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
December 30, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
So I read today about Intel's new branding campaign set to launch next week during CES. I had no idea that when Intel hired Samsung marketing chief Erik Kim to take over their branding that he would bring his love for angled ovals with him. But, sure enough, the new Intel logo appears to be channeling Samsung:
Intel's soon-to-be-old logo...
plus Samsung's current logo...
equals Intel's new logo
So here's what I think Samsung should do, just to keep things interesting...
After all, angled ovally logos are old news.
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December 27, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
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December 26, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
2006 is a few days away and I can't resist looking into my crystal ball to see what the year holds for all of us in the Web globalization industry.
But before reading my take on the year ahead, let's see how I did on my 2005 predictions:
2005 Predictions Scorecard
Web Globalization Goes Mainstream - Correct
While Web globalization isn't exactly front page news of The Wall Street Journal, it is now viewed as a key component for growth in the years ahead. We have China and Tom Friedman to thank for this.
Amazon Adds Spanish for the US - Incorrect
Apple Launches iTunes Korea - Incorrect
These two predictions were a bit optimistic in regards to timing. While I still believe both will happen, it appears that licensing (in the case of iTunes) and budget (in the case of Amazon) remain roadblocks.
The Global Gateway Finds the "Sweet Spot" - Correct
I’m particularly pleased to see so many Web sites positioning or re-positioning their global gateways in the upper right corner of the Web page. This was the year that many, many companies began to invest in understanding how users around the world find their localized Web sites. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but 2005 was a good year.
I got two out of four predictions correct -– a .500 batting average. I can live with that.
So, with this batting average in mind, here are my predictions for the year ahead...
2006 Predictions
eBay Launches eBay Japan
eBay ceded Japan to Yahoo! years ago but it can’t ignore this massive ecommerce market forever. Now that eBay is sinking $100 million into China it cannot afford to overlook the potential cross-border transaction revenues between China and Japan. Looking back, eBay probably should not have given up on Japan, but that's water under the bridge. It needs to get back there and I think 2006 will be the year it does so.
Chinese Becomes Number One Translated Language
This is an easy one. Chinese was already one of the hottest languages in the translation industry this year. But next year it will get hotter. I recently asked my newsletter subscribers about this and a whopping 87% agreed -- Chinese is the "it" language in 2006 (and beyond).
,EU used to host Corporate European Web Sites
With more than 100,000 pre-registrations, the new .eu domain is sure to make registrars a nice profit. But will it be a practical domain for businesses? I think so. In fact, we believe that by the end of this year a number of multinationals will begin hosting their European Web sites at this address. Few multinationals offer localized Web sites for every EU country, so this domain provides a nice way to "fill in the gaps" so to speak. It's not a perfect solution by any means, but it's a nice workaround.
The Large CMS Vendors Discover Globalization Workflow
I have long wondered why the large content management vendors like Documentum and Interwoven have resisted building globalization workflow into their products, instead choosing to partner with other vendors, such as SDL and Translations.com. The reason for this is that for years globalization workflow was not as critical to selling the CMS product. However, this will change in 2006 as the big CMS players notice that smaller players like Clay Tablet, Vasont, and Hot Banana are winning clients based on globalization workflow features.
Corporate America Discovers Machine Translation
I don’t expect 2005 to be the year that hundreds of CIOs run out and buy, say, Language Weaver's statistical machine translation (SMT) software. But I think a handful of forward-thinking executives will take the plunge and I believe they will see a positive return on their investments. Despite all the inherent baggage that MT carries (some of it deserved), the demand for MT will continue to push innovation and increase quality, particularly along industry verticals. I believe SMT is going to be just the ticket for a number of large multinationals. As more multinationals viewed translated content as a competitive advantage rather than a chore, MT will be taken more seriously. Translators are in no danger of losing their day jobs, but I do believe that their jobs will change in the years ahead -- and in a very good way.
Lionbridge Acquires Another Translation Company
Lionbridge has expanded production facilities overseas and will be doing well cash-flow wise next year. Now all it will need is more business, some of which it will get through acquisition. Organic business development takes time and Lionbridge needs to maintain a rapid growth curve. I honestly don't know what agency Lionbridge will acquire but I do believe at least one services acquisition is forthcoming. So who will Lionbridge acquire? Companies that look like good targets to me include Welocalize, Simultrans, McElroy, Luz, Translations.com, ForeignExchange, and VistaTEC. The rumor mill points toward Welocalize; I'm not sure Smith Yewell is ready to cash out just yet, but you never know. I'd like to see the Translations.com acquisition because it would place Lionbridge firmly in the Web globalization space, but the price might be too steep at this point.
I got some emails about my initial posting regarding Lionbridge's debt, which is sizable. But I do think the company will have a very good first half of 2006.
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Full Disclosure: I do not have a financial stake in any globalization services or software firm. You can read Byte Level's policy here.
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December 20, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
According to my local paper, Chinese language instruction is hot:
"I tell you, this Chinese fever is on again," Wong-Avery said. "Everyone knows it will be one of the most used languages in the world."
Even China is having trouble keeping up with demand. China says it needs 11,000 more language teachers for foreigners who visit seeking instruction. According to this article, "Last year, a record 110,844 students from 178 countries came to study at universities all over the country, a 43 percent increase from 2003."
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Posted by John Yunker
According to Shanghai Daily eBay is dropping its fee for online stores, matching competitor Taobao.com's free offering. Says the article:
Now why would eBay China do this?
According to the article, eBay China is hosting just 10,000 cyber stores as of the end of Q3 compared to 1 million hosted by Taobao.com. eBay was missing the mark when it thought that small business owners would shell out US$62/month to host a store when other small business owners weren't paying a dime.
Could Taobao be doing to eBay in China what Yahoo! did to eBay in Japan? To eBay's credit, it has registered a few million more individual users than Taobao, so it's way too early to make any clear predictions. Although this sudden change in business model is not a sign of strength, it is a sign that eBay isn't going to go without a fight.
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December 19, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
According to Business Week, China might soon revise GDP upwards by a whopping 20%. Says the article:
That would make China the world's fourth-largest economy, suddenly overtaking Italy, France, and Britain. And it would peg the mainland's output at 18% that of the U.S. and 30% as large as Japan's, "bringing us several years closer to the day (still a couple of decades out) when China's GDP overtakes that of Japan and the U.S.," says Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered in Shanghai.
What makes this increase particularly meaningful is that the service sector is playing a larger role than previously assumed in driving the economy. This means that China isn't just growing because the rest of the world is throwing money its way. Chinese consumes are actually consuming.
That's promising news for companies who want to begin selling to the Chinese instead of simply buying from them.
As a sidenote, according to my calculations, there will be more native Chinese speakers online by 2010 than native English speakers. a
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December 15, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
Robert Scoble has taped an interesting interview with Michael Kaplan, who's the technical lead in charge of the globalization of the upcoming Windows Vista OS.
If you've got a half hour to spare, it's worth a watch. It gets a bit techie at times but there are some grest nuggets of wisdom for anyone involved in software or Web globalization.
If you don't have the time, here are a few items that jumped out at me...
-> Vista is being localized into roughly 100 languages (some partially) -- this is, as I understand, about twice the number of languages that were supported by Windows XP. By the way, this blows away the number of languages support by Mac.
-> Microsoft is "opening it up" and "getting out of the way" -- which means that they know that they won't be able to localize Windows into a thousand languages anytime soon, so they are working to create the tools to allow folks around the world to customize Windows to their languages and cultures. I'm glad to see Microsoft doing this -- Michael introduced a nifty keyboard tool that you can use to create your own keyboard layouts. Very nice.
-> Vista will support roughly 200 locales. This is a big increase from XP. A locale includes such elements as language, date format, currency format, etc.
-> "You can't know everything" -- is Michael's advice to other world-be internationalization engineers. So true. This is one thing I really love about this field -- there are just too many languages and cultural nuances for anyone to know it all. It means that we're always learning something new and that teamwork is essential to success.
-> Get to know Unicode. Unicode came up several times during the interview. Microsoft was an early promoter of Unicode and Unicode truly has revolutionized global software development. The last remaining non-Unicode area on the Internet is the DNS -- which engineers are grappling with as we speak.
Anyway, it's a great interview. Check it out.
Michael also has a blog
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December 14, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
According to this New York Times article on the globalization of Sesame Street...
Last year, more than 68 percent of Sesame Street's revenues came from income from licensing of products. Japan started its own version of "Sesame Street" last year, and Sesame Workshop's 4 percent jump in revenue last year came largely from licensing agreements in Japan. Today, "Sesame Street" appears in more than 120 countries, and about 25 of them are co-productions. France had a more American version of "Sesame Street" in the 1970's and early 1980's, but stronger local competition pushed it off the air.
Now what does Sesame Street have to do with Web globalization?
Plenty.
Here are a few lessons that I take from my favorite childhood show...
Local competition forces you to localize better.
As Sesame Street has learned, the days of dumping dubbed videos onto other markets is coming to an end. Local competitors may not have the production values but they will beat you with the simple fact that they know their audience better than you do. So it's not enough to do one iteration of globalization - be it product or Web site - and be done with it. The competitive bar will continue to escalate. That's the great irony of globalization -- on one hand we see commodization and harmonization as Starbucks, and the like, blanket the world, but we also see differentiation of a different kind as global brands reinvent themselves locally.
Think about how well your name will travel.
Sesame Street has basically had to rename itself for every new market, driven in large part by that pesky "street." A brand name like Starbucks effectively avoids those difficulties. Of course, this isn't Sesame Street's fault -- and it's not necessarily a bad thing -- but if you're naming a new brand today, think how well it will travel.
Be prepared to sacrifice your stars.
In France, Big Bird was replaced by Nac and in India, Big Bird was replaced by Boombah. Why? According to the article...
"If it is to work in India, the Indian kid watching it should not feel it is American or foreign," said Niret Alva, president of Miditech, who said that the American version never made the leap beyond a niche channel in India to reach an audience of children estimated at more than 157 million."
I imagine the Sesame Street execs went through some real angst when considering whether to give Big Bird the axe. But the fact is that local partners are playing a key role in the creation of new local characters, driven in large part by new licensing opportunities. Which leads me to...
Local guides will make or break your local business.
Sesame Street has made itself open to local partners, which means sharing revenues, sharing risk, and investing a lot of time and energy. The French show took over a year to launch but my guess is that this time was well spent. Choosing a local partner is part art, part science -- with a fair amount of luck thrown in. And it can make all the difference.
PS: Keep your eyes out for a documentary titled The World According to Sesame Street.
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December 13, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
Ryan Coleman, CTO of Clay Tablet, writes a blog about the globalization industry called Found in Translation. I just found it today, although he's been publishing it since October.
I'm glad to see it and, while reading it, I wondered why we haven't seen similar blogs from execs at the large globalization software and services vendors such as Lionbridge, SDL, and Translations.com.
I'm not advocating that every company should publish a blog; these things certainly take plenty of time to maintain. But I do think there is a clear need for more information and opinions within this industry and I'd love to see a few knowledgeable and opininated people from within these large companies be heard. Perhaps this is something we'll see in 2006...
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December 8, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
Could eBay now be generating more revenues from outside the US than from within the US? I suspect so. If not, it's going to be REAL close.
This from the Wall Street Journal:
Though its domestic business continues to expand, much of eBay's growth is attributable to its international business. In the third quarter, international net revenue rose 43% from the year earlier period, to $408.9 million. U.S. marketplace revenues increased 29% to $449.5 million. Dutta said that eBay "absolutely expects" the international segment of the business to surpass the domestic part. He cited a strong performance in eBay's core international market, Germany, and said the company's user base in China is growing quickly. The company is eager to make inroads in China, where it faces stiff competition. In the third quarter, eBay added 2 million new users in China, bringing the total to 15.1 million at the end of September, Dutta said.
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Posted by John Yunker
It is only just the "sunrise" period for registering the new .EU domain and already it looks to be doing well. This article claims more than 80,000 registrations in the first two hours. It sounds like many of these are folks trying to squat on names like "sex.ue" and so on.
The sunrise period is a pre-registration period for companies that already own trademarks in the EU (which includes US-based mulinationals). The doors won't be fully open to .EU registration until April of 2006.
I've been following the evolution of .EU for over a year and I think it makes a lot of sense for companies that are doing business in Europe to have one. Few companies that I have studied have posted localized Web sites for all 20+ EU countries. Having this domain provides a more country-neutral address for targeting those countries for which you don't yet have a country Web site developed. That's not to say that domains like .FR, .IT, and .DE still won't be important -- but I think .EU will help fill in the gaps. And the registrars will be more than happy to sell you one.
Will we one day see .EU replace .DE and so on? I doubt it. Europeans still identify themselves by country, just as Americans identify themselves by state. Ironically, most Americans (and even non-Americans) tend to view .COM as a US domain, which it is not.
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December 6, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
Like Hollywood studios, video game makers are upping the stakes on global launches of new products -- trying to reach more markets more quickly. But to do so successfully requires a signficant investement in product localization.
Video game maker EA announced yesterday that it was opening a game localization center in Singapore for serving the Asian market. This was not a huge surprise as the company announced in its 2005 annual report:
We believe that in order to increase our sales in Asia, we will need to devote signiÑcant resources to hire local development talent and expand our infrastructure, most notably, the expansion and creation of studio facilities to develop content locally for each market. In addition, we may establish online game marketing, publishing and distribution functions in China.
EA generated 47% of revenues from outside the US and I expect we'll see that number surpass 50% by 2007, depending on the success of this center. Game localization is not as simple as localizing a Web site. Many of the violent products that sell well in the US won't make it past the censors in Asian and European markets. Which means the product itself must be changed.
It will be interesting to see what percentage of localization stays in house and what percentage gets outsourced. Babel Media is one such localization specialist and they've done quite well lately.
If you want to learn more, there's even a book out about video game localization and I interviewed the author, Heather Chandler, about six months ago.
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Posted by John Yunker
This is a great Wall Street Journal article on China's culture and how it relates to technology -- primarily voice mail.
An excerpt:
Many Chinese who have worked for inefficient, state-owned companies may not comprehend the idea of being obligated to return phone calls or to respond to customers. Plus, Chinese workers are away from their desks most of the day, conducting meetings in the traditional, face-to-face Asian style, Mr. Wang says. They don't expect anyone to be around to answer their office phone and check messages. That is one reason cellphone-based text messaging, which is cheaper than installing a complex office voice-mail system, is popular.
Nor do many Chinese expect to leave messages. Duncan Clark, a telecommunications consultant in Beijing, has voice mail in his office but says many people seem mystified when they call and hear his recorded message. Callers often say, "Wei? Wei?" -- the traditional Chinese phone greeting roughly meaning, "Hello? Hello?" -- over and over, believing they are speaking to a real person. Others consider it a loss of "face," or dignity, to leave a message with someone of lower corporate rank. "It's basically a cultural gap," says Mr. Clark, a Westerner who speaks fluent Mandarin.
Speaking of cell phones, according to News.com there are 3.6 cell phones for every PC in China, compared with a ratio is 0.9 cell phones for every PC in the US.
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December 2, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
According to the EU high court, "feta" is not a generic word; it is unique to Greece. Which means only the Greeks can make and market feta, kinda like "champagne" in France. Here's the article and an excerpt:
Despite its many imitators, Greece remained the main European producer and consumer of feta cheese, the court said. "The production of feta has remained concentrated in Greece, with more than 85 percent of (European) Community consumption of feta, per capita and per year, taking place in Greece,"
I find this sort of thing fascinating, but also troubling. As the article noted, where will this all end? Who will lay claim to mozzarella, gouda, bie -- you get the idea.
It seems to me that you shouldn't need a court to help you brand a product. And just because people can only get "sparkling wine" from a California vineyard doesn't mean you don't think of it as champagne anyway. But you can't blame the Greeks for trying to protect their cheese. They even have a Web site up: FetaMania!.
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December 1, 2005
Posted by John Yunker
According to Internet Retailer Reebok has just launched a Web site for the US Hispanic market: Barrio Rbk.
I'm clearly not in the target demographic as the site just annoyed the heck out of me. Why is it that shoe manufacturers see the need to cram as much Flash AV into every Web site they develop? Ironically, the Reebok store -- the place where you actually bring in a few dollars -- is still in English only. Nevertheless, I'm always glad to see another company embracing the 40+ million market in their own backyard.
On a separate note, I took a look at Reebok's global gateway at www.reebok.com. This has to be the first gateway I've seen to use gothic lettering; pretty nifty.
The links for Japan, China, and Korea should be in the local language. The last I heard Flash now supports Unicode, so it's not a technical limitation. I suspect Reebok left these links in Latin characters to prevent the appearance of "broken" links to Web users who don't have the necessry fonts installed to display Japanese, Chinese, or Korean scripts.
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