Twitter calls for help with the German tongue

Biz Stone, a co-founder of the San Francisco-based Internet company, said in a blog post on Friday that Twitter was planning versions of its website in other languages, starting with German, French, Italian and Spanish.

At present, the website, Twitter.com, is offered only in English and Japanese.

Stone invited a “small group” of Twitter users to become “volunteer translators” by suggesting translations for the Twitter website.

“We will distribute the translations to Twitter platform developers making it easier for them to offer multiple language support as well,” he said.

“We’re very excited that more people will be able to use Twitter in their native language!” he added.

Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with 140-character-or-less messages known as “tweets,” has grown rapidly in popularity since it was launched in August 2006 and claims to have topped 50 million users.

But unlike other Internet sensations such as Google, it is unclear how much money Twitter is making, or how it raises its revenues.