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
November 29, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
In the recent Globalization Insider newsletter, there is an excellent article by Chuck Wrobel about managing names across different scripts. This is a real challenge for multinational organizations, and it affects many departments - Web, marketing, customers service, accounting. He tells how his company, Avaya, dealt with the many challenges.
Here is an excerpt:
Michael Everson, a typographer who contributes to the Unicode standard, stated recently in an article in the New York Times, “Imagine how you would feel if your name was François, but there was no ‘ç’ available. You would be irritated that your phone bill came addressed spelling your name wrong. Now, imagine if your language used a totally different alphabet, and you couldn't use computers at all because of it. It's a question of human rights, really.â€
International agreements such as NAFTA, GATT and the telecommunications trade agreements have lowered trade barriers, and the global acceptance of ISO 9000 has established the principle that quality must be defined in terms of the individual customer. Today, as trade barriers fall and quality standards rise, cultural barriers have become increasingly important. The people of the world prefer to work in an environment that is native to their own language and culture, and thus internationalization is critical.
Click here for the full article.
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Posted by John Yunker
According to this interesting Dow Jones article, Coke is recently launched a new beverage in Argentina that takes advantage of the local fondness for the yerba mate plant. Called Nativa, the drink is designed expressely for the market and none other, and interesting contrast from product development strategies designed to appeal to as many markets as possible.
Here's an article excerpt:
Coca-Cola, which spent 4 million pesos ($1=ARS2.875) to develop Nativa, is pitching the new drink as a natural beverage that taps into the core of the Argentine identity. The company has a similar strategy in Brazil, where it also makes a product for the local market - Kuat, a soda made from extract of the Brazilian guarana berry.
For the full article, go to: http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/031120/1601001494_2.html.
PS: Thank to the Reveries Web site for pointing me to the article.
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November 28, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
It is becoming much more common for companies to issue press releases after adding another language (or locale) to their Web sites. For example, Swagelok, a maker of "fluid system components," issued a release last week that said:
Swagelok expanded its scope of multilingual Web sites with the addition of a simplified Chinese site, located at swagelok.com.cn. This site is in addition to the traditional Chinese site available at swagelok.com.tw, as well as English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish sites.
So let's take a look at this site, shall we? You can visit it at www.swagelok.com.
Below are the English and Chinese home pages:
Swagelok English (click for larger view)
Swagelok Chinese (click for larger view)
I like how the site maintains a consistent design across languages. But do you notice any problems? On the lower right-hand corner is an animated graphic that was not localized into Chinese. Animated graphics, typically created using Flash, are not so simple -- nor inexpensive -- to localize. The company might be wise to consider scrapping visual with embedded text altogether as it expands the numbers of languages it manages.
Here's another graphic with embedded text:
One other item that is a bit odd. Notice in the global gateway below, how the company added "New!" next to the Chinese links. It's probably not a good idea to call attention to the fact that you've only just gotten around to translating your site for a market with a billion people. Also, it doesn't serve much value from a usability standpoint; after all, the text isn't in the native scripts. For various technical reasons, it is not practical to display non-Latin characters within a pull-down menu.
Swagelok might consider creating links to the Japanese and Chinese languages using native scripts, as shown below. This gateway, pulled from the Symantec home page, embeds Japanese, Chinese and Korean scripts within graphics below the pull-down menu so that Web users can view their languages in their native scripts.
Nitpicking aside, I applaud Swagelok for pushing ahead with its Web globalization efforts. I suspect we're going to see a growing number of similar Web globalization press releases in 2004.
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November 17, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
AT&T boldly announced today that it had launched a seven-language Web site at www.att.com/global.
I'll give AT&T and 'A' for effort and a 'D-' for execution.
The major problems have to do with navigation, or lack thereof. If you visit the "global" home page URL, you will arrive at the page below:
It is quite easy to locate you language here. However, who is going to instinctively know to input that "global" URL? It is safe to assume that a great many people will arrive via the more popular addressL www.att.com. However, if they arrive in this way, they will see this:
I looked and looked but could not find a link to the global home page. This is a problem, a big problem. But it is also a common problem among major corporate Web sites, particularly those in the early years of globalization.
Time and again I've heard from managing Web globalization projects who find they must fight and fight to get a "global gateway" added to their corporate home pages. Very often, the person managing the home page doesn't want to have to rethink the navigation scheme yet also does not want to add a new button somewhere at the top of the page, where it is most useful. Instead, we typically find links to the localized Web pages buried at the bottom of the home pages. Over time, as the localized Web sites become more important to the organization as a whole, the links tend to bubble up to the top of the page. It's funny how these things work.
Now let's look at my second major problem with the AT&T site: the addresses of the localized Web sites. Here are the URLs to each of the localized sites:
- English: www.att.com/global
- Spanish: www.att.com/espanol
- Chinese: www.att.com/chinese
- Japanese: www.att.com/japanese
- Korean: www.att.com/korean
- Russian: www.att.com/russian
- Polish: www.att.com/polski
These addresses are longer than they need to be. AT&T probably should have used the international languages abbreviations instead, such as JP for Japanese, RU for Russian. After all, if you assume that a Web user has great difficulty with the English language, why expect that person to type in needless additional English characters?
To complicate matters, the URLs are not consistently used. Notice below how the URL for the Spanish site redirects to www.consumer.att.com/global/spanish rather than espanol.
So Where's the Global Gateway?
AT&T, like most companies, needs to develop a "global gateway" strategy. A global gateway is an umbrella term for the visual and technical devices you employ to direct users to their locale- and language-specific Web sites. AT&T does use language-specific URLs, but fails to build in any global navigation scheme. You can read about Byte Level's gateway recommendations here.
The need for a gateway won't go away. Additional languages I expect to see on the AT&T site include:
- Portuguese
- Tagalog (Filipino)
- Vietnamese
- Hindi
And now some good news
AT&T offers language-specific support phone lines for all of these languages and also contracts out real-time translation support for any additional languages to a company called Language Line.
Phone support is more expensive than Web support. So it is in the best interest of AT&T that customers go to the Web first before calling. As it stands now, non-English speaking customers are still far better off picking up the phone.
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November 15, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
A.T. Kearney, Inc. and Foreign Policy magazine recently released their list of the top 20 most global countries. The survey takes a number of factors into account, such as politics, travel, technology and economic integration. This is the second year in the row that Ireland came out on top. The US is holding steady at 12.
THE GLOBAL TOP 20
1. Ireland
2. Switzerland
3. Singapore
4. Netherlands
5. Sweden
6. Finland
7. Canada
8. Denmark
9. Austria
10. United Kingdom
11. Norway
12. United States
13. France
14. Germany
15. Portugal
16. Czech Republic
17. Spain
18. Israel
19. New Zealand
20. Malaysia
Here's a handy visual (click for the full-size version):
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November 12, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
HIP Health Plan of New York today announced that it has added a fourth language, Korean, to its Web site: www.hipusa.com.
Now the press release isn't entirely honest. It says that Korean is the "fourth" language is in addition to English, Spanish and Chinese. Counting English as an "additional" language is a bit disingenuous.
Nevertheless, we applaud HIP for pushing forward with Web localization. At Byte Level, we've noticed a clear trend toward US-based companies localizing their Web sites to better serve Americans. Web globalization, as we have said all along, doesn't have to be about entering new markets; sometimes it's about protecting the market you already have.
The press release also claims that HIP was the first US health plan to add a language other than English to its Web site; it added Spanish two years ago (to our knowledge this claim is correct).
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November 9, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
According to this article, the government is in need ofa few (or few hundred) translators of Arabic, Farsi, and Pashto. Here's an excerpt:
The government is looking for linguists who can decipher both classified and sensitive material, said Everette Jordan, director of the National Virtual Translation Center. "The work we have right now we measure by the truckload. That's why we need all the help we can get," Jordan said during an address at the American Translators Association's annual conference.
You get what you pay for (or don't pay for)
A major reason why there is such a shortage of qualified workers is because the government pays so little. Right now they're promising contract workers between $24 and $38 per hour. Experts in Arabic translation can earn far more by focusing their energies on the for-profit sector, where they don't have to go through the cumbersome background check and polygraph. If the government is serious about getting these truckloads of materials translated, they're going to have budget accordingly.
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November 4, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
To succeed in software these days, you need really tight alliances and Idiom's "go it alone" approach over the years has cost it dearly. The latest warning flag came in the form of a press release from Idiom issued today. Here is the lead sentence:
Globalization Management Systems (GMS) leader, Idiom Technologies, Inc. today announced WorldServer(TM) support for Documentum 5, the latest version of Documentum's leading enterprise content management platform.
The reason this is such an odd release is because on this very same day Documentum also issued a press release, a release that appears almost at odds with Idiom's press release. Here's the lead from the Documentum press release:
Documentum (Nasdaq: DCTM - News), the leader in enterprise content management (ECM), today announced a new joint offering with TRADOS, the global leader in language technology, and Lionbridge (Nasdaq: LIOX - News), a leading provider of globalization and testing services. Extending existing partnerships, the three companies have worked together to integrate the TRADOS Language Server(TM) with Documentum 5, the latest version of the company's ECM platform. With this announcement, Documentum becomes the first and only content management vendor to integrate key language technology directly into its content management platform.
So here is Documentum announcing a "first" and Idiom announcing what appears to be pretty much the same thing. Very mysterious. The interesting thing about the Idiom press release is that there is no boilerplate quote from Documentum in it. In fact, I doubt Documentum had anything to do with that release.
I hate to be so cynical, but I just don't believe Idiom will be around this time next year, at least not as a standalone company. After all, even Documentum is no longer a standalone company. EMC Software recently acquired them.
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Posted by John Yunker
The San Antonio Express-News has an article on the growing number of bilingual (English and Spanish) ads.
Here's an excerpt:
There are "more Latinos in the United States than there are Canadians in Canada," Sosa said.
The Census Bureau has announced Hispanics are the nation's largest minority group, with a population of 38.8 million. And the Santiago Solutions Group, a national multicultural business strategy team, estimates the purchasing power of Hispanics will hit $675 billion this year.
"We find that smart marketers are doing crossover work more and more because they are recognizing the influential role that Hispanics have," said Manuel Machado of Miami-based Machado/Garcia-Serra Publicidad and president-elect of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies based in Virginia.
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November 3, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
This very interesting article is not about China but about the EU Parliament, and how it intends to manage its ever-increasing number of languages.
As the EU expands, so does the number of languages its governing organizations must support. Here are some article excerpts:
The European Parliament will echo with up to 20 different languages when the EU expands next year, and each will be instantly translated into the others. The result is a possible 380 combinations of languages -- as elected representatives from Finland to Malta make laws that will affect the lives of some 450 million European Union citizens.
And how's this for a amazing statistic:
On any given day, parliament needs between 300 and 500 interpreters, who are usually required to be able to work from at least three foreign languages into their mother tongue.
While it is relatively easy to find interpreters who speak three or four common European languages, it is rare that you find people who speak, say, French, German, and Finnish. As a result, a Finnish interpreter is required to translate both ways, known as 'retour', instead of in one direction (as is the common practice). In addition, the EU will use "bridge" interpreters to translate into a more common language that can then be translated again, which leads us to...
What the heck are Chinese whispers?
When you line up translators back to back, the odds of translations getting twisted around multiply. Mangled meanings are known as Chinese whispers - I have no idea why.
Learn Maltese and the world is yours.
Want a job abroad? Where you'll be in constant demand and well compensated? Simply hone up on your Maltese or Latvian...
"Finding interpreters with the appropriate language skills has not been easy. Nevertheless, in 2004, Latvian and Maltese will have the right to be treated on the same footing as French, German or English. "We need people that are university educated, have a good general knowledge and the highest language standards. That kind of person can get a job anywhere."
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November 1, 2003
Posted by John Yunker
For anyone who says that globalization is a one-sided game in which American is always the winner, I submit Kola Real.
Kola Real, known formally as Industrias Ananos, is giving Coca-Cola a run for its money south of the U.S. border. Based out of Peru, Kola Real has succeed by creating a product a lot like Coca-Cola, but cheaper.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Kola Real is doing pretty well outside of Peru too. It now has 4% of the Mexican cola market - the number one market for Coca-Cola. And it is only just getting started.
Here's an excerpt:
Coke and Pepsi once vied primarily with each other. Today both are fending off down-market alternatives -- either so-called B-brands such as Kola Real or private-label drinks sold by Wal-Mart and other big retail chains. These cheaper rivals can cut into Coke and Pepsi's profits and make it harder for them to raise prices to offset slowing sales.
The trend goes beyond Latin America. Big retailers in Germany, Great Britain and other European markets are selling more private-label cola, and B-brands are aggressive in Poland and Hungary.
One big reason: the switch to plastic. In the 1990s, plastic bottles largely replaced glass, offering a cheaper alternative that lowered newcomers' cost of entry in the soft-drink industry. Plastic also allowed larger bottles that could be sold cheaply in supermarkets. Supermarkets provide an important outlet for new competitors because Coke and Pepsi often dominate smaller stores.
Kola Real's strategy is simple: offer big sizes at low prices. In a Carrefour supermarket in Mexico City, a large display of Big Cola beckons shoppers with a price of about 75 cents for a 2.6-liter bottle. Nearby, bottles of Coke go for about $1.30 for a slightly smaller 2.5-liter bottle. On a recent day, housewife Lourdes Avila put four of the Big Cola bottles in her cart and said: "For that price, I'll try it."
In a few years we will see many more Kola-Reals take root and succeed against the major multinationals. Perhaps it is human nature (supporting a local company and an underdog) that helps fuel the success of these start-ups. And perhaps it's just common sense to go with the cheaper brand of cola. Most likely it is a little of both.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Business Globalization | US Hispanic Market
Posted by John Yunker
In a recent press release, ICANN, the organization in charge of the chaos that is our domain name registration system, has made multilingual domain names a priority (again).
Here's what the press release says:
ICANN announced it will launch a broad strategic initiative to enable new generic top level domains (gTLDs). The strategic initiative will include a two-stage approach to move to the full globalization of the market for top-level domains.
It is hard to get excited about anything ICANN says these days. The need for multilngual domain names is more than critical - and has been that way for a few years now. But for reasons beyond me, ICANN just never seems to make any progress.
I realize there are a number of engineers at the IETF who are quite concerned about a domain name system in Unicode. Right now, URLs support only a subset of ASCII. If we move to Unicode, there are 90,000+ characters that could occupy a Web address - many that look quite similar to one another. Imagine the spoofing opportunities for hackers everywhere! It is quite scary when you think about it. One solution is to force the registrars to play a more active role in protecting the Internet. I realize that this alone won't solve the problem; technical precautions will also have to be taken.
But in the end, URLs will support Unicode. Unicode makes up the core of our major software applications and it is quickly making its way into our Web pages. Google, for instance, using Unicode. Eventually URLs will support Uncode. It's just a question of timing and, of course, ICANN.
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