Global by Design

Google features a 4th of July logo at Google.com today.
This is not all that unusual; Google has been doing this for several years now. But there is an inherent flaw in hosting an American visual at Google.com: The .com address is not synonymous with USA.
I know, it’s a picky thing. And yet it’s not such [...]

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My second Lionbridge Webinar is scheduled for June 3rd at 1 pm EST and you can register for it here.
The topic is global navigation — why it’s so important and how to improve upon it. I wrote an ebook about this topic two years ago. Since then, geolocation and language negotiation have become more commonly [...]

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The Lionbridge webinar yesterday has been archived for those of you who couldn’t make it. You can register to listen to the call at the Lionbridge site.
And mark your calendars for June 3rd, when I will host a second webinar, also sponsored by Lionbridge, to discuss the many aspects of global navigation — from splash [...]

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Just because the splash global gateway is becoming ubiquitous, doesn’t mean that it has to be boring.
For those who are unfamiliar with the term, the splash global gateway is a landing page that allows visitors to self-select their language or country (or both). Based on the 2008 Web Globalization Report Card, more than 30% of [...]

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As a Web globalization geek, I really enjoy visiting Web sites that do not use English as the default language — and then trying to find a link to English content.
It’s a great way to understand what people who don’t speak English go through when they visit the global home (.com) pages of companies such [...]

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As we come to the end of 2007, it is safe to say that Web globalization has evolved from an ancillary activity to a core piece of the marketing puzzle at many companies.
So now it’s time to take a deep breath and take a shot at predicting the future of Web globalization. The following predictions [...]

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