A reader sent in a comment about the LinguaWeb search, which is a bilingual, Bahasa Melayu and English search engine. For those outside of Southeast Asia, Bahasa Melayu is a language spoken in Malaysia. It’s a Malaysian specific dialect [...]]]> A reader sent in a comment about the LinguaWeb search, which is a bilingual, Bahasa Melayu and English search engine. For those outside of Southeast Asia, Bahasa Melayu is a language spoken in Malaysia. It’s a Malaysian specific dialect of Malaya which is part of a broader language group spoken in Singapore, Indonesia, and East Timor. Bahasa Melayu is a localized language and only represents a small part of the world population. However as more Bahasa Melayu-speakers start logging on, they can become a specialized segment worth optimizing for.

LinguaWeb is unique in that it utilizes the Alexa search engine and performs an automatic computer generated translation of the results and related websites into Bahasa Melayu. It’s just like Altavisa’s Babblefish, expect of course babblefish doesn’t support Bahasa Melayu. Currently the market penetration of LinguaWeb isn’t all that spectacular but is sure to grow, and other search methods like it are also likely to grow.

Optimizing your website for bilingual, computer generated translation search engines isn’t all that difficult because most of the work is identical to your current SEO strategy with the translation being done on the search engine side. My recommendation is to use simple sentences which will also improve readability and to avoid idioms, because they almost never translate correctly.

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According to the Search Engine Journal blog, Ask Jeeves has released a new blog search engine for Japan. The launch coincides with the Google announcement earlier this week about the beta of its own blog search.

Apparently there are 3.35 [...]]]> According to the Search Engine Journal blog, Ask Jeeves has released a new blog search engine for Japan. The launch coincides with the Google announcement earlier this week about the beta of its own blog search.

Apparently there are 3.35 million Japanese blogs as of March 2005. Being a site about different languages and countries, I wonder if underlying culture plays a role in the acceptance of “blogger mania”. For example, can we expect traditionally censored China to embrace or push away the blogsphere? What developing nations can we expect to see the largest acceptance of blogs? Let me know what you think…

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Google is now offering Gmail in 9 additional languages including the Thai language character set. Users have always been able to read and write emails in Thai but now the whole Gmail interface can be viewed in [...]]]> Google is now offering Gmail in 9 additional languages including the Thai language character set. Users have always been able to read and write emails in Thai but now the whole Gmail interface can be viewed in the language.

Anyone who has used Gmail understands how revolutionary the service is because of its 2.5GB+ of free storage and unique ability to group emails into conversations. e-marketer sees Gmail as the best way to build an individual profile to advertise products. Doubleclick has tried for years to accomplish this through a network of media sites and individual profile surveys but fails in comparison to Gmail’s 2.5GB+ of a user’s archived emails.

What’s interesting as it relates to multilingual search is the aggressive rollout of thirty-eight different language character sets. After all, how many Tagalog language users could there be? Certainly a Gmail user in Thailand is worth a fraction of a comparable US consumer but with Google lagging or non-existent in the search markets for many developing countries; the superiority of Gmail can shift the tides. A complete “individual profile” is an uncanny advantage when entering a new market.

If you were not aware, Google has been serving up Adwords in Thai for quite sometime.

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An article in today’s Bangkok Post referenced a decision by M-Web to expand its online advertising/marketing business to include mobile phones. M-Web is a major player in the internet economy within Thailand and runs the Thai language portal [...]]]> An article in today’s Bangkok Post referenced a decision by M-Web to expand its online advertising/marketing business to include mobile phones. M-Web is a major player in the internet economy within Thailand and runs the Thai language portal sanook.com. The news signals an ongoing trend towards using personal mobile devices in combination with internet marketing.

The idea of multimedia and text messages on a mobile phone is a somewhat foreign concept in the rest of the world but makes sense in Thailand where almost everyone carries a cellular phone and few own a personal computer with internet access. M-Web is trying to gain mass acceptance of its online advertising engine by leveraging mobile popularity.

The divergence can also be seen from the mobile carrier side. All you have to do is shop around for the latest cell phone model to see that internet, photo sharing, and text messaging, are all standard. Add this with unlimited GPRS mobile plans and the internet is a touch away virtually anywhere in Thailand. As a marketer, you can’t ignore the power of the internet on mobile devices.

Americans are also catching on as trendy companies in the states are using mobile messaging to create a unified marketing front. A few weeks ago an article reported on Google using text messages to enable new gmail accounts. They claim it’s only for verification purposes…but there may be more to it than meets the eye.

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