Posted on June 15th, 2009 by John Yunker
Bing recently added a nifty new translation feature — one that is so simple and in many ways so obvious that I can’t help wondering why Google never got around to doing it. But that’s a topic for a later post.
For now, I’d like you to try entering the following text strings into both Bing and Google (to save you time I created pre-loaded hyperlinks):
Below are screen shots of the first text string in both Bing and Google. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:
Google, despite its massively powerful translation engine, doesn’t simply answer your translation question. Instead, it provides links.
I realize that this is a relatively minor feature and that it currently only supports a small number of very common text strings, but it’s still a very handy feature for a translation geek such as myself.
Now, I’m not saying Bing is perfect. When it comes to technical searches — or when I just need to look up a Wikipedia article quickly — Google still does better, sometimes far better.
But I’m glad to see Bing integrating translation in an intuitive way. It’s a feature that I’ll be using again.
PS: Here is the blog announcement of this feature from Microsoft Translate team.
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John works for Microsoft and is co-founder of Byte Level Research. This blog is personal and does not represent his employer's views in any way.
Tags: Google · Languages · Machine Translation · Microsoft · Translation
Posted on June 2nd, 2009 by John Yunker
Bit.ly, the URL shortener now used by Twitter, is not the first company to craft its name out of a county code top-level domain (ccTLD).
But Bit.ly does appear to be the first company to do so with the Libyan ccTLD.
As some have speculated, Bit.ly could put itself into a precarious position should it begin hosting URLs for the adult industry, or any other industry that violates Libyan laws. It’s always important to keep in mind that a company can’t “own” a domain the way it owns real estate.
But this is all just speculation. The registrar Libyan Spider clearly is hoping to capitalize on all the “ly” permutations of a word or brand name. And the fact of the matter is that more and more countries are viewing their country codes as profit centers.
Which leads me to a brief inventory of the sites that I am aware of that use ccTLDs as part of their names:
I’m rather surprised at the range of countries represented here. Montenegro, by the way, has already sold more than 250,000 domains so far. Not bad for a country that’s less than a few years old.
Any companies that I missed?
UPDATE: Thanks to the commenter below I’ve added Tri.im — and I also came across Pi.pe. Any more I should include?
UPDATE 2: Just added Su.pr — yet another URL shortener.
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John works for Microsoft and is co-founder of Byte Level Research. This blog is personal and does not represent his employer's views in any way.
Tags: Domain names · cctld
Posted on May 27th, 2009 by John Yunker
My previous post on Twitter got me thinking about what other companies had registered language-specific domains for their Twitter accounts.
Turns out, most companies haven’t even registered Twitter accounts for their primary brands.
Like who?
Apple, for one.
Here we have someone who apparently likes apples but isn’t Apple:
It appear that Microsoft reserved its account early on, though nothing is there. Microsoft does have about a dozen Twitter accounts that do include content.
Coke — someone who drinks Coke, but not the company.
While Pepsi does have a Twitter account.
The Wall Street Journal has an article out about this domain name rush.
So many questions come to mind:
- Will Twitter enforce trademarks for valid holders? Usually, the WIPO does this with domain names, but this isn’t actually a domain name in the traditional sense.
- What percentage of the millions of new Twitter accounts being registered every day simply squatters hoping to make a quick buck? That is, how much of Twitter’s growth actual growth?
- And what about third-party domain marketplaces — will we see them emerge? Or will Twitter start its own marketplace?
In the meantime, if you’re thinking about reserving a Twitter domain, do it now before getting Twit-jacked…
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John works for Microsoft and is co-founder of Byte Level Research. This blog is personal and does not represent his employer's views in any way.
Tags: Apple · Domain names · Microsoft · Twitter
Posted on May 24th, 2009 by John Yunker
In 2005, I interviewed a man named Winter, who was on a quest to visit ever Starbucks location on this planet.
Four years later, the quest continues.
Unfortunately, as documented by the Wall Street Journal, Starbucks is now closing stores faster than Winter can visit them.
In 2005, Winter had visited 4,500 Starbucks stores. Today, his count stands at more than 9,000. And he is now racing to visit those stores scheduled to close, sometimes missing them by a matter of hours.
Winter is single (no surprise there) and lives at home with his parents, who wish he’d just give up this Sysiphean quest.
But I get a kick out of his quest. In this period in our history when so much seems ephemeral, so many trends little more than 15-minute Wharholian blips, it’s nice to see somebody out there, crazy as he may be, sticking with it.
“Pointless though it might it be,” says Winter, who plans to go to the U.K. next week, “a goal is a goal.”
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John works for Microsoft and is co-founder of Byte Level Research. This blog is personal and does not represent his employer's views in any way.
Tags: Web Globalization
Posted on May 20th, 2009 by John Yunker
ICANN recently launched its own Twitter feed. And since ICANN is a global organization, it launched more than one language feed — one in English and one in Spanish.
http://twitter.com/icann_en
http://twitter.com/icann_es
This is not the most scalable solution. And I’m not trying to pick on Twitter; the issue effects any multinational company or organization.
For instance, let’s say ICANN launches a Portuguese feed for Brazil. The address would have to read twitter.com/icann_pt_br. Similar challenges arise with French (Canada vs. France). And even the English and Spanish feeds are inherently going to exclude various flavors of the languages.
In addition, if I were wanting to be a pain, I could register icann_ru to beat ICANN to that address. And this highlights a larger emerging issue (and opportunity) as Twitter becomes more corporate and less personal — how to ensure that brand holders have access to their names. I always thought this would be a nice revenue source for Twitter, similar to the way that registries profit from domain registrations.
Ideally, Twitter would allow you to set up one address and then forward language-specific feeds to the subscriber based on their preference — sort of like how language negotiation works now with Web browsers. For instance, if I type in Google.com, the language I get aligns with the language preference of my browser.
But therein lies the challenge of Twitter — it doesn’t just send feeds to a browser. It sends the feeds to browsers and mobile devices and even Twitter apps, like Tweetie, which I use on occasion.
ICANN is now migrating its subscribers from icann_en to icann. No word yet on what will happen with icann_es.
What do you think Twitter should do to solve this issue?
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John works for Microsoft and is co-founder of Byte Level Research. This blog is personal and does not represent his employer's views in any way.
Tags: Domain names · Twitter · Web Globalization
