Adventures in web globalization, since 2002
The dream is profound — a global company united by one language. Employees communicating freely with one another across border and culture, improving productivity and sharing of ideas. The reality, however, is quite a bit messier than the dream. But …
The travel industry has long been at the forefront of web globalization. Take Booking.com, with support for 41 languages, or Uber, with support for 36 languages, or KLM, with support for 32 languages. And yet, if you wish to research …
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 publication of my newest book: Think Outside the Country: A Guide to Going Global and Succeeding in the Translation Economy. This book is the result of the past decade spent working with marketing and web …
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, …
Earlier this year Verisign, the registry that manages the .com and .net domains, began rolling out the localized Japanese equivalent of .com: .コム. Today, Verisign adds another language to the mix, with the rollout of the Korean versions of both .com (.닷컴 …
And so it begins. Verisign, the registrar that manages .com domains, has begun its rollout of non-Latin .com equivalents, beginning with Japanese: Now, if you don’t have a Japanese domain name, slapping .コム to the end of your company’s name probably doesn’t make much sense …
This is the result of a massive investment of resources and expertise — and I’m excited they’ve made it open source. From Adobe: Source Han Sans, available in seven weights, is a typeface family which provides full support for Japanese, Korean, Traditional …
I’ve long talked about the importance of non-Latin domain names, or IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names). Google has gone live with one if its many IDNs: みんな. I want to emphasize here that this is a top-level IDN — that is, the …
It used to be that you had to travel all the way to Japan to be amused by the popular drink Pocari Sweat. The drink has been around since 1980 and is popular in a number of countries across Asia. …
Here’s my latest post for client Pitney Bowes: Any company with global aspirations cannot afford to ignore the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. It’s a region that includes more than two billion people across more than 20 countries, ranging from Australia to …
Here’s my latest post for client Pitney Bowes: Any company with global aspirations cannot afford to ignore the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. It’s a region that includes more than two billion people across more than 20 countries, ranging from Australia to …
Imagine if, every time you wanted to visit a website, you were expected to type in letters from a foreign language, or worse, an entirely foreign script, such as Arabic, Cyrillic, or Chinese. For more than a billion people, this …
I was raised a Cardinals fan. But I don’t live in St. Louis anymore so I must follow the team virtually. Fortunately there’s the MLB mobile app. Now I can listen to the games — and Mike Shannon — in real …
Interesting article in the WSJ (sub. required) about Alan Batey, the new global brand chief of Chevrolet. From the article: Mr. Batey says he wants to unify the brand’s strategy. “We used to operate regionally with each country or local area doing their …