Global by Design

Taking Mobile Global: Tips for Aligning Mobile and Global Web Strategies

John Yunker — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:20:34 +0000

Here’s a new article I’ve written for UX Magazine on the importance of aligning global and mobile strategies. Too often, companies develop mobile apps and mobile websites without considering localization requirements.

Here are two previous articles I’ve written for UX Magazine:

Select Country; Select Language: Developing a User-Friendly Global Gateway

Philips improves its global gateway

John Yunker — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:37:40 +0000

I was happy to see that Philips launched a new (and improved) global gateway recently.

Below is a screen grab of the old gateway, as seen on the home page:

The menu was well positioned in the upper right corner, but it was a LONG menu.

And the use of flags was problematic for [...]

Web Professionals interview on web globalization

John Yunker — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:17:53 +0000

I recently participated in a 11-minute phone interview with Bill Cullifer, Executive Director of the World Organization of Webmasters.

We talked about web globalization and the 2012 Report Card. Here’s the audio link.

Who’s going to register .brand? Google, for starters.

John Yunker — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:42:57 +0000

This week, ICANN begins accepting registrations for the much-hyped and controversial “.brand” generic domain names. What this means is that companies will be able to register domains that function without any .com suffix.

So what companies are going to register these domains?

Jacob Williams of UrbanBrain writes:

Based on my own [...]

Windows 8 primed to win tablet war — at least in languages

John Yunker — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:26:46 +0000

When it comes to tablets, Apple is far and away the leader.

But later this year Microsoft is expected to unveil its Windows 8 tablet and, in doing so, will quickly take the lead.

In languages, that is.

That’s right. Microsoft recently announced that Windows 8 will support a whopping 105 languages (and [...]

Q&A with Jukka Korpela, author of Going Global with JavaScript and Globalize.js

John Yunker — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:46:41 +0000

What’s the most important thing you want JavaScript developers to learn from this book?
By making use of free tools such as Globalize.js, developers can easily adapt their applications for new markets with a minimal amount of work. For example, adapting the format of a date or number for a different country [...]

Canadians love their country code

John Yunker — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:19:50 +0000

Canada’s registry has posted some interesting data regarding the .ca domain, user preferences, and overall Internet usage trends. One graph in particular jumped out at me:

When it comes to banking, news, and ecommerce, Canadians vastly prefer the .ca domain over .com.

This data reinforces what I’ve been saying about country codes for many [...]

You Say Falkland Islands. I Say Islas Malvinas.

John Yunker — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:42:15 +0000

Remember the Falklands War?

I do and, yes, this does make me feel a little old.

For those of you who don’t remember, the war was fought over a group of small islands far off the Patagonian coast of Argentina.

The British won the war but the Argentines are still very attached to [...]

Hotels.com: The best global travel website

John Yunker — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:58:28 +0000

Hotels.com scored highly in the 2012 Web Globalization Report Card.

At 37 languages (in addition to English), Hotels.com is not the language leader in travel, but it’s near the front of the pack. And the company has been a leader in localizing its websites and apps for mobile web users. Most important, the [...]

France to offer support for actual French domain names

John Yunker — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:05:18 +0000

The French domain name registry AFNIC has published a PDF explaining why it will soon support internationalized domain names (IDNs). According to AFNIC:

As of July 3, 2012, it will be possible for anyone to register domain names under the .fr, .yt, .pm, .wf, .tf, and .re TLDs with new characters such as [...]

Beta On Board

John Yunker — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:59:20 +0000

Now this is the sort of sign I would expect to see on a car in Silicon Valley.

The Khan Academy and the kindness of translators

John Yunker — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:33:17 +0000

The Khan Academy is out to revolutionize education by providing a free online education through lots and lots of well-produced videos.

A core component of this revolution is the subtitling these 2,700 videos (and counting) into many languages.

To get there, Khan is relying on the kindness of translators.

Currently, [...]

Web globalization in a post-PC world

John Yunker — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:33:45 +0000

The 2012 Web Globalization Report Card is my first attempt at analyzing web globalization in a post-PC world.

By post-PC world, I’m referring to a world in which the website adapts not only to the device (PC, tablet, smartphone) but also to the user. That is, it’s not enough to adapt to an iPad, but [...]

The best global websites of 2012

John Yunker — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:43:01 +0000

I’m happy to announce the publication of the 2012 Web Globalization Report Card. This year, we reviewed 105 websites across 17 industries; the websites comprise 70% of the Interbrand Best Global Brands of 2011. This year, we also reviewed mobile websites and mobile apps, to better understand how companies were balancing [...]

Social Aggregation Case Study: KPMG@Davos

John Yunker — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:56:20 +0000

In my last post I noted how Cisco has created the social aggregation page: Social@Cisco. This page is simply a global template that allows Cisco to plug in different local feeds for different markets.

I should also note that KPGM has created an event-specific page specifically for the World Economic Forum:

Coming soon…

John Yunker — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:09:03 +0000

Slip Carefully

John Yunker — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:03:55 +0000

I came across a rather enterprising individual who is crafting and selling replicas of infamous “Chinglish” signs.

His Etsy store is called: All Your Signs Are Belong to Us.

Here’s a sample:

Adopt a Typewriter Today

John Yunker — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:36:10 +0000

Yes, I have a fondness for typewriters. And, yes, I am old enough to have actually used one regularly.

Mostly, I miss the way they sound.

I’ve memorialized two of my favorite typewriters in these notecards.

Russia’s Internet growth is just getting started

John Yunker — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:51:59 +0000

I checked domain registration stats from Russia’s registry and here are the high-level numbers:

If you combine IDNs and ccTLDs, Russia becomes the third-ranked country in terms of country code registrations, behind Germany and the UK.

But what caught my eye is that, according to the registry, only 44% of the population has Internet [...]

And another thing…

John Yunker — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:42:16 +0000

I recently received a t-shirt from Glyph Languages Services that I have to share:

The ampersand is composed of translations of the word “and” into 150 languages — from Afrakaans to Zulu. Very impressive.

Okay, now this is my last post of 2011. And I mean it this time.

One person’s workday is another person’s holiday

John Yunker — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:21:20 +0000

I was fresh out of college and living in Australia when I first experienced Boxing Day.

I was clueless. I thought the Aussies were unusually eager fans of, well, boxing.

If only I had Wikipedia back then.

Now, Boxing Day simply reminds me that one person’s workday is another person’s holiday.

Apple is celebrating [...]

World Peace

John Yunker — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:07:41 +0000

See you in 2012!

Learning from the world’s leading travel websites

John Yunker — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:16:20 +0000

I wrote an article for UX Magazine (based on my research for Lionbridge) that highlights global best practices in the travel industry.

Travelers want websites that travel with them
In the travel industry, your customers are mobile. If you greet them with a “select country” pull-down menu, they might wonder [...]

Be Kind: It’s not easy creating a global brand name

John Yunker — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:39:25 +0000

From The Wall Street Journal interview with the founder of KIND Snacks:

WSJ: Kind recently became the subject of a trademark battle with Italy’s Ferrero SpA, a $10 billion candy giant, whose brands include Kinder. What happened and what did you learn from that?

Mr. Lubetzky: It was a minor incident [...]

How to localize date formats using Globalize.js

Jukka Korpela — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:32:56 +0000

Dates are often used as case studies to illustrate the risks of ignoring cultural differences. For example, the date 4/7/2011 could be taken to mean July 4th by some and April 7th by others.

Fortunately, the open source JavaScript library Globalize provides a relatively easy way of delivering properly formatted dates (and other [...]