If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you know I’m a fan of internationalized domain names (IDNs).
Over the past year or so, ICANN has approved more than 20 IDNs across a range of countries, scripts and languages. I’ve posted a running list here.
Today I’m happy to announce a new map that displays all current IDNs along with their ccTLD counterparts.
The map will be printed on demand. If you’re interested in a copy, you can order here.
In 2002, I launched this blog.
It was the first blog devoted to web globalization. In fact, I don’t believe there were any blogs devoted to translation either at that point in time. So I really wasn’t sure where this whole blog thing would lead me. Perhaps I’d lose interest along the way.
Evidently, I didn’t, for today marks blog post #1,000.
I’m not the most prolific blogger to be sure (and I relied on a handful of guest articles along the way).
But it has been an exciting journey. I took a few minutes to page through the archives and I’ve included below a number of posts that jumped out at me (NOTE: a lot of the news links are broken):
In 2002, China had fewer than 100 million Internet users. Machine translation was more of a punchline than a business tool. And at the time you could count on one hand the number of web sites that supported 40 or more languages. Today, there are more than 23 such web sites.
I also took a stroll through Google Analytics. Though I didn’t have analytics in place during the early years, here are the three most popular blogs since 2005:
Thanks for reading over the years — and all your input and comments!
When I first visited Japan, I was struck by the range of local products made by the Japanese subsidiary of Coca-Cola, like Georgia Coffee (in a can, no less).
This phenomenon is not unique to Japan.
Consider the recent AdAge article: In China, Multinationals Forgo Adaptation for New-Brand Creation.
According to AdAge:
In China, which overtook Japan in 2010 as the world’s second-largest economy, U.S. and other multinational marketers are going a step further by creating new brands specifically for the needs and desires of Chinese consumers.
Levi Strauss & Co. launched a more affordable brand, Denizen, for China last fall, and General Motors Corp. and other automakers are designing entry-level cars such as GM’s Baojun, going on sale later this year. The trend is also moving upscale, with Hermes’ new Shang Xia lifestyle brand. And PepsiCo is tapping the Chinese taste for green tea with Spritea, sold only in mainland China.
Brazil is also mentioned in the article; Coca-Cola and Pepsi have launched guarana-based drinks for the market.
The decision to develop local brands is not one made lightly. The expenses can be significant, but so too can the rewards. And this is where things get really exciting; there is no reason why locally created brands (like Spritetea) can’t one day be exported to other markets.
After all, Georgia coffee is now also sold in Singapore, South Korea, India and Bahrain. Perhaps someday we’ll see it in the US.
When I think about the globalization of brands in general, very few were “global by design.” Sometimes global success is by design, but more often it is by accident.
I’m pleased to announce the publication of the 2011 Web Globalization Report Card. This year, we reviewed 250 web sites across 25 industries. The web sites represent nearly half of the Fortune 100 and nearly all of the Interbrand Global 100.
Out of these 250 sites, here are the top 25 overall:
Google, which has held the number one spot for years, was unseated by Facebook this year. Facebook’s recent innovations (multilingual social plugins, improved global gateway, multilingual user profiles) gave it the edge. (I’ve devoted a separate report to Facebook’s innovations.)
Companies like 3M, Cisco, Philips, and NIVEA have become regular faces in the top 25. But there are some new faces as well. There are five companies new this year to the top 25: Volkswagen, Adobe, Shell, Skype, and DHL.
Although these 25 web sites represent a wide range of industries, they all share a high degree of global consistency and impressive support for languages. They average 58 languages — which is more than twice the average for all 250 sites reviewed.
The average number of languages supported by all 250 web sites is 23, up from 22 last year. As the visual below illustrates, language growth over the years has been amazing. Seven years ago, I was thrilled to find a web site with more than 20 languages. Today, 20 languages is below average.
Language is just one element of web globalization, but it is the most visible element. When a company adds a language, it is making its global expansion plans known. If you want to know where your competitors are betting on growth, spend some time looking at their local web sites. More than twenty companies added four or more languages over the past 12 months.
Fast-growing languages on the Internet include Hungarian, Turkish, Indonesian, and Russian. Here is where Russian stands today — now found on nearly 8 of 10 web sites:
The top 25 web sites are not perfect. The Report Card details many ways these sites could be improved (including Facebook and Google). That said, the executives who manage these web sites and services deserve a great deal of credit. As someone who has worked as both a consultant and an employee at companies such as these, I know how challenging it can be to get the funding to add languages and staff and to educate various teams on the many complexities of web globalization. While it may be the company names that appear on the top 25 list, it is the hundreds of passionate and bright people who got them there.
Congratulations!
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