PALO ALTO, Calif., March 11 (UPI) -- Arabic and Hebrew versions of the popular social networking Web site, Facebook, are now available, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has announced.
The Guardian newspaper said Facebook already had 900,000 users in Egypt; 250,000 in Saudi Arabia; 300,000 in Lebanon and 700,000 in Israel. The site is expected to grow in popularity now that it is also available in Arabic, a language spoken by 250 million people, and Hebrew, the language of 7 million.
"It's the first time Arabic speakers will be able to use Facebook in their own language," Ghassan Haddad, the Facebook director of localization, told The Guardian. "It's potentially huge."
Facebook is available in 40 languages and soon will be presented in 60 more. The company said about 200,000 people have helped with translating the site into various languages.
