Adventures in web globalization, since 2002
As I’ve documented in many editions of the Web Globalization Report Card, companies tend to add languages in fits and starts. The overall average is about one additional language per year. But some companies expand their global reach in sprints. …
Last year, I wrote an essay for Multilingual in which I noted that the world’s most multilingual website isn’t Google or Facebook or even Wikipedia. It is the website of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As I noted in the essay: The JW.org website supports more than 675 written …
A little more than 15 years ago, I began benchmarking websites for a new report I had in mind, tentatively titled the Web Globalization Report Card. The number one website in the first Report Card was a startup company by the …
I’m pleased to say that, based on the websites I study regularly, we’ve reached “peak flag.” In other words, at a high level, companies are now beginning to move away from using flags on their websites within their global gateways. …
If you are flying the Taiwan flag on your website, consider yourself warned. By China. As I’ve written many times over the past year, China is paying close attention to how multinationals refer to Taiwan on their websites, not just …
You hire a vendor to conduct a global survey. And let’s suppose this vendor refers to Taiwan as a country and the email goes out to people in China who believe differently, and they happen to be in a position …
I’m excited to announce the publication of The 2018 Web Globalization Report Card. This is the most ambitious report I’ve written so far and it sheds light on a number of new and established best practices in website globalization. First, here are …
The Marriott website was taken down in China and Taiwan on or around January 11th. You can read why here. And here we are two weeks later and the websites are still blank — or nearly so. Here’s what I’m …
If you visit Marriott’s China website today you’re likely to see this: I dumped the text into Google Translate and here is what it loosely says: So what exactly happened here? According to Skift, Marriott sent a survey in Mandarin …
In 2016, more than 120 million Chinese traveled internationally. which is roughly the entire population of Japan (or Canada, Italy and Australia combined). And only 10% of the country has a passport. Imagine the travel industry when 25% of Chinese …
While I’ve closely studied travel websites for many years (such as airlines, hotels, travel agencies) as part of The Web Globalization Report Card, I’ve not spent much time looking closely at destination websites, such as for cities, regions and countries. That …
I’m pleased to announce the new book Think Outside the Country: A Guide to Going Global and Succeeding in the Translation Economy, due out on April 10th. Think Outside the Country is isn’t strictly about taking a website or mobile app global, …
For the 2017 Web Globalization Report Card, we studied the following 24 travel websites: Air France Airbnb American Airlines Avis Booking.com British Airways Delta Emirates Enterprise Expedia Four Seasons Hertz Hilton Hotels.com Hyatt InterContinental Hotels Kayak KLM Marriott Royal Caribbean Sixt …
There are now more than one billion international travelers, making the travel industry a benchmark for web globalization innovation and excellence. So I’m pleased to be presenting a free webinar — sponsored by Lionbridge — to discuss my analysis of …
I enjoyed this vision of the future of an airline website (by Fantasy Interactive), particularly this map of fares and destinations: Why haven’t other airlines embraced this vision yet? Probably because most haven’t even figured out how to make their …