From Russia, with IDNs
A little more than a year ago, Russia opened up registration for its top-level IDN: рф. Since then, more than 900,000 domains have been registered, making this the most successful …
John Yunker
Users don’t change settings — so you better guess right
There’s a good article on Brainsparks about how rarely users get around to changing their default computer settings. “Less than 5% of the users we surveyed had changed any settings …
From Morocco to Malaysia, IDN growth continues
ICANN recently approved Malaysia’s Arabic IDN (internationalized domain name), bringing the number of countries or territories with approved IDNs to 29. Here is the full list. As shown here, Malaysia …
ADP’s global gateway combines globe and flag icons
Payroll services company ADP demonstrates that you don’t necessarily have to choose between using a flag icon or using a globe icon on your global gateway. As shown below, the …
Global gateway notes: Guidewire, Google, Locaria
One of the many things I love about global gateways is that I never stop discovering new ones. Here are notes on a few gateways I’ve stumbled across over the past …
Kazakhstan gets an IDN (and I get to update our IDN poster)
Kazakhstan has joined a fast-expanding group of countries and regions that now have IDNs (28 and counting). I’ve highlighted Kazakhstan in the map above. The IDN is қаз. While getting approval for …
Another day, another abused country code
Everyone has a hobby and I suppose one of mine is looking for web sites that use (or abuse) country codes (ccTLDs). I was recently pointed to a new web …
(Insert company name here) stumbles in China
From the article Groupon stumbles in China in The Wall Street Journal: Foreign Internet companies have long struggled in China, which has more Internet users than any other country. Yahoo Inc., one …
IBM: A tale of two global gateways
IBM, much to my chagrin, has used a lengthy pull-down menu as its global gateway for years. Here’s what it looks like: There are two problems with this menu, the …
Yandex headed to Turkey, and beyond
Now that Yandex is a public company there is much speculation about which markets the search engine known as Russia’s Google plans to expand into next. You don’t have to …
What the heck is an IDN and why you should care
Here’s a new article I’ve written for UX Magazine on the emergence of internationalized domain names (IDNs). I view IDNs as an inevitable (albeit awkward) evolution of the Internet. And here are the …
The Death of the Global Manager
Great article by Julia Hanna of Harvard Business School in Working Knowledge: “Today, I would argue that you don’t put that qualifying adjective in front of manager—we all simply operate …
Without web localization, you’re just guessing
An interesting article by Alexandra Berzon of the WSJ regarding Hilton and Starwood hotels, which are offering menus and services tailored to Chinese travelers. This quote jumped out at me: After …
South Sudan needs a country code
So it’s official now. The Republic of South Sudan is a country. In case you’re curious what you have to do to become a country, here’s a brief list. The …
Consistency vs. creativity: In signage, in terminology, in life
What’s wrong with this sign? It seems to work just fine as far as I can tell. Whenever I see this sign in a store window, I know exactly what …