MySpace in foreign languages due out this summer

MySpace co-founder and chief executive Chris DeWolfe was quoted by the Financial Times yesterday and said that the first localized, non-English versions of MySpace will be available this summer. The company has designated 11 countries to target, naming specifically only France, Germany, China and India. I’ll place my bets on Japan, Korea, Brazil and Italy making the list as well, based on Technorati’s April state of the blogosphere report.

The discussion emerged out of the announcement that 40 year old David Fischer has been appointed as managing director for the UK and Europe. DeWolfe told the Financial Times that media partnerships were being developed internationally to deliver local content to new users and that mobile devices would play a larger role in MySpace’s international plans than they have to date in the US.

MySpace already has 75 million registered users generating nearly 30 billion page views per month. Compare that to the largest blogging platform in China, Bokee, which had 2 million users as of February. Whether people in places like France and China are interested in using a US based social networking service will be interesting to watch.
Thanks to Loren Baker for posting about this.