Global by Design

Apple today announced the iPhone 3G — a tri-band phone that will operate in most countries around the world. So it’s no surprise that Apple wants to sell the iPhone in as many of these countries as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, Apple supports a consistent design across its many country Web sites. So when it came [...]

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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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Jane McConnell of NetStrategy/JMC is working on the third annual edition of the Global Intranet & Portal Strategies Survey and she needs your input.
If you are not familiar with the survey, you can read some key observations from 2007 on JMC’s blog Globally Local: 2007 Highlights. All survey participants receive a free copy of [...]

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Here are some more localized Chinese Web sites that have gone black:
McDonald’s

Cisco

Intel

Oracle

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If you visit the .com pages of Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Apple, and Amazon, you’ll see the usual bursts of color and promotional elements — that is, business as usual.
But if you visit the Chinese home pages of these five companies, you’re going to see the following:

Although white more commonly signifies death and mourning in China, [...]

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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The Lionbridge webinar yesterday has been archived for those of you who couldn’t make it.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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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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Just a quick note to let you know that my Lionbridge Webinar will be held a week from today. Here’s the link to register. The call will also be recorded in case you can’t make it.

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eBay recently announced Q1 results and, like Google, shows a significant rise in international revenues vs. domestic revenues. Domestic revenues actually decreased by 1%.
Here’s a visual I cranked out that illustrates eBay’s transformation over the years:

Like Google, eBay has foreign exchange rates to thank for the strong quarter, that is, a pathetically weak US dollar. [...]

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