How many TLDs are there?
I love this visual, via ICANN, a diagram of the world’s top-level domains (TLDs) — all 280 of them. The overwhelming majority of TLDs are country codes, most of which …
Google Translate now in 41 languages
Google marches ahead with its machine translation engine, adding Turkish, Thai, Hungarian, Estonian, Albanian, Maltese, and Galician. This time last year, Google supported a mere 13 languages, which was in …
Is .NYC the next 212? Or is it the next .LA?
So it’s looking like .NYC may indeed come to fruition. It certainly has its proponents. Paris and Berlin are also pursuing their own domains. But the reason I see .NYC …
Forgetting English
I’m thrilled to announce that Eastern Washington University Press has just published a short story collection by my wife, Midge Raymond: Forgetting English. Readers of this blog will certainly appreciate …
The rise of “international” English — otherwise known as American English
I was on the Boingo Web site recently and I encountered a language picker with “English Intl.” listed as an option, as shown here: This was not the first Web …
The dawn of a new era
I was walking to the bus this evening in Redmond and I was waiting at a traffic light. A young man on a bicycle pulled up next to me. He …
.EU: Three years and three million registrations
It’s been nearly three years since .EU went live. Stephane reports that the domain reached 3 million registrations today. Not too bad, considering that .US is still well under two …
Global user experience is much more than a Web site
I bought a LaCie hard drive recently, and I noticed an interesting gap between the global usability of the LaCie Web site and the installation software that shipped with the …
The long goodbye
Lately I’ve been trying to reduce some of the noise in my inbox by unsubscribing from a number of email newsletter lists. It hasn’t been easy. For example, I unsubscribed …
United Airlines doesn’t speak Arabic
I wanted to highlight a great catch made by commenter Ben to my earlier post on United’s in-flight navigation system, shown here: If you look closely at the lower right …
March of the Magellanic Penguins
This has nothing to do with Web globalization, but it is something that I hope you’ll enjoy. It is a short story called The Tourist Trail. As you may remember, …
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.
IDNs get on the fast track
So with the “father of Internet” and chief Internet evangelist at Google, Vinton Cerf, chairing the latest IDNA working group and ICANN issuing a fast track PDF document, it appears …
The global gateway at 35,000 feet
I flew to Japan recently and discovered that a new entertainment system had been installed on my flight. But what made the system worth mentioning here was what I saw …