Navigating the multilingual web: The Art of the Global Gateway
In 1999, I first used the term “global gateway.” At the time, I was referring to a company’s “select language” pull-down menu. Needless to say, the term stuck. But it has …
The decline of foreign markets and the rise of local markets
An article in The Wall Street Journal talks about the American “two track” economy — in which US companies that sell globally are doing much better than those focused only …
Philips CEO on expanding globally
Last week I said I’d love to see more profiles of global-minded business execs and, sure enough, the Journal delivers. Here’s an interview with the Philips Electronics CEO Gerard Kleisterlee. According …
See the world: A multilingual eye chart
The latest creation from Byte Level Research, available for purchase at bytelevel.com/eyechart. This unique take on the Snelling eye chart includes characters from more than 20 languages. It’s the perfect …
Hotels.com and its global growth spurt
In the 2008 Web Globalization Report Card, Hotels.com ranked close to last place in the web services category. In this year’s Report Card, Hotels.com ranked only behind Google and Wikipedia …
Best global retail web site: IKEA
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted findings from the 2010 Web Globalization Report Card, but I did want to include a brief note on the retail sector. We define this industry …
Upcoming: Speaking at LocWorld and Unicode Conference
I’m happy to be not only attending but speaking at Localization World and Unicode Conference in October. Here are the details on my sessions: Localization World Seattle, WA October 6: International …
Amazon’s Kindle goes multilingual
The Kindle 3 was announced last evening. The big news about the device is the price — starting at $139. You could argue that this is the first mass-market e-reader. …
Embedded text is untranslated text, courtesy of Google
Google Translate is a great tool for translating content on the fly — and on the cheap. And as Google noted in its blog, Poland’s Ministry of Economy is taking …
Another country code bites the dust. Say goodbye to .AN
.AN is the ccTLD for the Netherlands Antilles which is about to fade into the sunset. Its days as a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands will end in …
Congrats, Spain
Now I can get back to my regularly scheduled life.
Translation memory goes open source: An interview with Smith Yewell of Welocalize
Translation memory helps companies re-use previously translated text, improving consistency and potentially saving money. But translation memory requires using translation memory software, which has for years largely meant using SDL …
Apple iPhone 4 improves international support
The iPhone is a global success story. And one of the reasons for this success can be attributed to the device’s support for more than 30 languages. But with the …
Interview: The Globalization of an Auctioneer Web Site
Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, the world’s largest auctioneer of heavy equipment and trucks, recently launched a redesigned (and more global) web site. Auction web sites are much like ecommerce web sites — that …
Chinese IDNs have arrived
ICANN gave approval to Chinese IDNs — for China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. This is a significant development — particularly since China was one of the major forces pushing ICANN …