Given the global buzz and controversy over the Iranian protests after the questionable results of the Presidential election on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites which have been used by Iranians to bypass local censorship; Google has added Persian (Farsi) translation to their Google Translate tool.
With internal factions in Iran also questioning the election results, and further social media protest coverage, it does not look like the Iranian situation is going to cool down anytime soon, or not atleast for the next couple of weeks.
Given that many Americans and other global users are following coverage of the protests on Twitter using #Hashtags like #IranElection, Ahmadinejad, Mousavi, and Tehran, sometimes the links in these posts can lead to Persian language blog posts. The new Google Translate addition of Persian compliments Twitter, helping users read and monitor these blogs and discussions.
Of course, blogging and social media is not a new thing in Iran, just for Americans who have found all Iranian protests to be their generation’s Tiananmen. For example, a very popular site for the past couple of weeks, Balatarin.com, is the Persian language version of Digg and is full of protest coverage.
For an enhanced tutorial on covering the Iranian Election situation, I suggest Mashable’s HOW TO: Track Iran Election with Twitter and Social Media.
More from Google on their Persian Translation :
We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran. Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa — increasing everyone’s access to information.
As with all machine translation, it’s not perfect yet. And we’re launching this service quickly, so it may perform slowly at times. We’ll keep a close watch and if it breaks, we’ll restore service as quickly as we can.
We’ve optimized this service for translation between Persian and English. But we’re working hard to improve Persian translation for the additional 40 languages available via Google Translate. If you see something you think is incorrectly translated, we invite you to click on the “contribute a better translation” link and we’ll learn from your correction.
