Google perpetuates the American .com myth
Google features a 4th of July logo at Google.com today. This is not all that unusual; Google has been doing this for several years now. But there is an inherent …
The coming gTLD explosion (or not)
ICANN, the folks who manage Internet domains, recently decided to open up the generic top-level domain (gTLD) space to anyone who can afford it and can navigate ICANN’s complex approval …
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 …
Changing the face of the Internet — one ccTLD at a time
Simon Johnson, co-founder of Domainer Income, interviewed me by phone recently on our Country Codes of World map. If you’re curious about how the map came to be — as …
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 …
Apple iPhone 3G illustrates the value of a global design template
Apple today announced the iPhone 3G — a tri-band phone that will operate in most countries around the world. So it’s no surprise that Apple wants to sell the iPhone …
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 …
The world’s most dangerous country codes
McAfee has released a report that rates the world’s top level domains in terms of overall risk to the Web user — from browser exploits, phishing Web sites, excessive pop-ups, …
2008 Global Intranet Survey invitation
Jane McConnell of NetStrategy/JMC is working on the third annual edition of the Global Intranet & Portal Strategies Survey and she needs your input. If you are not familiar with …
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
Web sites go black in China
If you visit the .com pages of Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Apple, and Amazon, you’ll see the usual bursts of color and promotional elements — that is, business as usual. But …
Google Translate is growing up
What began as just another “gisting” application — like Babel Fish — is gradually becoming an impressive translation tool. And I’m not referring to the quality of translation, though that …
Poland joins the million domain club
Poland (.pl) announced last week that it joined the million domain club by registering its one-millionth ccTLD. The reason for the sudden surge in registrations is Poland’s easing of the …
Web globalization webinar follow-up
The Lionbridge webinar yesterday has been archived for those of you who couldn’t make it. You can register to listen to the call at the Lionbridge site. And mark your …