Multi-cultural Internet: December 30, 1996 issue of New Thinking

December 30, 1996 New Thinking:
Multi-cultural Internet

Website content management

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December 30, 1996

Multi-cultural Internet

By Gerry McGovern

A reader brought up an interesting point with regard to my Nollaig Shona Diobh (Nullig Hunna De-oov) Christmas greeting. He quite rightly pointed out that not all of my readers celebrate Christmas, and that communication on the Internet should take into account the fact that you are dealing with a global and multi-faceted audience.

I apologize for anyone I might have unknowingly insulted. I learned a very valuable lesson though.

I have often thought about the Internet’s tremendous potential for laser-point marketing. Such marketing targets a very specific audience with a very specific product or service. The Internet opens up brand new potential for laser-point marketing because it gives us the capacity to target ten people in every city and town in the world and create a sustainable market out of them.

However, if we are thinking about having a market composed of people from many places and cultures, then we need to be very careful about how we communicate with them. Our daily language and tone is generally the language of a single geographic space; a single nation or a single culture.

It will not be sufficient to simply translate this language onto the Internet, if we wish to reach people who live in very different environments and cultures to us. An immediate implication is that our websites should be presented in more than just the English language.

However, even within the English language itself, we need to watch our words, our tone and phrasing. A number of people who do not have English as a first language have praised my writing because they say it attempts to put across ideas without becoming over-complicated or elaborate.

I must say that I believe strongly that no idea is so complex that it cannot be explained in clear language. Often, the people who use complex language have not themselves got to grip with the core of the idea being communicated, and hide this fact with words which shine like jewels but are really quite plastic.

Because our Internet audience will be very diverse, if we cannot speak to them in their own language, then we must speak to them in an English which is easy to understand. We must also be careful to avoid sending ‘Christmas greetings’ to people who do not believe in or celebrate what we do.

If you are speaking in a personal capacity, then I suppose you can say what you will. However, if you are marketing your product or service to this Internet audience, then you must seek to understand where they are coming from, or else they won’t be coming to you.

America is the unquestioned leader in the Internet. However, some Americans have a habit of thinking their country is the ‘world.’ I have visited American websites which tell you to call their 1800 number, without providing any other number for people outside the States who cannot dial 1800.

If the Internet is to continue its rapid growth, it must become much more multi-lingual and multi-cultural. Perhaps here is an opportunity for European and other continents to gain some ground and valuable advantage?

Gerry McGovern

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Because our Internet audience will be very diverse, if we cannot speak to them in their own language, then we must speak to them in an English which is easy to understand.