Krispy Kreme Going Global
While Krispy Kreme continues its seemingly slow migration across the US (Boston only recently saw its first location), it is aggressively expanding outside the US. It already has stores in …
Hispanic Histrionics
According to Samuel Huntington, in Foreign Policy Magazine, the “unprecedented inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past …
World’s Largest Translation Agency Is Getting Larger
The BBC writes about the expanding translation demands of an expanding European Union. When 10 additional countries join the European Union on May 1st, they bring with them the demands …
Heed the Body Language Lady
Here’s an entertaining CNN article about the inherent risks of extending humor across cultures. For example, according to the Body Language Lady… A smile, often the best ice breaker, is …
Pull-Down Menus Are A Global Problem
As companies add more and more localized Web sites to their portfolio, they are increasingly resorting to using pull-down menus for navigation. Yet as the FedEx gateway (below) illustrates, pull-down …
Localization Down Under
Here is a very nice article by Evelyn Olsen on the New Zealand translation industry. Her company is NZTC, and for those who manage competitive companies, I recommend taking a …
Free Localization Primer
The Localization Industry Standards Assocation (LISA) offers a free localization primer available for download. The guide is available in 9 languages, including Arabic. Over 52 pages, the guide covers the …
Africa and the Internet
The USC Online Journalism Review has an excellent article about the state of Internet penetration in Africa. Needless to say, this region has largely missed out on the Internet revolution, …
It Is Time We Standardize Global Web Navigation
Global Web site navigation is a hot topic these days, and it seems every site has a slightly different way of solving that eternal problem of getting people to their …
Beware The Globalization Bubble
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has neatly divided globalization into three software-like stages, as follows: The first era, from the late 1800’s to World War I, was driven by …
Google Watch: More Tools; More Languages
Google continues its global growth campaign by launching News Alerts in four additional languages: French – www.google.fr/newsalerts German – www.google.de/newsalerts Italian – www.google.it/newsalerts Spanish – www.google.es/newsalerts Google also has localized …
Uniting the World Through (English) Content
Documentum is a developer of well-regarded content management software. It also offers a software package that helps companies manage multilingual Web sites. And yet the Documentum Web site itself could …
Microsoft: Death by a Thousand Languages?
Microsoft likes to make a big deal of how global a company it is, and for good reason. The company now makes more money from outside the US than from …
Globalization and the Next Generation
The Pew Global Attitudes Project recently released the results of a study that show remarkable differences between how different age groups (and cultures) view globalization. You can download the complete …
Opportunism, Thy Name is Spanish
From Verizon Wireless to Office Depot, executives have finally awakened to the importance of the Spanish-speaking market within the US. Consider the following stats, compliments of The Cobalt Group: The …