Category Archives: Translation

SDL Asks Companies to “Switch”

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In a page borrowed from Apple’s playbook, globalization services/software vendor SDL is asking prospects to switch over to SDLX.

What is SDLX? It’s a computer-aided translation (CAT) software tool used by translators and agencies to more efficiently and more quickly manage translation. The leader in this space by a long margin is TRADOS.

And, as I written previously, it’s not easy to get companies and translation agencies to switch their CAT tools, particularly away from the market leader. That’s why I like SDL’s new Web-based campaign so much. It poses and answers the types of questions that prospects will naturally ask, like:

- Why switch?
- What companies have swtiched?
- How hard is it to switch?

My only question is will this campaign work as well for SDL as it did for Apple?

eBay Launches Kijiji, Challenging Craigslist

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eBay has launched of an international classified ads Web site called Kijiji, which the company says means “village” in Swahili.

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Kijiji is available for 50 cities in Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Oddly, Kijiji doesn’t support any cities in which Swahili is widely spoken; perhaps those Web sites are on the way.

My first thought when visiting the Web site was that eBay is trying to beat Craigslist to the world. I realize that eBay owns a piece of Craigslist, but not a majority interest. Meanwhile, Craigslist has been steadily launching sites for a number of international cities, from Bangkok to Montreal. However, Craigslist has to this point only launched English-language Web sites, which renders many of these international sites largely useless to the majority of the population. I’m also told that the categories have not been localized either, rendering them not only useless but downright silly.

eBay has the language skills in place to do international classified ads and it will be interesting to see if the Web sites generate the type of enthusiastic traffic that Craigslist has achieved.

Kijiji also creates an interesting dynamic in some markets. Consider Montreal. If you speak English, you have Craigslist; if you speak French, you have Kijiji.

One final thought: With Kijiji, eBay has officially re-entered Japan. eBay gave up on Japan a few years back, ceding the market to Yahoo! I’m glad to see eBay taking another crack at the market; it is simply too big to ignore.

Update: Here is a Reuters article on the launch.

Getting to Know Global IA

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I’m at the IA Summit in Montreal and have been pleased to find that IA (information architecture) professionals are tackling the challenges of content globalization in a big way. And this is a great thing, because the IA industry is critical to the evolution of truly successful global Web sites.

I’m not much of an IA guy, so I’ve been getting up to speed on industry buzzwords like facets and taxonomies and folksonomies. And the presentations by far have been terrific.

There were a total of four sessions that spoke directly to content globalization, touching on everything from translation testing to global IA (I gave a talk on one of my favorite topics, the global gateway). And there were a good number of attendees across these sessions — mostly internal IA professionals and their agency counterparts. I did not find one localization industry professional (besides myself), but I expect that to change in the years ahead.

Thanks to the efforts of Louis Rosefeld, Peter Van Dijck, Jorge Arango, Livia Labate, and many others, I expect we’ll see some really exciting things coming out of the IA industry, which will have a large impact on the localization industry. My personal goal will be to do what I can to get the localization industry and the IA industry to work more closely together to share insights and do a better job of advancing global Web sites, from taxonomy to translation.

PS: I spoke with more than a dozen IAs who are all working on brand new multilingual Web projects (from IT to services to apparel), another strong sign that companies have awakened to the importance of Web globalization. I said it before and I’ll say it again: 2005 is the year that Web globalization goes mainstream.

English is THE Second Language

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Newsweek International has published an article on the rise of English around the world. English instruction is a billion-dollar business and growing. But what’s most fascinating is that non-native English speakers now outnumber native English speakers. Check out these article excerpts:

    Within a decade, 2 billion people will be studying English and about half the world—some 3 billion people—will speak it, according to a recent report from the British Council.

    Non-native speakers of English now outnumber native speakers 3 to 1, according to English-language expert David Crystal, whose numerous books include “English as a Global Language.” “There’s never before been a language that’s been spoken by more people as a second than a first,” he says. In Asia alone, the number of English-users has topped 350 million—roughly the combined populations of the United States, Britain and Canada. There are more Chinese children studying English—about 100 million—than there are Britons.

Does this mean that companies don’t need to translate their Web sites?

Not exactly.

Every study I have read about the purchasing habits of non-native English speakers says that people prefer to purchase goods in their native language. That doesn’t mean they won’t purchase in another language, just that they’re more likely to purchase in their native language. Which is why we’re witnessing a rush of US companies creating Spanish-language Web sites for the US market.

The article also notes the fascinating rise of hybrid languages such as Spanglish (Spanish/English) Englog (Tagalog/ English), and Japlish (Japanese/English). Non-native English speakers are making English their own, melding the languages together in ways that is bound to keep grammarians pulling out their hair for generations to come.