Adventures in web globalization, since 2002
A sponsored blog post from Lilt. These days, with more and more customer interactions moving online, a lot of important discussions are happening in the localization industry. As companies are looking to optimize their localization programs and scale their efforts …
Rarely do I see a global gateway make it into a TV commercial. But I was watching ESPN’s recent advert for its mobile app and there is was — a global gateway, shown below. The commercial shows the global gateway …
Web localization is a never-ending journey. And because the world is constantly changing, what worked yesterday may not be as effective tomorrow. Like this visual development in South Korea: When localizing for South Korea, avoid a “pinching fingers” image. From …
A number of cities around the world have adopted bespoke top-level domains, such as .NYC, .Tokyo and .London and .Vegas But the key to a successful global city website is that it is a multilingual website. And, sadly, too many …
LILT, a Global by Design sponsor, is hosting the next edition of its popular Ascend conference on October 6-7. The event is designed to help you reach the 87% of consumers who do not speak English as a first language. …
Everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it. Consider the following chart representing the “weight” of mobile home pages from the 2021 Web Globalization Report Card. This year, the average mobile home page weighs more than 9MB. Depending …
Starlink, the SpaceX-operated satellite communications service, “is now delivering initial beta service both domestically and internationally, and will continue expansion to near global coverage of the populated world in 2021.” Naturally, I was curious to see if the Starlink website …
A common refrain in Global by Design are the many risks of using flags as part of your global navigation strategy. As I’ve noted over the years, many companies have since dropped flags, companies such as Apple, Airbnb and Spotify. …
Two interesting posts to share about the globalization of emoji… GooglePolishing Up Emoji Emoji have a global audience and it’s important for them to be globally relevant. Pie emoji is a curious one — it previously looked like a very …
There are still a few days left before I teach a two-hour class devoted to best practices in global navigation. July 27th9am to 11am PSTClass link You’ll learn: The four core elements of a successful global gateway strategy Country codes …
I recently joined Kathrin Bussmann, founder of Verbaccino and The Worldly Marketer Podcast, for a chat about web globalization trends and best practices. You can listen to it here. I hope you enjoy it!
I always perk up when I see data that supports web localization. According to this article, Apple launching a dedicated ecommerce website for India last year led to a significant increase in sales. Launched in September 2020, Apple’s Indian online store …
I recently spent an hour virtually with Tucker Johnson of Nimdzi to talk about the 2021 Web Globalization Report Card. I hope you enjoy it! Link
A few months ago, Global by Design sponsor Lilt sponsored a survey to assess the state of the localization industry. That report is now ready and it reflects input from more than 900 localization professionals. It’s a great read and I recommend …
What was for many years a threat has now become a reality — a Russian law requiring mobile phone manufacturers to ship with preinstalled Russian-made apps (or allow them to be easily installed). It appears that Apple updated its onboarding …