Global by Design

Adventures in Web Globalization

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Entries Tagged as 'Software Localization'

Google Adwords unavailable (in 17 languages)

June 8th, 2008 · No Comments

I tried to login to Google Adwords recently and was met with the following “temporarily unavailable” Web page:

The page illustrates one of the many the challenges of managing a Web site that supports so many languages. Even something supposedly as simple as this temporary page is not quite so simple. There are a whopping 17 [...]

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Tags: China · Events · Google · Software Localization · US Hispanic Market · Web Globalization

The art & science of global navigation: June 3rd

May 11th, 2008 · No Comments

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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Tags: China · Domain names · Events · Global navigation · Software Localization · Vendors · Web Globalization

Google vs. Baidu: A User Experience Analysis

May 2nd, 2008 · 9 Comments

There are tons of articles about Google vs. Baidu, but few of these articles take an in-depth look at how Google compares to Baidu from a Chinese user’s perspective.
In this article, I do just that, and I render a verdict as to which Web site is better.
Search
The best way to compare search engine quality [...]

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Tags: China · Culture · Google · Guest Articles · Languages · Multilingual search · Software Localization · Web Globalization

Facebook hits German competitors

January 28th, 2008 · 1 Comment

If you’ve read this blog recently, you are aware of John’s reports on Facebook’s efforts to translate its Website into German and other European languages. I am a keen observer of the “kraut-sourcing” efforts. However, in Germany Facebook faces an entrenched competitor: “StudiVZ”.
StudiVZ is a social networking platform, very similar to Facebook. In contrast [...]

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Tags: Business globalization · Software Localization

Apple iPhone localization favors .com over country codes

November 9th, 2007 · 2 Comments

The Apple iPhone goes on sale today in the UK and Germany.
Awhile back I wondered how Apple would localize its Web keypad, which features the .com button to accelerate the input of URLs. I own an iPhone and really do make use of this button.
So I took a look at the German keypad demo today [...]

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Tags: Apple · Domain names · Software Localization

iGoogle: Now in 42 Languages

October 19th, 2007 · 1 Comment

The customized Google home page known as iGoogle has been localized into a bunch of additional languages, bringing the grand total to 42. Here are the most recently added languages:
- Arabic
- Bulgarian
- Catalian
- Croatian
- Icelandic
- Indonesian
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Malay
- Serbian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Tagalog
Since languages span borders, the total number of country domains now supported by [...]

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Tags: Arabic · Business globalization · Google · Languages · Software Localization · Translation