I’m another recent Plaxo hire…I joined two weeks ago to lead Plaxo’s Globalization effort. It’s time for us to expand our international presence and show our international members that we really care about them.
It may seem weird to say we want to increase international presence when we already have members in over 83 countries and about 30% of our members come from outside of the US. The 12 countries with the largest Plaxo membership are:
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- Canada
- Brazil
- South Africa
- Netherlands
- Germany
- France
- Mexico
- New Zealand
- Italy
- India
Did you notice the same thing I did when I first saw it? Seven of these are either English speaking countries or countries where people speak English well and feel comfortable using it. We have nothing against our English speaking members; in fact, we love them. But one of our goals in 2006 is to enhance the user experience of our non-English speaking members and show the world what a smart address book can do.
Judging from visits to our site and search trends, folks around the world are taking notice. According to Google Analytics and Google Trends.
There is definitely a correspondence to our overall international membership numbers, and also a noticeable absence of Asian countries.
Back to Globalization; we are working to consider international users’ needs from design to development to localization to support. Yes, we are going to localize Plaxo! We’ll start with a few languages, with many more to follow. Can’t talk about dates yet, after all I’ve just started!
I’ve made a career of Globalization and am really passionate about it. If you are an international Plaxo member and have comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you. Please post here or email me directly.
– Regina Bustamante, Director of Globalization
