Visitors to websites written in Korean, Chinese, Arabic and other non-ASCII characters will no longer have to type URLs in English.  International domain names (IDN) are being tested on 11 pilot sites in these languages as well as Japanese and Greek.  The testing could be concluded by the end of this year.

The IDNs will make the internet easier to use for visitors to non-ASCII sites.  Right now, visitors have to type the website and email addresses in English, even if the website appears in Cyrillic.  Russian sites will be able to have their URL displayed in both English and Cyrillic.  Only http:// will be displayed in English because it is automatically added by browsers.

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Our friends at www.marketingexperiments.com are researchers whose mission is "to discover what really works in optimization".    They offer the following tips for optimizing Spanish-language websites:

• Make sure your landing page answers the following questions for your visitors:

              Where am I?  What can I do here? Why should I do it?

• Your headline should confirm the value of your site and let them know they came to the right place
• Try to quantify the benefit for the visitors: "Save 50% on your calls to El Salvador".
• Are there any cultural elements that will connect with them, such as having a famous Mexican actress endorse a beauty product?
• Test Google ads in Spanish and emphasize value in your ads.
• The entire experience should be in Spanish, including the shopping cart, to avoid losing visitors right before check-out.
• A dedicated Spanish-language site is better than a sub-domain because it communicates more effectively.  It can also improve the site's results in Google searches.

Last but not least, steer clear of online translators such as Google Translate because the poor quality of these translations "undermines your site's credibility, causing anxiety to your visitors...and it becomes insulting".

Photo by marciookabe. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Organizations - both public and private - receiving funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 must comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Title VI prohibits discrimination based on national origin, "including language access for limited English proficient persons".  State and local governments also receive federal funds so they must follow the federal statute.

"Limited English proficient persons" (LEP) are defined as "individuals who do not speak English as their primary language and who have a limited ability to read, speak, write, or understand English".  The 2000 LEP Executive Order requires both Federal agencies and recipients of federal funding to provide access to services to their LEP beneficiaries.

Although AIG has a Spanish website, many municipal governments and departments do not.  A random search of www.nashville.gov shows that the Metropolitan Development and Housing Authority has information on Fair Housing in Spanish, Somali, and Lao.  Spanish-speakers can learn how to recycle, take the Civil Service exam, or become a police officer, but if they need information from the Health Department, they're out of luck.  www.health.nashville.gov only has a link to the Spanish content at the Centers for Disease Control. 

Photo by Steve Wampler. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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March 19th, the feast day of St. Joseph the carpenter, is celebrated in Valencia, Spain with the burning of large, papier-mache and plaster statues know as ninots.  Las Fallas, or The Fires, is a five day celebration that culminates in the burning of the structures which satirize the famous, the infamous, and current events. 

The ninots can stretch several stories high and take up to a year to build.  On March 19 at midnight, the ninots are ignited simultaneously, destroying thousands of hours of work.  The festival is believed to have pagan origins, when fires were ignited for people to get rid of the old and to start anew.  It is probably no coincidence that this rite takes place on the eve of the first day of spring.

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