Adventures in web globalization, since 2002
From Afrikaans to Zulu, the evolution of Google Translate is one of Google’s greatest success stories that few people fully appreciate. Perhaps because Google is reluctant to release usage data …
My latest post for client Pitney Bowes includes tips for creating “world ready” visuals. An excerpt: Don’t Send the Wrong (Hand) Signal Gestures are culturally specific and, while some gestures …
From my guest post for Gigaom: When a software company asks me if I think its new product will succeed globally, I typically respond by asking: Is your product translation …
When I lived in New York, I used to get a kick out of visiting Tiffany. Not that I actually purchased much of anything there, but I was always impressed …
My latest post for client Pitney Bowes includes tips for removing the global ‘friction’ from your ecommerce website. An excerpt: What’s Your “Last” Name? In the United States, we generally use the …
Last post of 2013 and here are the most-popular posts published this year: How many languages should your website support? The next Internet revolution will not be in English The …
Here’s my latest post for client Pitney Bowes: An excerpt: Avoid visual pitfalls. By editing the text to be world-ready, you’re halfway towards avoiding any “international incidents.” But you also need to …
I’m optimistic about the year ahead. I base this optimism in part on discussions I’ve had this year with dozens of marketing and web teams across about ten countries. While …
I came across an interesting story in the WSJ about how 2013 has been a slower year for weddings because of the number 13. Here’s an excerpt from the CEO …
HTML has long supported the ability to create numbered lists simply by using the <ol><li></li></ol> tags. But these tags are rather limited if you are developing websites for the world. …
Here’s my latest post for client Pitney Bowes: Any company with global aspirations cannot afford to ignore the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. It’s a region that includes more than two billion …
When I read government arguments in defense of the NSA, an oft-repeated line was: We’re not targeting Americans. We’re targeting foreigners. Foreigners. I really dislike that word. And I’m sure …
Here’s my latest post for client Pitney Bowes: Any company with global aspirations cannot afford to ignore the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. It’s a region that includes more than two billion …
Starbucks currently has 19,000 locations of which 11,000 are in the US. According to this Wall Street Journal Q&A (reg. required), Howard Schultz remains optimistic about Asia: Outside the U.S., Starbucks …
Imagine if, every time you wanted to visit a website, you were expected to type in letters from a foreign language, or worse, an entirely foreign script, such as Arabic, …