When people think of streaming video, they likely think of YouTube. And not just in the United States. Far from being a repository of mere feline frolic, YouTube is an extremely robust platform with a huge global footprint. With two days’ worth of videos being uploaded every day in five dozen languages, your global marketing and social media campaigns can benefit from folding YouTube into the process. But how do you get started? Today’s post and our newsletter article give you some tips to consider.
In any market, you want your audio and video content to speak to the audience. But you don’t always want to create all that content from scratch for each market. So how do you take your global content and give it local flavor? Great voiceover localization can make your global training video, radio spot, TV ad or multimedia project speak eloquently in any language. Whatever style of voiceover you’re working with — from off-camera narration to carefully choreographed lip-syncing — there are some best practices that can make or break your project.
Here are some of our best tips for making sure your voiceover localization project speaks in a voice your target language market understands.
One of the pleasures of working on complex, interesting website translation and localization projects is watching firsthand how our team adapts and collaborates to meet the challenges of our clients.
It’s gratifying to say that Fitbit’s Japanese launch pushed us to do some of our finest work, and as president, I wanted to publicly thank everyone at Fitbit for the opportunity to help bring their innovative connected fitness products to Japan. The project was a team effort with substantial challenges.
Japanese translation is one of Acclaro’s specialties, and we’re excited to watch Fitbit’s growth in this new market.
The only thing that evolves as fast as the technology we use every day is the jargon used to describe it. The phrases “cloud computing” and “in the cloud” are employed on a daily basis by CEOs, CIOs, project managers, and advertising execs to describe a variety of technology and productivity situations in our network-obsessed culture. Like many others, you may have a general sense what “the cloud” is, but what, exactly, do these phrases really describe? And how does the cloud operate for international businesses?
Even if you haven’t invested in a cloud computing solution for your own business, global or otherwise, you’re probably already accustomed to cloud-based services. Whether synchronizing your eBook reading or streaming your music collection through Spotify or Rdio, you’re already relying on the tenets of cloud computing. In this post we’ll define that nebulous nimbus phrase, take a look at some of the pros and cons of building a business dependent upon it, and shed a little light on cloud computing in other countries.
So your business plan is in place and you’re ready to enter new markets. But is your content ready? Developing and managing international content for multiple language markets isn’t something that happens overnight. From creating localization-ready source content to figuring out a content management strategy, there are a lot of factors to consider. But with some advance planning, you can set your international content up for multilingual success. Read on for some of our top tips for smoothing the international content creation and management process.
Here’s one for the hardcore language nerds out there (like us!). We couldn’t resist sharing this article we discovered recently about a computer program developed by UC Berkeley and the University of British Columbia to reconstruct the vocabularies of ancient languages.
While you certainly won’t need to have your brand translated into proto-Austronesian anytime soon, the implications of the technology and its relationship to human linguists is fascinating to consider. Read on for a brief look into how computer scientists and language historians join forces to take us on a tour of major mother tongues.
The devil is in the details in any language, and when it comes to ensuring your brand communicates as clearly in Japanese as it does in English, the style guide is your translator’s best friend.
Creating and maintaining a style guide is a worthwhile investment in your brand’s future. Clarity, consistency, and maintaining an on-brand voice depend in part on access to a central reference for translators as they bring your company’s products and service to life in new markets.
Sure, with infinite monkeys, typewriters, and time you’ll produce a Shakespeare play or two, but can you really gamble your international client base on the idea? In this post, we’ll take a look at why a style guide makes a big difference in localization projects.
While heel height, skirt length or on-trend colors might change from season to season, the principles of successful video localization are truly timeless. Multimedia involves more components than traditional text translation and it can be a challenge to get the script, audio, and visuals to all combine seamlessly, much like putting together all the components of a stunning outfit or runway show.
You won't see us on a runway anytime soon, but you might see some of our clients. Last year Acclaro worked on video localization projects for the likes of Ralph Lauren, Tiffany & Co., and Saks Fifth Avenue. Read on to learn more about how we adapted their multimedia (while making sure they still looked good).
Effective communication is a concert of the writer’s and the graphic artist’s distinctive voices, harmonizing to express the same message. Good graphic design echoes the writer’s voice in its own abstract way. While some of the cultural context of language may get lost in translation, internationalization of graphic design, the rich visual component of your communications, will ensure that your brand and your message will reach your global markets and stakeholders.
In today's post, we want to give a quick explanation on how we select and promote our linguists (translators, editors, and language leads) and our continual quality control process for our language translation and localization services offerings.
The key to a successful project is ensuring that quality is implemented from the start, and qualification of our linguists is the first and a very important step in assuring a successful rollout. So, without further ado, may we present: our linguist qualification process!
Left to right, right to left — what difference does it make? When it comes to translating bidirectional languages, it can be a pretty big one. And if you want to expand your software business into the Middle East, Malaysia or Indonesia, it helps to understand the differences. Unlike English, bidirectional (or BiDi) languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu and Farsi read from right to left instead of left to right. Although it might seem easy enough to just switch directions for your Arabic or Hebrew translation, bidirectional languages can present some technical challenges. Here are some things to think about before you get started on a bidirectional translation project.
The imminent arrival of the New Year provides a perfect opportunity to analyze the technological innovations that wowed us in 2012 and take a peek at the shiny new ideas that will change our lives in 2013. Six trends caught our attention in 2012: gaming, eCommerce, search engine optimization and marketing, eLearning and training, applications, and multimedia. Looking ahead, these trends will continue to fascinate us as deeply interconnected innovations transform how we interact with each other close to home and globally.
When Breastcancer.org sought to expand their mission to Spanish speakers around the world, they needed more than just a run-of-the-mill translation of their website. They wanted a true partner who knew how to speak to their users accurately and compassionately, mirroring the effort and care that is evident on their English site. Acclaro is proud to have been selected as their vendor of choice. How did we meet the challenge? Read on to find out.
Today, mobile data and SMS networks are vital tools for transforming economies and are opening up access to developing markets. While Americans may be absorbed by how the newest smartphone app can be used to program their home DVR, developing nations are putting core mobile technology to work in all sorts of ventures.
In this post, we’ll take a look at why mobile application localization will help you might interact with your future customers in these regions.
Your brand image lives or dies in day-to-day operations. This holds true whether you’re in Beijing or Boston. If you’ve yet to launch your company in a new international market, have you thought what it will take to train your employees to represent you overseas? How will you ensure you’re making and not breaking your promises to customers?
Corporate training is a critical component of a successful global strategy, and your training programs will need the same sort of translation and localization attention that your website and other marketing and sales materials receive. Choosing and prioritizing the types of training materials you’ll need for each market is a good place to start. From there you’ll want to decide which educational platforms are best suited to your content, objectives, and budget.
In this post we’ll examine four different popular training methods and discuss some of the issues you’ll want to balance when deploying them globally.
Our resident globalization architect and localization geek, Jon Ritzdorf (see his Geek2Geek webpage) answers your localization and translation questions. Read on for the most recent Q&A about multimedia localization and how to manage a successful multilingual video project.
Are you launching your next global app for Android? Android currently holds the lion’s share of global markets, with a whopping 59% of global operating system share and a healthy lead in device share. (Google revealed earlier this year that there are currently one million Android device activations and fifteen billion Google Play app downloads per day!)
One of the well-known downsides to Android is how fragmented its market is, being that it’s multi-carrier, multi-OS, multi-device, multi-screen resolution, etc. However, you can alleviate some of these challenges with a little preparation.
As you begin to craft a localization strategy for going global with your application, let’s take a look at four Android-specific tips that can help you plot your course.
Despite Europe's economic woes, unemployment remains low in Germany and consumer confidence is on the rise. Germany is the powerful motor driving Europe’s economy forward. If you’re looking for strong purchasing power and 80+ million new customers, this Western European market is not to be overlooked.
To truly connect with German customers and get beyond winging it with your “Genglish,” you’ll want to invest early on in translation for this market. Among your top priorities will naturally be client-facing communications, such as your corporate website, marketing materials and product information.
Attention to detail will definitely pay off as you continually build and refine your German branding. In this post we’ll take a look at five pointers to help you develop your strategy and go to task.
Acclaro has grown a lot in the ten last years, but it remains an organization that’s focused on doing good as well as doing well. Our employees regularly participate in charity events, and Acclaro’s proud to support their efforts, sponsor their participation, and in some cases, even match employee donations! Acclaro also supports charitable organizations in each of its three U.S. locations, which keeps our eyes on the “local” even as our localization work has us thinking, emailing, and talking all around the globe.
At Acclaro, we've helped Fortune 500 companies, tech startups and leading American brands succeed in global markets with their innovative products. One of the ways we try and communicate the most current, cutting-edge localization news is through our blog. While we've already brought you the 10 most popular blog posts in our Q1 2012 newsletter, we'd like to continue our 10th anniversary blog series with the 10 most interesting posts we've done, to date. Check them out....
Smart, fun and useful. Acclaro shares news and tips on translation, localization, language, global business and culture.