Adventures in web globalization, since 2002
As I prepare to hop on a plane to Europe, I’d like to focus briefly on the airline industry. I should preface this post by saying that I find “meta” travel sites like Kayak and Sidestep much easier to use …
I spent a few days in Canada recently and was struck but how many billboards, newspapers, and web sites prominently displayed .ca instead of .com. I started writing down every localized domain I encountered and here’s what I ended up …
Idea Factory Languages, with 85 full-time employees and production centers in Brazil and Argentina, specializes in translation and localization for the Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese language markets. CEO Teddy Bengtsson periodically sends out “state of the business” updates which I …
We included nine hotel and resort brands in the 2010 Web Globalization Report Card. The Web Globalization Report Card is an annual benchmark of how effectively companies internationalize and localize their web sites and applications for the world. It is …
Two weeks ago, I introduced Ethan Shen and his project to analyze the three major free machine translation (MT) engines — Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! Babelfish — by relying on translator reviews. Ethan has provided me with a mid-point summary …
We included 12 automotive brands in the 2010 Web Globalization Report Card. And of the 12, Volkswagen emerged on top. Volkswagen is one of the more globally consistent automotive web sites. In general, automotive sites are behind the curve in …
In January of this year, ICANN announced that four fast-track IDNs had made it through linguistic approval — effectively clearing the way for commercialization. Oddly missing from that list was China’s IDN. One of the reasons ICANN initiated a fast-track …
Languages are a means to an end, and in web globalization, languages help you expand your global reach. And global reach doesn’t always mean expanding beyond borders, it could also mean expanding within borders — consider Spanish for the US …
We reviewed 225 web sites for the Report Card, which means 200 sites didn’t make the “cut.” If your company is in this list of 200 and you want to know where you ranked, please contact me at jyunker (at) …
I’m pleased to announce the publication of the 2010 Web Globalization Report Card. Here are the top 25 web sites overall: Google Facebook Cisco Systems Philips Samsung Wikipedia 3M NIVEA Symantec Lenovo Xbox Autodesk Gmail Microsoft Nokia Intel Caterpillar Panasonic …