Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ETrent@syr.edu • 703.927.8109 • 417 Comstock Avenue #208 Syracuse, NY 13210 • @EliseMarieTrent • www.EliseMarieTrent.com
Over 100 million Twitter accounts were opened in 2010 and Twitter is looking to continue this
momentum in 2011 by re-launching its Translation Center. Twitter product manager Jinen Kamdar
explained the Translation Center is “a major step toward making Twitter more easily accessible by people
around the world. . . The Translation Center allows us to crowd-source translations from our passionate
users in order to more quickly launch Twitter in additional languages.” This is not the first time Twitter has
attempted to use crowd sourcing to translate into new languages, however, it is the most centralized, open
The Twitter platform is already able to support English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Korean,
and Japanese. Through the Translation Center, Twitter is looking to branch into more languages in a series
of stages (Jinen, 2011). The purpose of the current translation center is to assist Twitter in gaining or
improving its ability to support French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish,
Mobile Implications:
With over 5.3 billion mobile phone subscribers, the Translation Center carries heavy mobile
implications for Twitter (eMarketer, 2010). According to the International Telecommunication Union, the
rise in mobile phone sales is being driven by demand from the developing world; China alone is expected
to grow from 747 million subscribers in 2009 to 1.3 billion in 2014 (Elkin, 2010). Twitter’s ability to tap
into the mobile phone market with the official company application, mobile Twitter site, and third party
applications, like HootSuite and TweetDeck, will undoubtedly influence the platform’s ability to grow
successfully. By opening up to more languages, Twitter may be able to successfully tap into the predicted
International Protests:
In 2009, the world witnessed a “Twitter Revolution” during the Iranian elections (Hudson, 2011).
Most recently, Twitter proved to be a “valuable organizing tool for protesters in Egypt and Tunisia” (Olivarez-
Giles, 2011). The capabilities of Twitter and other social media platforms to be used for organizational
purposes will directly depend on the platforms’ abilities to function on mobile devices. Not only were social
media sites able to connect Egyptian protesters, but they also facilitated the dissemination of information
around the world to news outlets and interested individuals (Sullivan, 2011). “#Egpyt” was a trending topic
used to link tweets on the revolution together into one aggregated feed on Twitter for any user to access,
thereby increasing the spread of information and ideas surrounding the revolution.
International Communication:
As a public relations intern for the Central New York Chapter of the American Red Cross, I am developing
an extensive social media strategic communication plan for our local chapter. The use of social media in the
recent Middle East revolutions sparked the question of whether or not social media could be a useful tool for
communicating disaster services and relief aid to refugees for the American Red Cross’ partner organization
- the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Currently, the organization is using
cell phones to assist Libyan refugees in communicating with loved ones, however, social media have potential
to assist disaster relief efforts in a larger way depending on mobile phone penetration in developing regions.
Conclusion:
Overall, “the idea of crowd-sourcing translations fits nicely with Twitter’s history as a community-
driven platform. Hashtags and many other Twitter features were first introduced by the Twitter community”
(Dugan, 2011). While the future of social media is yet to be seen, by supporting more languages, Twitter is
undoubtedly increasing the likelihood that we will be hearing about Twitter in an international light for years
to come.
Elise Marie Trent
ETrent@syr.edu • 703.927.8109 • 417 Comstock Avenue #208 Syracuse, NY 13210 • @EliseMarieTrent • www.EliseMarieTrent.com
References:
Dugan, L. (2011, February 14). Twitter announces Translation Center. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from All
Twitter: The unofficial Twitter resource website: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-
announces-translation-center_b3338
Elkin, N. (2010, March 17). Looking beyond the staggering mobile stats in the BRIC countries. Retrieved
February 24, 2011, from eMarketer website: http://www.emarketer.com/blog/index.php/staggering-
mobile-stats-bric-countries
Gunelius, S. (2011, January 10). Twitter users evolve with more tweets and more followers. Retrieved
February 19, 2011, from Newstex website: http://www.newstex.com/2011/01/10/twitter-users-evolve-
with-more-tweets-and-more-followers/
Hudson, J. (2011, January 31). The ‘Twitter Revolution’ debate: The Egyptian test case. Retrieved February
22, 2011, from The Atlantic Wire website: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/
The-Twitter-Revolution-Debate-The-Egyptian-Test-Case-6784
Kamdar, J. (2011, February 14). Translating Twitter into more languages. Retrieved February 19, 2011, from
Twitter website: http://blog.twitter.com/2011/02/translating-twitter-into-more-languages.html
Mobithinking. (2011, February). Global mobile statistics 2011. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from
mobiThinking website: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats
Olivarez-Giles, N. (2011, February 14). Twitter translation center uses crowd-sourced translations for
new languages. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from L.A. Times website: http://latimesblogs.latimes.
com/technology/2011/02/twitter-translation-center-announced.html
Sullivan, B. (2011, February 4). Told in tweets, Egypt conflict riveting, confusing. Retrieved February 24,
2011,from MSNBC website: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/02/once-you-look-its-hard-to-
look-away-the-tweets-seem-to-come-right-from-the-center-of-the-conflict-in-egypt-despite-the-bl.
html
Twitter. (2011). Start translating Twitter today. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from Twitter Translation Center
website: http://translate.twttr.com/welcome