I wrote recently that if you can make your product “translation worthy” the world will follow.
Reading about Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp I went back and did some language crunching.
In December 2012, WhatsApp supported 15 languages. I also noted then that I really liked the company’s global gateway.
Today, WhatsApp supports 35 languages — thanks in large part (or entirely) to a crowd of volunteer translators.
This number of languages is now well above the average number of languages tracked in the Web Globalization Report Card.
Clearly, WhatsApp proved itself to be translation worthy.
And now, with Facebook involved, I would not be surprised to see WhatsApp double its language count over the next year or two. Perhaps WhatsApp will actually start paying for translation now…
