Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Hi5 Launches Mobile Site in 26 Languages

One of the top social networks worldwide, hi5, announced the release of their mobile site today, which while late in the game, is already a notch ahead of the competition.

The new mobile version launched with translations available in all of the 26 different languages already offered on the main site.

"No other social network offers mobile support in as many languages as hi5. This extensive in-language support represents a significant market opportunity for the company," the release boasts.

While you may not have heard of them much here in the U.S., hi5 is one of the fastest growing social networks in the world, according to ComScore, with over 80% of its users outside the US.
Facebook, however, is still number one, but they have had a late start in their translation efforts. And they are hoping to catch up with the resent release of their Translation Application to crowd source the effort in as many languages as possible.


This development by hi5 probably won't attract a new audience here in the U.S., but CEO Ramu Yalamanchi is looking more at the advertising potential.

“As we see the number of users accessing hi5 via their mobile phones increase, it will open up the opportunity to roll out hyper-localized advertising,” he says.

This is all part of the latest effort by all of the networks to expand worldwide as growth in the U.S. wanes.

Source -blog Wired

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