The United Languages of America
Very cool map courtesy of the WashPost based on US Census data: “More than a quarter of counties in the United States have at least one in 10 households where …
Before Amazon enters Sweden it needs a .se country code
Few companies appreciate the value of country codes as Amazon. As you can see here, Amazon goes a step further and integrates the cccTLD directly into the logo: According to …
Macedonia gets an IDN: мкд
Lately I’ve been writing about all those new non-Latin generic TLDs. But countries are still in the process of acquiring the local-script equivalents of their country codes. Last week, Macedonia (.mk) …
Xiaomi’s global expansion plans include Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand
In January, I wrote about Xiaomi’s success in crowdsourced translation of its operating system — and how this bodes well for global expansion. Xiaomi, for those who’ve never heard of …
Wikipedia and the Internet language chasm
When talking about language diversity across the Internet, I like to include a visual that illustrates the language leaders of the Internet: This chart is based on data from the …
5 Questions to Ask Any Potential Translation Vendor
My latest post for client Pitney Bowes on selecting a translation agency. An excerpt: Can I speak with your references? Always, always check references. Ideally, you should speak with three …
GoDaddy’s new global gateway sets the stage for global growth
It’s nice to see GoDaddy improving its global gateway. Note the use of the globe icon below to indicate the global gateway menu: Click on the globe or locale name …
The worst global websites of the 2014 Web Globalization Report Card
You can be a wildly successful global company and still have a poorly localized website. A number of factors determine global success and the website is only one of these …
Google launches its first Japanese IDN
I’ve long talked about the importance of non-Latin domain names, or IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names). Google has gone live with one if its many IDNs: みんな. I want to emphasize here …
Localizing your website for Canada: It’s more challenging than you might think
My latest post for client Pitney Bowes on localizing for Canada. An excerpt: As they begin their global expansion, American companies often select Canada first under the assumption that the …
WhatsApp: Another “translation worthy” success story
I wrote recently that if you can make your product “translation worthy” the world will follow. Reading about Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp I went back and did some language crunching. …
Five reasons you should take your ecommerce global – and five reasons you shouldn’t
My latest post for client Pitney Bowes on going global (or not). An excerpt — Two reasons NOT to go global: 1. You don’t have realistic expectations (and budgets). The …
A look back at the language growth of eBay, Coke, Apple, AmEx and Amazon
Sometimes it’s difficult to see a revolution when you’re standing right in the middle of it. Which is how I still feel sometimes when it comes to web globalization. Web …
The top 25 global websites from the 2014 Web Globalization Report Card
UPDATE: The 2017 Web Globalization Report Card is now available. More than ten years ago I set out to create a report that benchmarked global websites. I looked at languages …
Google Translate turns 80, as in languages
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 …