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.
Upstart global CMS vendor Clay Tablet has announced the completion of its first two customer installations. I'm very curious to see how this company does in 2006; I do like its tightly focused Web globalization/CMS message.
The domain name system (DNS) was built by geeks for geeks. It was never intended to be all that user friendly -- and, for many people, it's not. That's one reason why search engines have come in handy -- because they function as a more usable front-end to the DNS. I can't count how many times I enter a company name into Google instead of trying to guesstimate its URL in my browser window.
So what's the solution?
A few years back we saw RealNames launch a workaround to the DNS in which companies could register their company name and all the Web user needed to do was input the company name. RealNames imploded in 2002 but I believe the technology is still being supported by somebody; I just typed a few brand names into my Safari browser (BMW, Coke, Apple) and was taken immediately to their corporate sites.
Today, I came across a press release from a company that is trying to do basically what RealNames did, only it appears to be a lot less usable. UnifiedRoot is developing a parallel DNS that would allow you to register a domain that completely bypasses the DNS we know and love, as illustrated below:
I don't see the value of this system. Large companies are going to register every country domain they need for IP reasons alone, so it can't be a cost issue. I could be missing something here, but so far it doesn't seem much easier than relying on Google.
What I think UnifiedRoot missed is the huge untapped potential for serving domains in non-Latin scripts, like Arabic, Cyrillic, and Chinese. The current solutions in this area are little more than hacks, and although the folks at ICANN are working on a long-term solution, they've been working on it for half a decade and still have a ways to go. It has to do with the immense complexity of migrating the DNS to Unicode and the numerous potential security issues that would result.
So while I'm glad to see UnifiedRoot taking a shot at building a better DNS, they're not there yet.
According to the Moscow Times, Starbucks "has regained the right to use its brand on coffee houses in Russia after a protracted legal battle with a trademark squatter who was asking $600,000 for the logo, the intellectual property agency said Thursday."
So I think it's safe to say that there are going to be a number of Starbucks locations opening in Russia in 2006. Starbucks already supplies a few hotels in Moscow but little else thus far. And a recent research report I've read said that the coffee culture in Russia is rapidly emerging, along with the country's economy.
While President Bush is about to enter China, another W is also set to enter the Chinese market -- the hotel W.
According to this article, the W Shanghai - Pudong will debut in 2008. And the W will have plenty of company -- every major multinational hotel chain has set its sights on Asia in general and China in particular.
Says the article...
InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG) recently indicated that it expects China to account for up to a third of the company's global expansion over the next three years, which involves adding up to 60,000 net new rooms. The company reportedly is aiming to manage 125 hotels in China by the end of 2008, a near threefold rise from the current levels.
SDL today announced its technology partner program. The key word here is "open" as SDL seeks to convey a partner-friendly approach to other vendors in the content creation and management industries. It also wants clients to know they can "plug and play" SDL software into a variety of other software packages.
This isn't an exclusive partnership, so there's always room for an Idiom or STAR to try to do essentially the same thing. But it is important that SDL form these types of relationships and the company is clearly on the right track.
The magic, of course, is in the execution. Here's the SDL press release.
Speaking of the press release, I'm still not sure SDL's new acronym: GIM (global information management) is going to stick. The companies I've been talking with lately still think and speak in words like "translation" and "web globalization." While I like what SDL is trying to do, I'm not sure this acronym fits the target audience. But time will tell.
And on a side note, two buzzwords that I'm seeing SDL and Lionbridge use a lot of lately are "velocity" and "ecosystem." And I don't particularly like either one of them. Why? Because I've yet to meet with a buyer of localization services ever use these words. Nobody says I need a vendor who "exhibits high velocity" or "embraces the globalization ecosystem."
Perhaps I've just been reading too many press release lately.
Google has added Google News Web sites for Brazil and Portugal. This brings the total of language and country specific News sites to 23, assuming I counted correctly...
Today Google also announced the opening of offices in Mexico and Brazil, part of its ongoing effort to expand its presence in Latin America.
Lionbridge announced recently the completion of software localization for the new Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. This project entailed the localization of the user interface and documention, which included an estimated 15 million words across 8 languages. This project sure kept a lot of translators busy.
This is also the type of project that only a few localization firms can handle. It requires a mix of engineers, translators, and project managers skilled in software localization. Also, the effective use of translation memory tools is essential.
This project began as a Bowne Global Solutions project and -- due to the acquisition -- was completed as a Lionbridge project.
UPS announced today that it has expanded shipping options for US-based sellers on eBay to include international delivery.
"The UPS shipping tools allow eBay sellers to calculate costs, request a UPS pick-up, track shipments, review transit times and print shipping labels for international shipments, all at the point of transaction."
Cross-border transactions make up a large and growing share of eBay's revenues. The UPS deal is one way to help accelerate this trend. The other tool that eBay hopes will help cross-border transactions is the recent acquisition of Skype.
Whenever I travel outside the US I get a kick out of entering "google.com" and seeing what happens. That's because Google makes use of two behind-the-scenes technologies known as "geolocation" and "content negotiation."
Here is the Web page Google took me to...
It is Remembrance Day here in Canada, which is why the logo has been localized. But also notice that I'm at the Google Canada Web page instead of Google.com. What Google did was look at my IP address and assume that because I'm now located in Canada that I'd prefer to visit the Google Canada site. But at the bottom of the Web page is a link that will take me to Google.com should I rather get back to the URL I originally input. Not everyone likes geolocation because it makes certain assumptions about what a Web user wants -- in my case it guessed incorrectly. Not suprisingly, international travelers typically complain about this Google feature.
Also, Google looked at the language preference of my Web browser and took me to the English Canada page. This is the "content negotiation" technology at work. Note that there is a link to the French-language Canada page should I wish to search in French.
I'd love to start collecting these country-specific and theme-specific Google home pages; if you collect a screen grab from where you live, send it to me at info@bytelevel.com and I'll post them.
According to this article Chief Operating Officer Satish Maripuri says Lionbridge will triple its India workforce over the next few years.
Lionbridge had its Q3 earnings call this morning...
With one month of the BGS acquisition under its belt, Rory Cowan says so there have been only "pleasant surprises" about the acquisition. He said that had BGS been under their belt for the entire quarter Lionbridge would have hit $100 million for the quarter.
In Q3, Lionbridge won new work in government and with a "global shipbuilding company." It is growing Merck to $7-8 million per year. Is doing more work with Google. I think Google could be a huge software client down the road if it begins to localize Web-based office applications. That said, Lionbridge is still awfully heavy into tech and software localization.
Other notes from call:
- Lionbridge is pushing Web-based translation memory tool Logoport hard. Has trained 1,000+ BGS employees on it.
- BGS had developed some machine translation software which will be integrated by Lionbridge with Logoport.
- Working through $15 to $20 million in cost reductions, a little more than half is due to head count. Consolidating offices in Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Beijing, Korea.
- Logoport could have a nice impact on margins by this time next year due to lower software (SDL/Trados) costs and translation memory leverage.
- Seeing the number of languages increase -- up to 80 languages required for a recent cell phone launch.
- Seeing more US-ES work.
That said, not all analysts are so bullish about the Lionbridge numbers -- a few on the call wanted to know "where's the growth?" Lionbridge stock is current down about 7 percent. Might be a good time to buy...
John Yunker is founder of 
