The top 25 global websites from the 2022 Web Globalization Report Card

I’m pleased to announce the publication of the 2022 Web Globalization Report Card.  This is the 18th annual edition of the Report Card, and it reflects another difficult year. And yet there is much to be optimistic about as we look …

Read more

Bookshop.org: The anti-Amazon is going global

As an author and small publisher, I’m excited to see the rapid growth — and globalization — of the online bookstore Bookshop.org. Bookshop.org positions itself as the anti-Amazon, by working with independent bookstores to share revenues more generously. There referral …

Read more

Singles day is coming! On many websites it’s already here

As I write this on November 5th, Singles Day (November 11th “11.11”) is nearly a week away. Singles Day is the world’s biggest shopping day, a virtual event that originated in China, popularized by Alibaba, and, thanks in large part …

Read more

Websites celebrate Chinese New Year: The Year of the Ox

This has become a bit of an annual tradition for me, taking a virtual tour of a number of global brands, seeing how they celebrate Lunar New Year (牛年), particularly to customers in China. As in years past, the color …

Read more

From AZMKIMI to MZOO: Chinese brands take over Amazon.com

Very interesting article by John Herrman in the New York Times about the rise of Chinese sellers on Amazon and their very interesting choices of brand names. From the article… Almost half of top Amazon sellers — those selling more …

Read more

For Flipkart (Walmart) and India: English is not enough

Earlier this month, I wrote about Amazon and India. Now let’s look at Walmart and India, via Flipkart, the leading online marketplace in India. Walmart acquired 77 percent of the company last year. According to TechCrunch, Flipkart is (finally) adding …

Read more

The tragic irony of Amazon vs. Amazon

Imagine if a Brazilian technology company created an online store called Appalachia. And, over the years, Appalachia.com grew to become a global giant, so much so that the company pursued exclusive ownership of the top-level domain Appalachia. So not only …

Read more

The internet may connect devices, but language connects people.

I had an OpEd published this week in the Los Angeles Times about the importance of languages — and the slow but steady increase in languages supported by the world’s leading brands… America’s biggest brands are increasingly multilingual

What’s the world’s most multilingual website? (2018 update)

A few months ago, I wrote an essay for Multilingual in which I noted that the world’s most multilingual website isn’t Google or Facebook or even Wikipedia. It is the website of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As I noted in the …

Read more