91–100 of 343 posts
Sure, they could work on it, but for Google engineers cache is king, and for optimal performance they don't want to bother on personalizing that first access.
I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…
But then why doesn't Google just make it easier to set that setting? Honestly, when I'm in another country, I don't get too upset that Google results are in another language, I just get upset that I can't seem to find a simple way to change it.
Even then I'm probably giving Google too much of a pass, because they know everything about me. This happens even when I'm logged into Chrome. If they're able to target hyper-personalized ads to me, surely they know I'm an English speaker even when I'm in Mexico.
I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…
They have randomly served me the page in Russian, Turkish, Spanish, Portugese, Thai, German and Romanian. The only good thing is that the menu to change back to english is less hidden nowdays.
Yet to see it in my native Finnish. And all these without a VPN and from a domestic consumer ISP connection.
But it's not as simple a problem as the article wants us to believe. Local laws often dictate different content or function for sites and applications served in their jurisdiction, leaving the product with a hard choice: if Japanese law requires that I get a Japanese version (from a function point of view) of a site when browsing from Japan, but the browser settings request French language, I may or may not have a French translation of the Japanese function to serve.
I think a lot of the irregularity is just bad product management and engineering, but some of it is actually trying to deal with a hard problem.
I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…
Better explanation: monolingual people thinks that computers will always be configured to the local language and any other setup is a "misconfiguration". In real life a large number of corporations (and developers) have their computers configured with English as this is the main language of the coorporation and makes IT-support much easier. (we don't even need to talk about how badly botched many language translation…
Confusingly Google will also write some sentences half in english and half in the local language. E.g. "Google is also available in: " (rather than the full sentence being in the foreign language.
It's the kind of attention to detail that I've become accustomed to from them
I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…
I live in the French speaking part of Belgium and have configured all my devices in English for the past 15+ years. Apparently Google consider that if you are geo IP located in Belgium with your devices in English, you _have to be_ a Dutch speaker. While I would agree that French speaking Belgians are in majority using French UIs, there are exceptions. Please respect my browser settings! The solution? I have to put F…
I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…
Use browser and OS settings, always. Anything else is a mistake that will cost you users and business.
I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…
> My theory has always been that in any given country, there are far more native speakers with misconfigured computing environments than there are visitors and nomadic folks like me. But then why doesn't Google just make it easier to set that setting? Honestly, when I'm in another country, I don't get too upset that Google results are in another language, I just get upset that I can't seem to find a simple way to cha…