About this Author
John Yunker is founder of Byte Level Research and author of the widely acclaimed book, Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies and editor of Global By Design. He has covered the emerging field of Web globalization for half a decade and has published a wide range of reports dedicated to best practices in Web localization and internationalization.
About this blog
Going Global focuses on the risks and rewards of expanding into new geographic and cultural markets, from Web globalization to international marketing to global usability.
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Monthly Archives
September 28, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
Starbucks continues its global expansion with its first French locations, set to open in early 2004. Many pundits have warned that Starbucks will face anti-American resistance throughout the country.
I disagree. Starbucks will succees in Paris, just as it has in other parts of Europe, such as Spain, Austria, Germany and Switzerland. This is because Starbucks isn't perceived as a typical American retail chain; in fact, it now goes out of its way not to market itself even as a Seattle-based chain. Here is it's "About Us" statement:
What we are all about
Starbucks purchases and roasts high-quality whole bean coffees and sells them along with fresh, rich-brewed, Italian style espresso beverages, a variety of pastries and confections, and coffee-related accessories and equipment -- primarily through its company-operated retail stores. In addition to sales through our company-operated retail stores, Starbucks sells whole bean coffees through a specialty sales group and supermarkets. Additionally, Starbucks produces and sells bottled Frappuccino® coffee drink and a line of premium ice creams through its joint venture partnerships and offers a line of innovative premium teas produced by its wholly owned subsidiary, Tazo Tea Company. The Company's objective is to establish Starbucks as the most recognized and respected brand in the world.
Starbucks, with 7,000 locations around the world, knows full well that it needs a global market in order to continue its rapid growth. As such, it will sidestep many of the potholes that other American multinationals have fallen into as they expanded abroad. McDonald's initially succeeded abroad as a uniquely American company, which is one (of many) reasons today why it is also struggling abroad. Starbucks won't face this legacy issue.
However, Starbucks will need to do a better job of designing a global gateway. As shown here, the gateway is stuck at the bottom of the left-hand navigation column.
I predict that a year from now this global gateway will be moved to the very top of the page. For more information on global gateways, check out this latest presentation.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Business Globalization
Posted by John Yunker
I will be speaking on Web globalization at the Documentation & Training Conference on October 7th just north of Boston.
It's going to be a great program. Other speakers include David Pogue, Steve Krug and Mike Doyle. If you're planning on coming, please let me know so we can meet (jyunker@bytelevel.com).
Frankly, I'm just thrilled I don't have to get on a plane to attend this event!
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Posted by John Yunker
As any good craftsman can tell you, it's not enough to simply have the right tool for the job -- you also need to know just how to use it.
A Translator's Tool Box for the 21st Century, written by working translator Jost Zetzsche, is filled with expert advice on which software tools you'll need to save time (and make more money), the best way to use these tools, and which popular tools you can do without. I've read this guide firsthand and found it quite valuable.
In the guide you'll find:
-> Specific instructions for fine-tuning your operating system so it works best for you.
-> A library of freeware and shareware programs that allow you to operate more efficiently-and advice on which applications to avoid at any price.
-> Criteria to determine if you need desktop publishing and graphic software-and ways to finance it while attracting new clients.
-> An insider's guide to computer-assisted translation tools-what they are and how they can work for you.
To order, visit Jost's Web site.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Web Globalization
Posted by John Yunker
The New York Times has a great profile of Michael Everson, one of the many architects of Unicode. I hope some day there are more profiles like this about the many people devoting great chunks of their lives to the Unicode cause, people like Mark Davis, Asmus Freytag, and John Jenkins (to name just a few).
The article did a good job of describing Unicode -- something I find extremely hard to describe:
A more technical explanation of Unicode is this: When Mr. Everson sends e-mail in ogham, his computer isn't sending ogham letters through the ether. Instead, strings of 0's and 1's are transmitted, and when they arrive on a friend's computer, they generate on its screen the same ogham letters that Mr. Everson typed. Unicode is the master list that resides in both computers and translates individual letters and symbols into strings of 0's and 1's and back again. Most current software is Unicode-compliant, which means that this master list of all the world's writing systems has been built into operating systems, browsers and software.
Even though Unicode includes more than 50 different writing systems. it is far complete. I was surprised to learn that there are nearly 100 more writing systems left to be included, which means that we will likely not be around to see Unicode completed. I guess it's kinda like Boston's Big Dig.
Want to learn more about Unicode? Visit the Web site.
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September 13, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
Walgreens claims to be the first national pharmacy retailer with a Web site designed specifically for Hispanics: WalgreensEspanol.com.
One major problem with this new site -- it's near-impossible to find unless you already know the URL. Try visiting the main Walgreens home page: www.walgreens.com; as of today, there is no link to be found that will take you to the Spanish site. I suspect that link will appear shortly but the sooner the better; after all, I would bet that the people in charge of this new site are going to base its success partly on increased site traffic.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: US Hispanic Market | Web Globalization
Posted by John Yunker
RedDot, a maker of content management software, is using a rather unique global gateway, as shown here:
Notice how it uses ISO-specific country abbreviations, such as PL for Poland, AU for Australia. To my knowledge this is the first corporate site to make use of usch abbreviations. The European Union Web site has been using them for some time, but only as a navigation aid within the Web, not as a global gateway.
So does this approach make sense? I'm not convinced that most people intuitively know the correct abbreviations for their country. Care to guess what ZA stands for? Try South Africa.
The ISO country codes, listed here, rely on two-character combinations. Only so many country get characters that fit nicely with their English-language spellings. Which brings me to another point - an ISO code for any non-Latin-character country name is not going to be as user friendly as the country name in the native script, such as Chinese, Korean, etc.
But who knows. Maybe the ISO codes will gain ground. They do take up very little room on a Web page, which is always valuable.
A final RedDot note - the site does an excellent job of maintaining consistency between locales. Here is the Poland home page:
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September 12, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
An excellent editorial by Robert Wright in The New York Times about globalization. He does a wonderful job of showing how globalization is far from a new development, yet one that presents new challanges. Here's a excerpt:
Globalization dates back to prehistory, when the technologically driven expansion of commerce began. Early advances in transportation — roads, wheels, boats — were used to do deals (when they weren't used to fight wars). So too with information technology. Writing seems to have evolved in Mesopotamia as a recorder of debts. Later, in the form of contracts, it would lubricate long-distance trade.
All this is grounded in human nature. People instinctively play nonzero-sum games — games, like economic exchange, in which both players can win. And technological advance lets them play more complex games over longer distances. Hence globalization.
What makes globalization precarious is that nonzero-sum relationships typically have a downside: both players can lose as well as win. Their fortunes are correlated, their fates partly shared, for better or worse. As a web of commerce expands and thickens, this interdependence deepens. The ancient world saw prosperity spread but also saw vast downturns — like collapse across the eastern Mediterranean around 1200 B.C.
I'm going to have to get off my butt and read Robert Wright's book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. I also just realized that the book even has its own Web site.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Cultural Issues
September 7, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, people around the world generally approve of increased international trade. They also "think positively" of international and multinational organizations, such as the World Trade Organization. (Respondents were not too fond of WTO protestors.)
The study also notes that "majorities, in most cases strong majorities, in 34 of 44 nations thought the availability of good paying jobs had gotten worse in the last five years. And substantial majorities--82% in France, 67% in the United States, 63% in Mexico--thought the gap between the rich and the poor had worsened."
What does this all mean? Like all studies, it should be held at arm's length. After all, a person's experiences with globalization can vary widely. For intance, it's not such a bad thing if you save 50% of your stereo equipment, because of increased trade with China, but it's not such a good thing if you just lost you job to a call center in India.
Globalization is not all good and not all bad, like a lot of forces that have shaped this planet - languages, political movements, technologies. It is a double-edged sword that some countries are more skilled at swinging than others. The U.S., for example, has known how to swing that sword to its advantage for some time, but now other countries are honing their skills -- China, India, Russia. It will be most interesting to see how America reacts in the years ahead, as more and more countries start swinging their figurative swords at it.
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Posted by John Yunker
With the publication of Madonna's much-hyped children's book, The English Roses (Las Rosas Inglesas), Scholastic is launching a Spanish-language imprint, Scholastic En Espanol. According to the press release, Hispanics currently account for 17% of all children in the United States and by 2005, Latinos will constitute 25% of the U.S. population. The imprint will include translations of Clifford, Captain Underpants, and Goosebumps books, as well as original Spanish-language titles.
Here's the press release.
Scholastic has no Spanish-language Web content just yet, but I would imagine the RFPs are out right now. It's also unclear if the imprint will use include the tilde over the n. The press release left the tilde off of "Espanol." Accented characters are just one of the challenges English-only speakers encounter as they begin working with different languages. For starters, it's not clear how to even create these characters. To compound matters, URLs currently don't support accented characters (though that will change).
Consider the CNN Spanish site. The URL is http://cnnenespanol.com while the page includes the tilde, as shown here:
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September 4, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
This article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) explains the logistics of Madonna's foray into children's publishing.
Madonna has never done anything small, so why should her first children's book be any different? Her book, "The English Roses," will hit bookstores in more than 100 countries in 30 languages simultaneously. This is a bigger launch, in languages, than even Harry Potter.
As expected when translating into so many languages, text expansion was a challenge:
The large number of languages led to some tricky moments for Editoriale Lloyd, because some translations needed adjusting to fit the space allocated around the illustrations -- Nordic languages, for example, can be particularly long-winded. That is one reason why such complicated simultaneous print runs are likely to be confined to children's books where a small amount of text is easily wrapped around pictures.
I found the logistics particularly interesting:
A plant in Ohio, for example, is printing all 750,000 copies of Callaway's English edition for the U.S., as well as a Spanish edition and a French edition for Canada, both for subsidiary publisher Scholastic Inc. In northern Italy, Editoriale Lloyd SRL is printing copies in 18 European languages, from French to Faroese, the tongue of the remote Faroe Islands (pop. 47,000) northwest of Scotland.
Because of the hefty print runs, the individual publishers save money: the printers can get better prices for paper and the publishers save up-front costs connected with processing the illustrations. H. Aschehoug & Co., the book's Norwegian publisher, expects to save at least 30% in printing costs on its initial 8,000 copies.
Apparently, the cost savings will make the effort worth it; of course, this all depends upon the book actually selling in mass quantities, which I'm not so sure is going to happen.
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September 2, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
Thanks to Amy Campbell for pointing us to a note by Larry Bodine about the growing number of law firms with multilingual Web sites.
Apparently, Jones Day says it is the first law firm to make its Web site available in Chinese, which Larry says is not true. Regardless, it's nice to see the legal profession awakening to the importance of speaking to their future clients in their native languages.
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Posted by John Yunker
Excerpted from the Web site Cool News of the Day:
Wal-Mart de Mexico. Or Walmex, if you will, "is not a carbon copy of its U.S. parent," but it "is the largest retailer in Latin America and...the largest private employer in Mexico," reports Kerry A. Dolan in Forbes (9/1/01). Walmex claims "26 percent of Wal-Mart's $40 billion in international sales, the second-largest share after its U.K. operations." And even though "the Mexican retail market contracted 1.8 percent" last year, Walmex profits "grew 12 percent, to $476 million -- at 4.7 percent, a fatter margin than the 3.3 percent its parent netted." "We think Wal-Mart de Mexico is a very good model," says John Menzer, who is president of Wal-Mart's international division, and is already applying Mexican lessons learned to the Japanese market.
The model is to start small, relatively, as Wal-Mart did in 1991 when it initially "formed a joint venture with Mexican retailer Cifra." Wal-Mart actually waited six years before acquiring a majority share (62 percent) in Cifra, and another three years before changing its name. What Wal-Mart acquired from Cifra was a total of "six different formats, including apparel and restaurant chains that cater to the disparate income segments of the Mexican population." For example, Bodega Aurrera is for low-income Mexicans, while Superarama supermarkets cater to "middle and upper-income customers in urban areas." Then there are the Wal-Mart Supercenters and Sam's Club stores that are pretty much like those in the U.S.
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