YouTube international localization
June 26th, 2007
YouTube’s founders, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, were in Paris last week where they announced they’d be creating "localized" YouTube in seven languages: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Polish and Dutch.
This comes a month after SytemSeminarTV started posting video content in French, German, Russian, Lithuanian, and Ukranian.
Why foreign language content?
Simple. That’s where the growth is.
More Int
Many people around the world speak English, but if want to hit them where their heart is, speak to them in their own language. Or at the very least introduce yourself in their language and then continue the conversation in English.
Here’s a sample in German
Categories: Internet TV
International video sounds great since we export to over 90 countries. Question: Does youtube have translators??
You said in your cover message “It’s the exact same principle as article marketing: Put your content on other people’s sites with link back to you.”
Where is the link back to your website and how do your post or engineer the link on YouTube or other sites?
I’m using YouTube for the moment because its easy. You can build ad copy and links to your site in your YouTube description, but ideally you’d host your own video with your own custom player that makes it easy to take viewers from the video to your ad.
Does YouTube have translators as in does it offer a translation service? No.
Here’s the e-mail I sent that pointed people to this post. I should answer your questions:
Here’s an EASY way to localize your
content. The beauty of it is that it
doesn’t require hiring translators.
How to:
1. Get your ecstatically happy customers
who are native in another language
to give you a video testimonial.
2. Post it to your web site
Done!
It’s that easy. No expense hiring
translators and you get the benefit
of a testimonial thrown in.
It may or may not be feasible for you to
conduct your sales in other languages,
but you can sure provide testimonials
in native tongues to catch the attention
of overseas buyers and win a little of
their trust.
Then you can continue the sale in
Engish. Fortunately for us English
speakers, English is the language
of business worldwide and many people
speak it as a second language.
Usually, companies hire “localization” vendors to translate their content into multiple languages.
Hiring full-time translators is usually not a good idea because the work involved with localization comes in short bursts.
And, localization also involves changing date and address formats and cultural consulting of software–not just pure translation.
All in all, a fascinating business. I’m glad I’m in it. 😉