Meet the next generation of country codes
So now that the media hype over internationalized domain names (IDNs) has died down, let’s focus on the messy details of what this all means. First of all, we’re not …
China
The Chinese domain name bubble bursts
Nearly one year ago, I asked Will .CN become the next .COM? And perhaps I was right in more ways than one. Because now it appears that .CN is experiencing …
Want to buy the number 8?
Someone is promoting the sale of a Chinese domain name, shown here. Technically, this domain is represented over the Internet as http://www.xn--45q.ws, which is the ASCII equivalent of the Chinese …
Have you dined at the Translate Server Error lately?
File this post under Lost in (Machine) Translation. This photo arrived courtesy of Gareth Morgan at Neovia Financial. Apparently the proprietor of this restaurant in China decided to create an …
Facebook: From 1 to 100 languages in two years
It was just over a year ago that Facebook started localizing itself for the world. As I noted then, the company utilized crowdsourcing to spur its translation efforts. And though …
Web Globalization Certificate Program at St. Louis University
Professor Nitish Singh, author of The Culturally Customized Web Site, has just launched a certificate program in Web globalization management through St. Louis University. You can learn more at www.globalizationexecutive.com.
The “age gateway” comes of age
For years I’ve been preaching the importance of the “global gateway” — the elements that Web sites use to seamlessly direct Web users to their localized Web sites and content, …
Will .cn become the new .com?
I recently came across a chart of the most popular domain extensions, compiled by Stephane Van Gelder. Although I keep track of ccTLD registrations for the Country Codes of the …
Olympics Web site adds two languages (at the wire)
A commenter on my post on the stunning lack of languages on the Olympics Web site (particularly when compared with Euro 2008) notes that two more languages were added recently: …
China now leads in Internet users (and country codes)
The NY Times reports that China has surpassed the US in terms of Internet users. This comes via China’s state-controlled Internet Network Information Center. Here are the key numbers: United …
Two thoughts on Euro 2008 and Web globalization
Congratulations to Spain for emerging on top of Euro 2008. I can’t say that I was pulling for any one team, but I would have loved to have seen Germany …
IDNs become a presidential issue
Nick Wilsdon at Multilingual Search quotes a Russian news story in which Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev says “We must do everything we can to make sure that we achieve in …
Google Adwords unavailable (in 17 languages)
I tried to login to Google Adwords recently and was met with the following “temporarily unavailable” Web page: The page illustrates one of the many the challenges of managing a …
Translating numbers in China
As John wrote awhile back: All lucky numbers are local. And this is particularly true in China, where people pay thousands of dollars to obtain license plates with lucky numbers. …
Web sites go black in China (cont.)
Here are some more localized Chinese Web sites that have gone black: McDonald’s Cisco Intel Oracle