Earlier this month in his State of the Blogosphere update David Sifry posted that two thirds of the global blog conversation is in non-English languages. For example, 15% of the discussion is in Chinese. Also, as noted earlier, the most influential blog in the world is written in Chinese.
We at Edelman believe that in a world where conversation is king, it's critical that our global PR teams be able listen to the conversation not only in English but in their local languages. It's essential for our clients.
With this in mind, the me2revolution team at Edelman, which I am part of, has formed a relationship with Technorati to fast-track the development of localized versions of their offering in German, Korean, Italian, French and Chinese. Our PR teams worldwide will retain exclusive use of these sites as they are being developed, beginning with French this summer. These localized versions - which will include keyword/tag search and more - will evolve into more robust public-facing sites that everyone will be able to access beginning in the first quarter of next year.
Technorati is unarguably the leader in blog search and they are taking a global view. Like Edelman, they too recognize that the world is flat. They have alread made great strides to make their English site sort results by language using automated software. However, what they don't yet have are localized versions of Technorati that can understand what a user inputs in their native language and then give back related results. The one exception here is Technorati Japan.
This is the first in what we hope will be a series of collaborations with the Technorati team. It is designed to help our clients participate in global conversations. In addition to working with Technorati, we also plan to align ourselves with other companies that are developing outstanding technologies that will help us further this important goal. We look forward to hearing your reaction and ideas.
(UPDATE: More on this from Peter Hirschberg at T'Rati and Richard Edelman)
Technorati Tags: Edelman, Technorati
