Story by
Jon Russell
Jon Russell was Asia Editor for The Next Web from 2011 to 2014. Originally from the UK, he lives in Bangkok, Thailand. You can find him on T Jon Russell was Asia Editor for The Next Web from 2011 to 2014. Originally from the UK, he lives in Bangkok, Thailand. You can find him on Twitter, Angel List, LinkedIn.
Google is introducing native language translations to Google+, eliminating the need for the Google Translate for Google+ Chrome extension that it announced back in August 2011.
Translations are “rolling out gradually”, starting with the desktop Web version of Google+, with mobile apps to follow in due course. The feature offers a one-click translation of all posts and comments that are not in a user’s native language, as a post from Google’s Ed Chi explains.
Chi further explains — in comments below his post — that in-built translation is “something that Larry Page has asked for, so we’re super excited to make this into a reality.”
The move brings Google+ level with Facebook, which has sported Bing-powered translations since 2011, and Twitter, which began its own rollout of Bing translations at the end of June. Unlike its competitors, Google+ translations are, unsurprisingly, powered by Google’s own Translate service.
Google is stepping things up with its two-year-old Google+ service after it released an API for Pages last week, finally allowing developers to build third party services for business users.
Headline image via dannysullivan / Flickr
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