RSS Language/Translation Blog Collection

The best global websites of 2012

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:43:01 CET

TweetI’m happy to announce the publication of the 2012 Web Globalization Report Card. This year, we reviewed 105 websites across 17 industries; the websites comprise 70% of the Interbrand Best Global Brands of 2011. This year, we also reviewed mobile … Continue reading →

Social Aggregation Case Study: KPMG@Davos

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:56:20 CET

TweetIn my last post I noted how Cisco has created the social aggregation page: Social@Cisco. This page is simply a global template that allows Cisco to plug in different local feeds for different markets. I should also note that KPGM has … Continue reading →

Coming soon…

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:09:03 CET

Slip Carefully

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:03:55 CET

TweetI came across a rather enterprising individual who is crafting and selling replicas of infamous “Chinglish” signs. His Etsy store is called: All Your Signs Are Belong to Us. Here’s a sample:

Adopt a Typewriter Today

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:36:10 CET

Tweet Yes, I have a fondness for typewriters. And, yes, I am old enough to have actually used one regularly. Mostly, I miss the way they sound. I’ve memorialized two of my favorite typewriters in these notecards.

Russia’s Internet growth is just getting started

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:51:59 CET

TweetI checked domain registration stats from Russia’s registry and here are the high-level numbers: If you combine IDNs and ccTLDs, Russia becomes the third-ranked country in terms of country code registrations, behind Germany and the UK. But what caught my eye is … Continue reading →

And another thing…

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:42:16 CET

TweetI recently received a t-shirt from Glyph Languages Services that I have to share: The ampersand is composed of translations of the word “and” into 150 languages — from Afrakaans to Zulu. Very impressive. Okay, now this is my last … Continue reading →

One person’s workday is another person’s holiday

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:21:20 CET

TweetI was fresh out of college and living in Australia when I first experienced Boxing Day. I was clueless. I thought the Aussies were unusually eager fans of, well, boxing. If only I had Wikipedia back then. Now, Boxing Day … Continue reading →

World Peace

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:07:41 CET

Tweet See you in 2012!

Learning from the world’s leading travel websites

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 17:16:20 CET

TweetI wrote an article for UX Magazine (based on my research for Lionbridge) that highlights global best practices in the travel industry. Travelers want websites that travel with them In the travel industry, your customers are mobile. If you greet … Continue reading →

Be Kind: It’s not easy creating a global brand name

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:39:25 CET

TweetFrom The Wall Street Journal interview with the founder of KIND Snacks: WSJ: Kind recently became the subject of a trademark battle with Italy’s Ferrero SpA, a $10 billion candy giant, whose brands include Kinder. What happened and what did … Continue reading →

How to localize date formats using Globalize.js

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:32:56 CET

Tweet Dates are often used as case studies to illustrate the risks of ignoring cultural differences. For example, the date 4/7/2011 could be taken to mean July 4th by some and April 7th by others. Fortunately, the open source JavaScript … Continue reading →

Now Available: Going Global with JavaScript and Globalize.js

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:55:12 CET

TweetI’m happy to announce the publication of Going Global with JavaScript and Globalize.js. If you use develop websites or applications for more than one language or country, this book will help you improve your JavaScript code. And if you haven’t yet … Continue reading →

Some companies have given up on Spanish for the US

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:33:39 CET

TweetI’ve been revisiting a number of the websites that at one point were localized specifically for Spanish speakers in the US. And now I’m finding dead links. Home Depot had a site located at homedepotespanol.com and Lowe’s had one at … Continue reading →

From Russia, with IDNs

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:23:08 CET

Tweet A little more than a year ago, Russia opened up registration for its top-level IDN: рф. Since then, more than 900,000 domains have been registered, making this the most successful IDN by far. I’ve always been quick to stress … Continue reading →

Users don’t change settings — so you better guess right

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 17:23:26 CET

TweetThere’s a good article on Brainsparks about how rarely users get around to changing their default computer settings. “Less than 5% of the users we surveyed had changed any settings at all.” This statistic has great relevance to web globalization. … Continue reading →

From Morocco to Malaysia, IDN growth continues

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:57:46 CET

TweetICANN recently approved Malaysia’s Arabic IDN (internationalized domain name), bringing the number of countries or territories with approved IDNs to 29. Here is the full list. As shown here, Malaysia joins a growing club of IDN holders! And here’s … Continue reading →

ADP’s global gateway combines globe and flag icons

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:53:14 CET

TweetPayroll services company ADP demonstrates that you don’t necessarily have to choose between using a flag icon or using a globe icon on your global gateway. As shown below, the company uses both: And here is the Brazil home page: … Continue reading →

Global gateway notes: Guidewire, Google, Locaria

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:59:46 CEST

TweetOne of the many things I love about global gateways is that I never stop discovering new ones. Here are notes on a few gateways I’ve stumbled across over the past few weeks. Let’s begin with a gateway that exhibits a … Continue reading →

Secrets of well-travelled web sites: Web globalization in the travel & hospitality industry

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:17:32 CEST

Tweet I’m pleased to announce a new report focused on the globalization of travel and hospitality web sites. From Hotels.com to Delta Airlines to Expedia, this report highlights those web sites (and mobile apps) that have the widest global reach … Continue reading →

Kazakhstan gets an IDN (and I get to update our IDN poster)

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:31:17 CEST

Tweet Kazakhstan has joined a fast-expanding group of countries and regions that now have IDNs (28 and counting). I’ve highlighted Kazakhstan in the map above. The IDN is қаз. While getting approval for an IDN doesn’t guarantee a country will actually do … Continue reading →

Another day, another abused country code

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:57:25 CEST

Tweet Everyone has a hobby and I suppose one of mine is looking for web sites that use (or abuse) country codes (ccTLDs). I was recently pointed to a new web app called It’s Almo.st. If you’re into countdown clocks, … Continue reading →

(Insert company name here) stumbles in China

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:10:39 CEST

TweetFrom the article Groupon stumbles in China in The Wall Street Journal: Foreign Internet companies have long struggled in China, which has more Internet users than any other country. Yahoo Inc., one of the earliest to enter, handed over its China business … Continue reading →

IBM: A tale of two global gateways

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:08:05 CEST

TweetIBM, much to my chagrin, has used a lengthy pull-down menu as its global gateway for years. Here’s what it looks like: There are two problems with this menu, the first being that web users in Sweden, Turkey and other … Continue reading →

Yandex headed to Turkey, and beyond

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:18:30 CEST

TweetNow that Yandex is a public company there is much speculation about which markets the search engine known as Russia’s Google plans to expand into next. You don’t have to look further than the Yandex.com home page to see that … Continue reading →