eBay Tries to Expand Globally Without Offending Locally
eBay, despite doing business in more than 20 countries, still earns the bulk of its revenues from US sellers, folks who have been increasingly unhappy about steadily increasing listing fees. …
China
Chinese as a Second Language (Cont.)
According to Reuters, China is doing its part to help the world learn to speak its language. It just launched the Chinese-instruction Web site: Linese.com. It’s somewhat ironic that the …
Google Cashes Out of Baidu
Baidu is the “Google” of China with 51% of the market (according to CNNIC). Awhile back, Google bought a small chunk of the company, before it went public, presumably with …
McDonalds in China; Elle in the Middle East
The Wall Street Journal features two articles on business globalization and localization — from McDonald’s building drive-thrus in China to Elle publishiing a Middle East edition. For Elle, the challenge …
China Expansion: UPS and Accor
UPS continues to invest heavily in China, announcing today that it was beginning flights from Germany to Shanghai and increasing the number of flights from the US to China. UPS …
China’s Translation Demand Curve
The Chinese blog Better Localization has an interesting story about a recent Chinese TV program that took a few multinationals to task (KLM and IKEA) for not providing Chinese-language documentation. …
Chinese as a Second Language
According to my local paper, Chinese language instruction is hot: “I tell you, this Chinese fever is on again,” Wong-Avery said. “Everyone knows it will be one of the most …
Is eBay Losing China?
According to Shanghai Daily eBay is dropping its fee for online stores, matching competitor Taobao.com‘s free offering. Says the article: Now why would eBay China do this? According to the …
China: We’re Number Four!
According to Business Week, China might soon revise GDP upwards by a whopping 20%. Says the article: That would make China the world’s fourth-largest economy, suddenly overtaking Italy, France, and …
China’s Evolving Cell Phone Culture
This is a great Wall Street Journal article on China’s culture and how it relates to technology — primarily voice mail. An excerpt: Many Chinese who have worked for inefficient, …
They’re Building A New DNS Mousetrap (But It’s Not Better)
The domain name system (DNS) was built by geeks for geeks. It was never intended to be all that user friendly — and, for many people, it’s not. That’s one …
The Other “W” Comes to China
While President Bush is about to enter China, another W is also set to enter the Chinese market — the hotel W. According to this article, the W Shanghai – …
Of Global Consistency and Current Knowledge
Web usability consultant Jared Spool recently wrote about the difference between designing for “consistency” and designing for “current knowledge.” This concept has great relevance to the design of global Web …
Baidu Beating Google in China
The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) just published a survey of the Chinese search engine market. Baidu comes out on top in market share. But Google is more popular …
Looking for VC Cash? Go Global
According to the Deloitte and NVCA 2005 Global Venture Capital Survey, VCs are increasingly looking outside their borders when making investments. What this non-intuitive exhibit shows is that US VCs …