Twitter Launches Center To Crowdsource Translations; Indonesian, Russian And Turkish Versions Are Next

Twitter has steadily been rolling out its platform in new languages over the past few years, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and most recently Korean. While these translations were accomplished with the help of volunteers, Twitter is officially launching a new “Translation Center” to efficiently crowdsource translations from international Twitter users.

According to Twitter, translators will be translating the product itself, not the Tweets. Translators will continue to work on improving the platform’s current languages, and will also help Twitter expand into new ones, including Indonesian, Russian and Turkish. And Twitter says that it plans to roll out a version in Portuguese later this year.

The new system is designed to improve the translation experience and create central hub for volunteers who are interested in helping Twitter out with adding and improving additional languages. New features include phrase tagging, special translator profiles, commenting on phrases and more. Within the new Center, any Twitter user can sign up, choose a language and begin translating immediately. Translators can choose to help translate Twitter.com, its mobile site, iPhone and Android apps, Twitter Help and the Twitter Business Center.

Building a centralized translation platform makes a lot of sense for Twitter. Additional translations are sure to bring in more international users to Twitter and boots its overall growth.