Corante

About this Author
CORANTE 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.
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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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November 4, 2004

I've Never Seen This Global Gateway Before...

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Posted by John Yunker

Martin Duerst pointed out a global gateway that has to be a first of its kind, shown below:

absint_gateway.jpg

What isn't obvious in the photo is that these flags are actually animated GIFs that iterate through a selection of flags. When your flag appears, you select it and you'll be taken to your specific country Web site.

This is not the type of gateway I would recommend. Flags are almost always a bad idea - since they don't scale well and they also are not directly related to language in some cases. And the animated GIFs make it particularly challenging to arrive at your particular country. Nevertheless, I love to see the new and creative ways that companies tackle global navigation.

You can check out the gateway yourself here.

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