The technical side of Internationalization at Eventbrite or "Sh!t we're going global, now what?"

Sh!t we're going global,now what?

Renaud Visage / co-founder & cto / www.eventbrite.com / twitter @renaudvisage

Eventbrite & i18n in 2010


• US English site only, but used in 150 countries

• no strings marked for translation

• no i18n/l10n framework

• large help center only in English

• no non-English customer support

• all on .com

Fast forward to 2012


Successfully launched local sites in14 countries and 9 languages

.ca

Dec 201

1


here is how we did it and what we learned


PDFs

Emails

Front-EndDocumentation

SEOSEM

Help Center

Back-End

Javascript

Graphics

Marketing

Houston, we have a problem!


where do I start????

Roadmap to global domination


1. Assess your situation2. Get your localised site in shape3. Don't forget about everything

else

Are you unicode ready?


What's your domain name strategy?


Global dot com or local TLDs?

Pick the right database, framework and templating engine



I'm ready, now what????

Mark strings


from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

my_str = _("Welcome to the London Web Summit!")

<script>alert(gettext("Welcome to the London Web Summit!"));

</script>

<html><body><h1>${ _("Welcome to the London Web Summit!") }</h1></body></html>

HTML

JAVASCRIPT

PYTHON

Extract strings


pybabel

Mako and Handlebar Templates, Javascript Files, Python Files

strings.pot

#: django/templates/cool_template.html:26msgid "Welcome to Eventbrite! You chose wisely."msgstr ""

Translation strategy


low low

lowmed med

high

high

highhigh

Automate the translation workflow


Graphics are evil!


Localize your back-end


Total : 2.000,00Date : 1 mars 2013

_("Total:") <b>${ format_number(2000) }</b>_("Date:") <b>${ format_date('2013-03-01', format='medium') }</b>

if domain == 'eventbrite.fr':request.locale = FRLocale

MIDDLEWARE

HTML

OUTPUT

TADA!



cool! i'm done, right?

What about mobile?


Can you help me?


Want to get paid?


What about taxes?


What about marketing?


SPAIN sign-ups: SEM only

PORTUGAL sign-ups: No marketing activity

TLD Launch FRANCE sign-ups: Press and SEM


you're almost there...


long term, you don't need a dedicated international

team


...but you do need dedicated local teams


all your teams need to adapt to be a truly global

company


now, listen to your audience


and don't forget to...


...have fun!

Technology

The technical side of Internationalization at Eventbrite or "Sh!t we're going global, now what?"