SDL Asks Companies to “Switch”
In a page borrowed from Apple’s playbook, globalization services/software vendor SDL is asking prospects to switch over to SDLX. What is SDLX? It’s a computer-aided translation (CAT) software tool used …
The MLB Uses Geolocation
Major League Baseball is enjoying a nice $150-million business in streaming live baseball video feeds to fans around the world (I’m thinking about getting a feed to track Red Sox …
.eu: Coming to a Web Site Near You
According to this article ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) just gave the European Union the green light for using the .eu domain name. I first wrote …
Starbucks in Oz
My correspondent in Australia took some pictures that illustrate the ways that Starbucks has localized itself for the market. It’s Our Shout! Translation: “It’s On Us” A Local Drink Concoction …
When Colors Clash
An interesting article in the Times (now locked down, I’m afraid) on the role that color is playing in social and political revolutions around the globe. The Ukraine revolution became …
Hey Bud, Let’s Party!
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (my old hometown paper), Anheuser-Busch (A-B) has reason to celebrate — it just won a small victory against that tiny little Czech brewery that …
Maturing Internet Markets Warrant Increased Web Globalization, Says Nielsen//NetRatings
That’s what Tekrati has to say about Nielsen//Netratings’ latest global Web usage report. Their research shows that people in the US (and a few other markets) are spending the same …
Globalization Hurts; Globalization Helps
Here’s a good article on the upsides and downsides of this thing called globalization. And a few excerpts that jumped out at me: In recent years, about 100,000 software-writing jobs …
Wal-Mart: Taking Bad PR Global
While I realize that Wal-Mart is a lightning rod for publicity, both good and bad, I’m constantly amazed at just how poorly the company manages to avoid the bad variety. …
iTunes: Some Good News and Some Bad News
First, the bad news… According to the WSJ the EU is investigating whether iTunes overcharges UK customers. The price of a song in the UK is about 20% more than …
Lets Put Rest of World To Rest
Emerging markets are making the world a lot less easy to label In the old days of global commerce, before the Internet, an international marketing director could focus on a …
Borders Looks Beyond Borders
Greg Josefowicz, CEO of the Borders book chain, has looked into the future and he sees India. According to this article, the Ann Arbor-based chain is betting on international expansion …
StarOffice Learns a Few More Languages
Sun says that it localize its StarOffice software suite into five additional languages over the next year, which will include Russian, Polish and Dutch. The software is currently available in …
eBay Launches Kijiji, Challenging Craigslist
eBay has launched of an international classified ads Web site called Kijiji, which the company says means “village” in Swahili. Kijiji is available for 50 cities in Canada, China, France, …
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Compete With ‘Em
The Journal writes about Hollywood’s strategy to (finally) begin discounting DVDs in China in an effort to be more competitive with the pirated DVDs. The discounted DVDs will still cost …