A photo may indeed be worth a thousand words, but Instagram’s half a billion users still like to add descriptions and comments to images posted on the vibrant social network.
Whether you’re describing how tasty your dinner was, how lovely your cat is, or how amazing that sunset was – or simply adding comments to your favorite pics – the fact is that not everyone around the world will understand what you’re saying. And how about other people’s captions and comments in languages that you don’t understand?
Well, it’s all set to get a whole lot easier as Instagram is preparing to roll out a translation button for captions, comments, and bios in a move it hopes will help bring its burgeoning community closer together.
In a message posted Wednesday, the Facebook-owned company said the button will land in the coming month, showing up in posts when the on-screen text is in a language different to your own.
“The Instagram community has grown faster and become more global than we ever imagined,” the message said. “And we’re excited that you’ll soon be able to understand the full story of a moment, no matter what language you speak.”
Instagram currently supports more than 20 languages, though if you come across text in another language and there’s no visible translation button, it just means the service doesn’t yet support it. Also, it said that translations “may not show up” for older posts and comments.
News of the translation button comes just a couple of days after Instagram revealed more than 500 million people now use its app, with at least 300 million logging in at least once a day.
The social network has been growing steadily since its launch in 2010, though in the last two years alone it’s doubled in size.
“500 million is a milestone that very few companies get to,” Instagram boss Kevin Systrom told Forbes this week. “This scale is not a badge on our uniform, but a signal of our ambition. If we can have a billion or a billion and a half on Instagram, we get closer to capturing every experience in the world … [and] it’s a whole new chapter.”
