Russian was once considered a “top 10” language — one that any company serious about global growth would support. But Putin’s horrific actions have put an end to that. Over the past two years, global brands have made a hasty…
As we say farewell to the Year of the Rabbit we greet the Year of the Dragon. And, with it, my whirlwind tour of global and local websites taking advantage of this holiday. And, yes, lots of celebratory red! Let’s…
It’s not secret that China is going through an economic rough patch. So it’s probably not surprise that might brief tour of Singles Day website promotions came up lighter than usual. Compared with 2021, this year’s Singles Day is, well,…
I was in Ecuador recently and carved a bit of time to visit a few global websites — as in the .com address of global brands — to see just how successfully (or not) these brands localize for Ecuadorians. No…
Lunar New Year is here and, with it, my whirlwind tour of global and local websites taking full advantage of this holiday. Here was my tour last year of the year of the tiger. Not surprisingly, the celebratory color red…
One of the four major benchmarking criteria of the Web Globalization Report Card is global reach. That is, what languages do you support? And how many languages do you support? To score a perfect 25 points in this category, a…
For companies with global aspirations, Russian has long been considered a “must support” language. These days, that is no longer the case. But even before Putin decided to invade Ukraine, the Russian language had been slipping, ever so slightly, in…
I’m pleased to announce the publication of the 2022 Web Globalization Report Card. This is the 18th annual edition of the Report Card, and it reflects another difficult year. And yet there is much to be optimistic about as we look…
This blog post originated from an email I received recently from someone starting a small business and wondering how to manage all those newly localized websites. Specifically: Should I make a webpage with the name of the country I am…
If you were to visit the US home page of BMW you’d see the obligatory photograph of the latest models: But if you were to visit the China home page of BMW, you’d encounter this fella: That’s right, even high-end…
Black Friday originated as a sales event specific to the US, the day following Thanksgiving. It has long been the busiest shopping day of the year, though it now extends to several days, or even weeks. And leave it to…
I suppose it was just a matter of time before the advertising algorithms figured I’d be in the market for a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), perhaps .CA. And so I happened upon this ad the other day: Choose.ca links…
Robert Frost wrote that good fences make good neighbors. Yet when it comes to virtual fences, visualized as maps, I’m not sure there is any way to create “good fences.” So many regions around the world are under dispute. And…
As I mentioned a few days ago, Singles Day arrived well before the official start: 11 But now that it has officially arrived, a thought a few screen shots would be in order. First off, Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com reports…
As I write this on November 5th, Singles Day (November 11th “11.11”) is nearly a week away. Singles Day is the world’s biggest shopping day, a virtual event that originated in China, popularized by Alibaba, and, thanks in large part…