It seems like every new day brings with it a plethora of Web 2.0 clone and spin-off sites - from micro-blogging to photo-sharing. Specifically, the last year or so has seen an explosion in localized social networking sites - particularly sites with accessibility and relevance to non-English speaking countries. From German Twitter clones to Chinese Facebook knockoffs, the trend is toward language- and region-specific variants of popular social networking phenomenon.

All of these clones make me wonder about the effect that language has on determining whether or not a platform is globally accepted or not. For example, in April of this year, as soon as Twitter released their Japanese version of Twitter, Japanese quickly became the second most popular language on Twitter.

It begs the question - how much more popular would sites like Twitter be if they were available in a particular language BEFORE localized clones spring up?

From my perspective, if a localized clone is popping up somewhere, it represents a market that was not being served by the original product - or one that has improved on the original somewhat, which represents features that should be considered for implementation.

If that is the case, then the founders and designers of social networking sites should sit up and take note: if their sites aren't adequately localized (and that goes far beyond translation), potential users will seek a more relevant alternative - and since registrations for social networking sites show grow in a rolling snowball pattern, missing that initial mass of traffic can ultimately bring a Web 2.0 social network grinding to a halt, as it did with sites like Fo.rtuito.us.