dynamic... nature of the site, and the variety and richness of the content, made this project all the more challenging.

As a native hispanohablante and ingeniero in the internationalization team, I was particularly excited about this launch. During the weeks we fine-tuned the application, we received great feedback from the community of translators. It was also great to see the translators engage in lively and passionate discussions as to what the best translations should be for certain words and phrases.

Facebook currently has more than 2.8 million active users in España and America Latina, all who had signed up using the site in English. Today, we are making the site even more useful for them to connect with all of their friends. We've posted notifications to let these users know they can invite their amigos hispanohablantes to join Facebook.

In just a couple of days we have seen a significant growth in the number of users that have joined Facebook from countries in España and America Latina, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Facebook has always been about expanding who could use the site—from college campuses, to high school, to workplaces, to everyone with email. We expect this growth to continue as Spanish-speakers are now able to join in on the fun.

We are planning to launch French and German versions of the site next, and everyday we receive requests from the community to make more languages available for translating. Stay tuned for more posts from other members of the internationalization team, as we continue to make Facebook available to everyone, everywhere, in all languages.




Nico es un caminante que, donde no hay camino, hace camino al andar.

If you were to check out the Toronto, ON network page, you'd notice that the Toronto network has over half a million members—a huge chunk of the explosive growth Facebook has recently seen in Canada (2 million Canadian users—or 10% of the Facebook population—and counting).

Soon after the launch of network pages, I started a new topic on the Toronto Discussion Board where I asked Torontonians what factors they thought contributed to the growth of the Toronto Facebook network. Since then, several enthusiastic members have posted their theories,... ranging from the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) coverage, and word of mouth, to the explosive media coverage Facebook has been receiving.

There may not be one single reason why Facebook is so popular in Canada, but rather a combination of tipping-point factors that continue to make networks like Toronto so unique in terms of growth. The best part is that as more people in Toronto join, the more relevance Facebook has for everyone involved, as it becomes more and more likely that all your friends are members. On behalf of all the Facebook Team, and as the resident Canadian, I want to say "Thanks Canada!".

P.S. A little internet video that made the rounds in the US in the last few months is now circulating in Canada. Just so everyone knows, Facebook is not selling any of your information. It never has and never will. Period.



Nico, Facebook's Privacy Engineer, is a fan of Rush, The Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Cowboy Junkies, and Leonard Cohen.

Facebook has always provided sophisticated privacy settings to allow people to share information, and control exactly who sees it—for example, "everyone in a network," "only friends," or even "no one". Now, a new design for the My Privacy page makes it even easier to use.

Beginning with the Privacy Overview page, you'll notice that the "Networks" section has been replaced with a "Profile" section. Also, next to each "Edit Settings" link, we have placed "sparklines"—small lines that serve as a visual representation of your privacy settings for a... section or feature. The longer the line, the more open your settings.

The new Profile privacy page has the same information as before, but it's more powerful because you can control the privacy settings for all your networks from this one page. Even users with no networks can now control certain features, such as who can see their Wall. Below, you can see different settings for three Profile Features and their corresponding easy-to-compare sparklines.

Individual settings for individual features

Other pages on Facebook also benefit from this new design, including Photos privacy, and Profile Contact settings.

It's easier to see what your privacy settings mean for photos.

We hope these changes make the My Privacy page even easier to use, so everyone can feel comfortable with the information they put up on Facebook. As always, send us your feedback here.


Nico, a Facebook engineer, is keeping it real on the privacy tip for everyone on Facebook. He has been inspired by Tufte's work and believes that "good design is clear thinking made visible."