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1/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
Leaping the I18N Hurdle
Corinna KühnContent & Localization Manager
mobile.international GmbH
2/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
Ingredients
• About the mobile.international GmbH• International Expansion• Hurdles in Sight• Custom-tailored I18N Approach• Possible Pitfalls• More in Store
3/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
mobile.international GmbH
• mobile.de: Germany‘s biggest vehicle market online– More than one million vehicles
online – 49 million visitors per month– 85 % market saturation with
regards to registered dealers (33.000 dealers)
– Number of Employees: 120; thereof Content & Localization: 3
• mobile.de ranked among the Top-Ten German websites
4/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
mobile.international GmbH
• mobile.ro: First international vehicle market, launched in October 2008
• mobile.eu: Follow-up marketplace launched in April 2009
• Division in Public and Professional Domain– Public Domain: Private users search and offer vehicles– Professional Domain: Registered dealers search and offer
vehicles benefitting from a range of features and tools
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Localizing mobile.international
• 7 languages on mobile.de (DE, EN, FR, ES, IT, CZ, RU)– German and English: Full scope available– Other languages: of the platform available
• 2 new marketplaces launched recently: mobile.ro in Romania and mobile.eu in Poland– Application Content in full scope– Marketing Material– Customer Service Documents– Legal Documents
• Tools for dealers in several languages
+
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Former I18N format• GNU Gettext: Format used until March 2009
– Gettext (GNU internationalization and localization (i18n) library)
– PO format used to store translations
• I18N setup: Open source environment– Content and Localization team worked in development
environment (Linux, Eclipse, branch/trunk setup)– Software Pootle used for access for onsite translators
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Daily Trouble• Overlapping Job Roles:
Technology and Content/Localization– Technical tasks (scripting, entering keys in templates,
taking care of working environment, testing builds) take up lots of time
– Script for extracting new/edited message keys: min. 20 minutes per execution
– Bug fixing time-consuming and far from the usual task set
• Import/export to translation vendor– Excel sheets via copy/paste– Complicated import/export of PO files
• No ID; message = key difficult tracking and historicizing
• Difficulties updating English source: Led to „fuzzys“ in all translations
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The Goal: Efficient Expansion
• mobile.international startsextensive international expansion beginning of 2008
• mobile.international starts using Scrum as a method of agile development
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The Goal: Efficient Expansion II
• Technoloy is prepared for expansion: – Base model of the software represents core for all countries– Country-specific adjustments take place at the core piece of software – Downside of setup: Any piece of texts is translated into all languages
• With regards to L10N, the preparations were based on the experience with the language versions of mobile.de „It‘s only translation.“
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Efficiency? Hurdle Nº 1
• Difference between language versions and full-blown marketplaces– Mobile.de consists of two major sections:
Public and Professional Domain– Language versions available only for a limited section of
the Public Domain– Setup of Professional Domain requires content input of
almost every department of the company: Customer Service, Billing, Dealer Sales, Marketing etc.
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Efficiency? Other Hurdles• Amount of content in need of localizing so far undetermined
and unstructured
• Each department had its own set of content in need of localization
• Content and localization produced higher workload than expected Overall number of words: about 90.000 – Product set differs from marketplace to marketplace – Legal and billing requirements vary (e.g. type of payment)– Brand name, phone numbers, email addresses, and SEO content need
to be localized individually
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Variety of Systems• Each set of content was connected to
a certain systematic environment– Content Management System (CMS)– Customer Relationship Managemant System (CRM)– Customer Support tool
• None of these systems includes localization support– No convenient import/export functionalities– No translation memory or alignment functionalities– No history or tracking of changes
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Variety of Formats
• Each system has its own specific format:– Word– InDesign– JasperReports– Database contents
• Expected from our department: Collect, adjust and translate content in all sorts of formats
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Localization E… what?!? Yes, we really want an „Engineer“
• Support was needed
• Hiring a Localization Engineer not an option
• Technical issues had to be addressed by the Localization team
• External support: Localization consultant
• Small knowledge within the company about I18N/L10N solutions
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I18N Utopia
• Connect all systems to one localization tool and use only one database
• Use only one exchange format with translation vendor
• Translations pushed to our team instead of us collecting every content in need of localizing
• Track changes and versions of both source content and translated content for every system
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Custom-tailered I18N Approach
Most urgent problems:1) Unstructured source content2) Different storage places for
source content and translations for all marketplaces
3) Translation exchange format (PO format)
4) Separate Localization from Technology5) Different formats of source content
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1) Unstructured source content Solution: Sorting the Docs
• mobile.ro: Content wilderness: Several types of contents, unclear amounts, unknown formats, hard to know who takes care of what etc. – E.g.: Estimates for about 5000 words increased to 13.000 words ;-)
• Excel solved the problem in a pragmatic way: – Listing all contents/documents needed for one marketplace
in one single Excel file– Used for scheduling and communicating deadlines– Reuse this file for each new marketplace
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1) Unstructured source content Solution: Content Ownership
• Clear responsibilities for one designated person:– Ownership for a type of content for all
marketplaces– First point of contact for all requests– Filing and versioning of the document in source
and target language
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Custom-tailered I18N Approach
Most urgent problems:1) Unstructured source content2) Different storage places for
source content and translations for all marketplaces
3) Translation exchange format (PO format)
4) Separate Localization from Technology5) Different formats of source content
20/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
2) Different storage places Solution: TortoiseSVN
• TortoiseSVN: Open-source versioning software that works under Windows
• One central filing system for different document types• Much more powerful than the network drive
due to versioning capabilites– Document name remains the same– History of the document is kept– Reason for changes are tracked– Documents can be locked (e.g. during translation)
• Each content owner has a login and password
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• Efficient exchange between departments and the localization team through TortoiseSVN Arrividerci “final.doc, really_final.doc, really_really_really_final.doc“!
• Legal: Versioning of important legal documents (E.g. Terms and Conditions or Privacy Policy)
• Creation of new marketplace: Copy sample directory and go!
2) Different storage places Solution: TortoiseSVN
22/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
Custom-tailered I18N Approach
Most urgent problems:1) Unstructured source content2) Different storage places for
source content and translations for all marketplaces
3) Translation exchange format (PO format)
4) Separate Localization from Technology5) Different formats of source content
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3) Translation exchange format Solution: New Format, New Luck
• Format change strongly recommended by consultant and vendor
• Huge step for mobile.international– Evaluate requirements for format change– Technology and the Localization team
discussed options– Project Study set up
PO goes XML
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3) Translation exchange format New Format: Pilot Project
• Pilot project set up in January 2009– Key format and XML scheme defined
– Definition of new workflow and processes
– Reduction of tech tasks for content/localization• Translation resourcebundles stored in trunk
• No more merging & switching branches
– Implementation of localization tool
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3) Translation exchange format Decision Made
• Decision for format change after successful pilot
• Implementation of new format (XML) and migration in March 2009
• Localization tool implemented for all members of the team– LPU, source, and target files as shared resources on
the network drive
Graphic: www.webdesign-guru.co.uk
26/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
Custom-tailered I18N Approach
Most urgent problems:1) Unstructured source content2) Different storage places for
source content and translations for all marketplaces
3) Translation exchange format (PO format)
4) Separate Localization from Technology5) Different formats of source content
27/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
4) Separate Localization from TechnologySolution: New Setup
• Team preferred going back to text and language instead of code and linux
• Localization tool and new setup improved the situation– Only Web Development team works in templates now
and prepares keys and default text– Content/Localization work with localization tool– Good team work leads to efficient distribution of tasks
28/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
Custom-tailered I18N Approach
Most urgent problems:1) Unstructured source content2) Different storage places for
source content and translations for all marketplaces
3) Translation exchange format (PO format)
4) Separate Localization from Technology5) Different formats of source content
29/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
5) Different formats of source content Solution: „Unifying“ the Format
• Actual goal - only one format – not met– HTML, InDesign, Word,
Excel still in use– Only properties files were
eliminated
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5) Different formats of source content Well … At Least Some!
• But! By using the Excel overview, TortoiseSVN, the new XML format, and a powerful localization tool we were able to get organized and scalable
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Achievements
• mobile.international well-preparedfor international expansion
• Time savings within the Content & Localization team
• Clear separation between Technology and Content/Localization
• Cost savings due to efficient handovers• Implementation of tool Professionalization• Benefitting from versioning systems
and scalable solutions
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Pitfalls: Watch Out For …
• Is your team able to work individually? Some tools might need shared resources (LPU, source and target files)
• Agile Development & Individual Projects: Can content and translation develop separately from the existing codeline? Does the setup support scrum? Does the setup support your configuration management?
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• Guest translators or reviewers: How do they work with your XML?
• Source Language: Is English really the best choice? Should inhouse Content Managers be „translators“ or content writers by role?
• Development: Does any other department need localization? Localization tool as mandatory for any localization
• Quality Assurance: How is the handover done with QA if the Excel file no exists?
Pitfalls: Watch Out For …
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More in Store• Go Agile: Completely integrate localization into scrum and
Quality Gate concepts
• Introduce more standards: Brand, phone numbers, email addresses: should be stored as variables
• Benefit from changes: Review English source texts without harming the translations
• Improve Quality Assurance: Set up methodological linguistic and cosmetic testing
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Thank you for your interest!
37/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH 37
mobile.de ranked among the Top-Ten German websites for six years
Source: IVW April 2009 (eBay and Google not measured by IVW)
Website PageImpressions VisitsschülerVZ 5.179.940.629 146.783.236
wer-kennt-wen.de 4.290.118.946 147.848.206
StudiVZ 3.830.587.937 164.266.312
T-Online Contentangebot 3.470.883.320 338.969.587
meinVZ 1.949.261.407 80.611.377
Lokalisten 1.685.496.898 39.278.222
mobile.de 1.465.844.286 49.359.258
Travian Browserspiele 1.030.793.905 14.859.182
Bild.de 1.025.396.094 87.642.569
KWICK! Community 943.720.627 25.968.927
38/34 Corinna Kühn - mobile.international GmbH
Source: Nielsen, Comscore, Internal metrics
2008 we became part of the eBay Classifieds Group
$ 250 Mio. revenue in 2008 86 Mio. global unique visitors 4.7 billion page views per month 24 Mio. total live ads 20+ countries
Acquired in 2004
Acquired in 2004
Founded 2005
Acquired in 2005
Acquired in 2005
Acquired in 2008
Acquired in 2008