Facebook on Thursday will make the translation tool it created for members available to other sites that use the social networking giant's Connect service.

Connect allows visitors to these sites to log in with their Facebook ID and password and communicate with their Facebook friends. Connect is used by approximately 15,000 sites and applications.

In a post Tuesday night on Facebook's developers' blog, Cat Lee explains:

Translations for Facebook Connect is available as a free tool for developers worldwide to simplify the process of translating a website, IFrame or FBML-based application into any of the languages Facebook currently supports. For example, with Translations for Facebook Connect, country tourist boards or travel sites that want to attract foreign visitors on holiday can use this framework to translate their sites and automatically present the content to users in their native language after they log in with Facebook Connect.

Facebook began offering its translation tool to members in January 2008, growing the number of languages offered on the social networking site from one to more than 65 (and counting). Along with the Connect service itself, the translation tool arguably has helped fuel Facebook's accelerated growth in the past year.