Adventures in web globalization, since 2002
Last week I received a “Factory Tour” invite from Google but didn’t give it much thought. I wish I had because I missed a preview of the company’s ambitious machine translation (MT) efforts. Thankfully, Philipp Lenssen includes a great recap …
Here’s an interesting article about a book that might be worth checking out: The INSEAD-Wharton Alliance on Globalizing: Strategies for Building Successful Global Businesses. Okay, it’s not the most exciting title, but the article is worth a read. It introduces …
Strong overseas growth, that’s what they have in common. In fact, when you look at their quarterly numbers, had it not been for robust overseas growth these companies would not have hit their global growth targets. And I don’t thinnk …
I was happy to be quoted in a CMO Magazine article on the challenges of taking your Web site global. It’s a must read for anyone in this field. Here are a few good excerpts: “We learned that it was …
While I’ve been waiting for the iTunes Australia site to launch (it was held up recently) I realize that I missed the launch of Denmark, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden. There are now a total of 19 iTunes country Web sites: …
Expedia does not offer a Chinese Web site, yet. It does have the next best thing though, a majority share of eLong, a Chinese-based travel Web site. Here is an interesting article about the brewing battle for dominance of one …
The much-anticipated launch of iTunes Australia is on hold due to, who else, a record company. Or, more specifically, a record company’s lawyers. According to the Courier-Mail: A source said yesterday Apple had planned to launch an Australian version of …
VC Michael Moe writes about China and offers a heaping helping of China stats. Here are a few to ponder… China has an official 1.3 billion people—that’s 1/5th of all people on the planet. Unofficially, it has 1.5 billion people—the …
The Corante NY blog points out that New York has launched a multilingual Web site to increase its percentage of international visitors.
Car rental company Thrifty announced today that it has launched three language Web sites: French, Spanish, and German. This is the company’s first foray into Web globalization. This is also another sign that the hospitality/travel industry is embracing Web globalization …
International revenue growth for Amazon continues to outpace domestic growth, according to their Q1 earnings release: “International segment sales accounted for 45% of worldwide net sales, up from 40% for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2004.” By this …
The NY Times has a great article about the making of Disneyland Hong Kong It looks like Disney learned some painful but important lessons about the importance of localization from the Euro Disney disaster. Writes Laura Holson… When Disney opened …