Haitian Creole is now a machine translation staple
In response to the earthquake in Haiti, Microsoft quickly expanded its machine translation engine to include Haitian Creole. Today I noticed that Google has an alpha version of its Haitian …
John Yunker
US Hispanics love the Internet, but not localized web sites
I came across an interesting presentation today via Carla Briceno. The survey, sponsored by AOL and conducted by Cheskin, was based on interviewing more than a thousand Hispanic households across …
The first of the fast-track IDNs
ICANN shed some light on its fast-track application process today, announcing the first four countries to pass the string evaluation of the process. Here they are: Saudi Arabia (SA): السعودية …
Google may leave China, but don’t expect it to leave Chinese
Long before Google launched Google.cn, it launched the Chinese localized version of Google.com. And this site is alive and well and hosted outside of China’s great firewall. Just change your …
What’s the world’s most global blogging platform?
I’ve been writing this blog since 2002. Back when I started out, I wasn’t sure how long I would stick with this “blogging” thing and I didn’t really want to …
The Web Globalization Report Card 2010
Today we officially kick off a sixth edition of the Web Globalization Report Card. The next four weeks will be devoted to analyzing 225 web sites across more than 20 …
The world’s most dangerous country codes
If you want to know the world’s most dangersous ccTLDs, ask an anti-virus software company. McAfee has released its list of most dangerous country codes. Here are the top five: …
Mac Snow Leopard International Bug
I recently got around to upgrading to Snow Leopard. Along the way, I discovered a rather interesting bug. It’s not a huge deal, but a bug nonetheless. And one likely …
The most popular posts of 2009
With a few hours to spare, here are the most popular blog posts of 2009, based on number of visitors: The rise of “international” English — otherwise known as American …
Forgetting English (literally)
I’m working on the Web Globalization Report Card, and this, plus my fascination with Facebook, inspired me to check out my Forgetting English page in several different languages. Here it …
Taking a Facebreak
As Katie Hafner writes in the NY Times, a number of people are taking a break from Facebook (or trying to). Call it a Facebreak. Facebook is all about scale. …
When will the “age gateway” retire?
Smashing Magazine has an entertaining piece on the Unusable and Superficial World of Beer and Alcohol Websites. The “age gateway” was a topic I wrote about a year ago and …
Take the Lionbridge Social Media Survey
It’s not every day I come across a survey localized into 18 languages. But I guess I should expect nothing less from one of the world’s largest translation agencies. Lionbridge …
Google goes to Greenland to shorten your URL
Just what the world needs — two more URL shorteners. Google now has goo.gl. And Facebook has FB.me. But Google’s URL jumps out at me because it marks the first …
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