Category: Localization 101

What Are the Best Languages for Your App?

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Patrick Yip

What Languages Should I Translate? You have a great app and you know by localizing that app will boost revenue and bring your product to consumers around the world. But where should you target first and which language should you start with? Those aren’t easy questions to answer. It’s been estimated that there are more than 120 languages in the world that have at least 10 million speakers. Among this enormous diversity, choosing the best languages in which to launch your

The Secret to Speedy Crowdsourced Translation

Posted on December 12, 2013 by Patrick Yip

The Early Bird Gets the Worm When it comes to crowdsourced translation, the sheer scale of the job can cause problems. The average app or website has so much content, and sometimes the community just can’t translate all of your materials very quickly. Meanwhile, by the time you’ve translated every part of your product, your competitors may have already moved into that new market and established a foothold that’s hard to challenge. Fortunately, with a few tricks, you can learn

Why Did Facebook Change Its Thumb Icon?

Posted on December 4, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Facebook’s thumb has disappeared on websites As you may have noticed, the iconic Facebook thumb icon has made an exit. Facebook’s Like and Share buttons, seen more than 22 billion times every day and embedded on 7.5 million websites are now getting their first ever redesign. The new Like button features the Facebook “f” logo instead of a thumb. It is white on blue, rather than blue on white. The same is true for the new share button, which replaces Facebook’s

How To Fix A Language Problem

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Educational Technology has Struggled to be Truly Global Technological innovations like massive open online courses (MOOCs) and collaborative learning platforms have the potential to transform education worldwide. They offer cheap, high-quality education that’s accessible, at least in theory, to anyone with a bit of spare time and an internet connection. The problem, though, is that educational technologies are usually available only in English. As a result, these innovative tools end up being least accessible to the very populations that

Is Your App Ready to Capture the Global Christmas Boom?

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Patrick Yip

It’s Going to be an “iPad Christmas” Back in October, Apple launched the brand new iPad Air, just in time for the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. At the company’s earning announcement a few days later, CEO Tim Cook predicted that it’s going to be an “iPad Christmas”. Apple expects that the holiday quarter sales will be $55 to $58 billion, with a gross margin in the range of 36.5 percent to 37.5 percent. Jonny Evans of Computerworld

Testing Mobile Apps in New Markets

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Test the Waters without Spending a Dollar (Almost) Why do startups hesitate to go global? Two reasons come to mind. One: budgets are tight, and there’s a perception that building a multinational brand will require some serious cash. Reason number two: failure seems all too likely. Startups are risky, and it can be daunting to venture into a new market, especially one with a different culture and a different language. We don’t think these reasons are especially convincing. Stepping

A Complete Guide to Translate Zendesk Content

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Introduction Customer service software, such as Zendesk, helps you provide efficient, high-quality support for your customers. But if your Zendesk is only available to English-speaking users, and you want to have customers around the world, even the best service platform won’t do you much good. This post will teach you how to translate Zendesk content using OneSky’s easy-to-use platform. In just a few minutes, you’ll be ready to start supporting customers all over the globe. Here’s what we’ll review: How

How to Engage User in Crowdsourced Translation

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Introduction Although it is cool to crowdsource your translation in order to give your product a local flavor, you can do more with your newfound talent than just translate. There are about a zillion ways to boost user engagement in crowdsourced translation. In this article, we’ll give you six specific ways to engage your users in your crowdsourced translation project. We’ll also break down the process of crowdsourced translation into three easy-to-understand stages. Pre-translation stage At the pre-translation stage, the

15 Tips to Motivate Your Crowdsourcing Translators

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Patrick Yip

For many crowdsourced translation projects, the most challenging problem they encounter is how to motivate their crowdsourcing translators. To move people’s heart is not easy, but there are some ways that work. In this blog post, we share 15 tips to increase your volunteer’s incentive to engage in your localization project. Problems Love Cannot be Forced The mechanisms of crowdsourced translation are love and loyalty. People do not engage in your project for monetary rewards, but for their fondness. However, it

3 Ways to Save Localization Cost for Your Apps

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Patrick Yip

How to save on localization cost Imagine that you are a taking a cab to sightsee in a foreign place. You tell the cab driver where you want to go. When the bill meter keeps beeping, your mind keeps worrying. Finally you get there, pay the bill, and just realize that you want to go a little bit further. But then the driver tells you, “sorry you gotta pay again”. What words come into your mind? Stupid, or…? Some developers may