Web Technologies phần 2 pptx

Analysis shows that localization company Web sites are less localized than the Web sites of their clients, the multinational companies.. Localization is the process of adapting products

management, online glossaries, and dictionaries,

discussion groups, or general information

applica-tions are just a few a examples of where the end

user can provide value (Reinhold, 2006) The

major difference between a wiki and blog is that

the wiki user can alter the original content while

the blog user can only add information in the form

of comments While stating that anyone can alter

content, some large scale wiki environments have

extensive role definitions which define who can

perform functions of update, restore, delete, and

creation Wikipedia, like many wiki type projects,

have readers, editors, administrators, patrollers,

policy makers, subject matter experts, content

maintainers, software developers, and system

operators (Riehle, 2006), all of which create an

environment open to sharing information and

knowledge to a large group of users

Sample Wiki URLs

Disney’s Parent Wiki (http://family

Originally developed by Netscape, RSS was

intended to publish news type information based

upon a subscription framework (Lerner, 2004)

Many Internet users have experienced the

frus-tration of searching Internet sites for hours at

a time to find relevant information RSS is an

XML based content-syndication protocol that

allows Web sites to share information as well as

aggregate information based upon the users needs

(Cold, 2006) In the simplest form, RSS shares

the metadata about the content without actually

delivering the entire information source An

au-date, and copyrights to anyone that subscribes to the feed The end user is required to have an ap-plication called an aggregator in order to receive the information By having the RSS aggregator application, end users are not required to visit each site in order to obtain information From an end user perspective, the RSS technology changes the communication method from a search and discover

to a notification model Users can locate content that is pertinent to their job and subscribe to the communication

Sample RSS URLs

Newsgator (http://www.newsgator.com/)

• FeedBurner (http://www.feedburner.com/)

• Pluck (http://www.pluck.com/)

• Blog Lines (http://www.bloglines.com/)

•

Social Tagging

Social tagging describes the collaborative activity

of marking shared online content with keywords

or tags as a way to organize content for future navigation, filtering, or search (Gibson, Teasley,

& Yew, 2006) Traditional information ture utilized a central taxonomy or classification scheme in order to place information into specific pre-defined bucket or category The assumption was that trained librarians understood more about information content and context than the average user While this might have been true for the local library with the utilization of the Dewey Decimal system, the enormous amount of content on the Internet makes this type of system un-manageable Tagging offers a number of benefits to the end user community Perhaps the most important feature

architec-to the individual is able architec-to bookmark the tion in a way that is easier for them to recall at a later date The benefit of this ability on a personal basis is obvious but what about the impact to the community at large The idea of social tagging is allowing multiple users to tag content in a way that

informa-users create an environment where the opinions

of the majority define the appropriateness of the

tags themselves The act of creating a collection

of popular tags is referred to as a folksonomy

which is defined as a folk taxonomy of important

and emerging content within the user community

(Ahn, Davis, Fake, Fox, Furnas, Golder, Marlow,

Naaman, & Schachter, 2006) The vocabulary

problem is defined by the fact that different users

define content in different ways The disagreement

can lead to missed information or inefficient user

interactions (Boyd, Davis, Marlow, & Naaman,

2006) One of the best examples of social tagging

is Flickr which allows user to upload images and

“tag” them with appropriate metadata keywords

Other users, who view your images, can also tag

them with their concept of appropriate keywords

After a critical mass has been reached, the

result-ing tag collection will identify images correctly

and without bias

Sample Social Tagging URLs

Mashups: Integrating Information

The final Web 2.0 technology describes the

ef-forts around information integration or sometimes

referred to as “mashups.” These applications can

be combined to deliver additional value that the

individual parts could not deliver on their own

One example is HousingMaps.com that combines

the Google mapping application with a real estate

listing service on Craiglists.com (Jhingran, 2006)

Other examples include Chicagocrime.org who

overlays local crime statistics onto Google Maps

so end users can see what crimes were

commit-ted recently in the neighborhood Another site

services will enable greater extensions of ups and combine many different businesses and business models Organizations, like Amazon and Microsoft are embracing the mash-up movement

mash-by offering developers easier access to their data and services Moreover, they’re programming their services so that more computing tasks, such as displaying maps onscreen, get done on the users’ Personal Computers rather than on their far-flung servers (Hof, 2005)

Sample Mashup URLs

Housing Maps: (http://www.housingmaps

• com/)Chicago Crime (http://www.chicagocrime

• org)Healthcare Product (http://www.vimo

• com/)Global Disease Map (http://healthmap

• org/)

User Contributed Content

One of the basic themes of Web 2.0 is user tributed information The value derived from the contributed content comes not from a subject matter expert, but rather from individuals whose small contributions add up One example of user contributed content is the product review systems like Amazon.com and reputation systems used with ebay.com A common practice of online merchants is to enable their customers to review

con-or to express opinions on the products they have purchased (Hu & Liu, 2004) Online reviews are

a major source of information for consumers and demonstrated enormous implications for a wide range of management activities, such as brand building, customer acquisition and retention, product development, and quality assurance (Hu, Pavlou, & Zhang, 2006) A person’s reputation is

a valuable piece of information that can be used

medium where buyers post feedback on sellers

and vice versa For example, eBay buyers

vol-untarily comment on the quality of service, their

satisfaction with the item traded, and promptness

of shipping Sellers comment about the prompt

payment from buyers, or respond to comments

left by the buyer (Christodorescu, Ganapathy,

Giffin, Kruger, Rubin, & Wang, 2005)

Reputa-tion systems may be categorized in three basic

types: ranking, rating, and collaborative

Rank-ing systems use quantifiable measures of users’

behavior to generate and rating Rating systems

use explicit evaluations given by users in order

to define a measure of interest or trust Finally,

collaborative filtering systems determine the level

of relationship between the two individuals before

placing a weight on the information For example,

if a user has reviewed similar items in the past

then the relevancy of a new rating will be higher

(Davis, Farnham, & Jensen, 2002)

sAmple user contrIbuted

Web 1.0 compared to Web 2.0

While the differences between Web 1.0 and 2.0 are grey at best, we can attempt to draw some segmen-tation by reviewing the high level characteristics Table 1 provides a side by side comparison of these technologies

In the Web 1.0 environment, information was largely static and controlled by a few resources Specifically, the individual or organization that produced this information pushed information to the end user by either controlling the access or limiting the feedback options Web 2.0 turns that model around and create a far greater dynamic environment where each consumer has the ability

to contribute to the overall value of the information itself Instead of searching and browsing topics, Web 2.0 users are allowed to publish and subscribe

to the content which results is a more bottom up implementation The following section will review how these new technologies can be integrated into the current knowledge environments that have traditionally followed the command and control model of information

enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 is a term used to describe the integration of the Web 2.0 technology portfolio inside of the organization Both the producers and

Table 1 Characteristics of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

Web 1.0 Characteristics Web 2.0 Characteristics

consumers of the information will reside inside

the organization If either of the customer

clas-sifications involve outside entities then the Web

2.0 tag should be used McAfee (2006) indicates

a new wave of business communication tools

which allow for more spontaneous,

knowledge-based collaboration These new tools, the author

contends, may well supplant other communication

and knowledge management systems with their

superior ability to capture tacit knowledge, best

practices and relevant experiences from

through-out a company and make them readily available

to more users For all its appeal to the young and

the wired, Web 2.0 may end up making its greatest

impact in business And that could usher in more

changes in corporations, already in the throes of

such tech-driven transformations as globalization

and outsourcing Indeed, what some are calling

Enterprise 2.0 could flatten a raft of organizational

boundaries; between managers and employees

and between the company and its partners and

customers (Hof, 2005)

barriers to Adoption

This chapter does not address issues around

in-frastructure or software selection The research

wanted to look at the barriers to adoption

assum-ing all other variables are constant and normally

taken into account on most implementations The

following barriers of adoption are not related to

the specific technology Rather, they focus on the

end user and the major issues impacted them This

makes sense in Web 2.0 the end user contributes

as much to the success of the implementation as

any other component

Awareness Issues

The awareness issue describes an environment

where of the majority of users have never heard

of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, and

Social Software More importantly, end users have not heard of the internal product offering, if one exists Communication is one of the most critical aspects of letting people know that a collabora-tive or social application is available Traditional information technology solutions were focused on

a single business process and the aspects of keting and branding were unnecessary However, for enterprise services this awareness can be one

mar-of the most critical functions performed early in the product’s life cycle Like e-mail and desktop Office applications, you want a high degree of awareness across the entire enterprise A high de-gree of awareness would be some where between 90-100 percent of the information workers within the organization

Educational Issues

End users may have heard of Web 2.0 through the media but they still not understand how the technology can be used in a business setting Once

an end user becomes aware of an application, the next phase is to ensure that they understand how the application should be used The educational area is critical since most employees above the age of 35 have not used these new types of tech-nologies

Cultural and Social Issues

When organizations have overcome the ness and educational gaps, then we can make the statement that the majority of the organization knows the technology is available and what can

aware-be done with it They may still choose to use their older technology that has been used in the past Not with standing political pressure, we are looking at cultural or social issues These issues can emerge when end users fear change, afraid

of new methods, or prefer to work in a command and control model

Political Issues

The final area focuses on the political pressure

organizations place on users Political pressure

may focus around strategic direction, vendor

as-sociations, or organizational structures In smaller

organizations, these issues may not be as big an

impact as in a large distributed environment

IntegrAtIon oF Web

2.0 technologIes

The studied organization is a Fortune 500

tele-communications company that has gone through

several acquisitions over the past few years With

the integration of three companies, the presented

framework went through several different field

trials over the course of three years This allowed

the research to apply the framework into three

different companies in order to test the validity in

a real business environment The framework was

developed after five years of trials in traditional

knowledge management systems The application

of the framework to collaborative tools started in

2004 and progressed through 2007 The initial

deployment focused on Microsoft’s Sharepoint

which is a collaborative tool that has most of the Web 2.0 elements described in the prior section (See Figure 1.)

common situation

While all three implementations varied by size of the firm, number of employees, and basic infra-structure, the implementations had one common characteristic Flat line growth occurred within six months in each of the deployments Flat line growth occurs when new orders show no growth over a three to six month period Figure 2 provides the different site metrics collected prior to the implementation of the proposed framework The lines have been cut off to indicate the point in time the framework was applied to the organization

In all three cases, the program had a solid ginning but reached a level of saturation between

be-90 and 120 collaborative sites For clarity, the number of collaborative sites continued to grow but could not outpace the same number of dele-tions A deletion occurs when a program, project,

or resource no longer needs the collaborative or social software environment On average, the leveling off of site demand occurred between five and six months

Figure 1 Adoption rates prior to implementing the framework

business model Framework

At the highest level, a business model is how an

organization creates value Timmers (1998)

de-fine a business in respect to the architecture for

the product, service, and information flows, the

benefits for the various actors, and the sources

of revenue In reality, an organization can have

a variety of business models, each is simply an

artificial representation of reality which detracts

focus from certain aspects while concentrating

on others (Kittl, Petrovic, & Teksten, 2001)

This research uses the concepts of a business

model, not in terms of commerce, but focused on

the various interacting parts required to deliver

business value Figure 2 provides an overview of

the business model used to describe functional

designation of work Some researchers refer to

this as the resource model

The model describes seven functional areas and

four portfolio or product areas Leadership and

management are two functional areas that will not

be covered in this chapter to any depth The basic

idea is that all information technology activities

by these two groups

Starting at the top of Figure 2, traditional implementations of information technology would include the operational and architecture functions Operations would include activities such as hard-ware monitoring, software installation, backup, recovery, security, and maintenance Computer Operations is a critical function to ensure delivery

of a reliable, scalable, and functional ture This area must be governed with a high degree of control in order to maintain the stability

infrastruc-of the environment Architecture focuses on the design, planning, and software selection within the enterprise Generally speaking, architecture includes the activities of defining and modeling the environment which may include the following architectures: business, application, data, informa-tion, technology, and product architecture (Pereira

& Sousa, 2004) Traditionally, these components focused on ensuring that the environment did not fail from an infrastructure point of view The vast majority of Web 2.0 implementations will focus

on these core elements to ensure that the program operates effectively The idea of an implementation

Figure 2 Implementation business model

over time The problem with this approach is that

having a perfect infrastructure does not

guaran-tee mass adoption which is the truest measure

of success In the case of internally developed

Web 2.0 applications or the utilization of open

source, the architecture area could be expanded

to encompass the entire System Development

Lifecycle (SDLC)

We can define success (mass adoption) from

two perspectives In any knowledge type of

ap-plication, you will have two key customer classes:

the producer of the information and consumer of

the information The producer is the person,

com-munity, or application that creates a reusable asset

in the form of information utilizing the Web 2.0

tools This might include a wiki page or ownership

to a specific weblog The consumer is responsible

for locating and accessing the information,

assess-ing the ability to reuse the information, adaptassess-ing

to the information and integrating the information

into the business The consumer might not actually

contribute to the environment in the form of

com-ments or informational update Production rates

for Web 2.0 applications are still relatively low

as compared to the number of users that consume

the information In one survey, only 11 percent of

respondents would even consider contributing to

Wikipedia while the actual number of contributors

is less than 1 percent overall When you have

mil-lions of consumers, a 1 percent contributor rate is

pretty good However, in an enterprise of 20,000

people that would indicate you will only have 20

contributors This demonstrates the criticality of

building up a producer community towards the

long term goal of mass adoption Not only do we

need to focus on the information contained within

the environment but also with the utilization of that

information The content must be used and to a

greater degree, the utilization of the content drives

the return on investment This is not a trivial point;

organizations must focus on the components of

success and understand that having great hardware,

software and functionality is simply the price of

technol-What collaborative products and services

• are available to me?

How can I utilize these products and

ser-• vices within my environment?

Who can help me in case I need some

pro-• fessional guidance?

Are the collaborative applications ready

• for enterprise usage?

How am I doing in comparison to others or

• against best practices?

In order to address these questions, tions should look toward developing a support group that can enable the end user rather than hindering their understanding of a collaborative environment Meeting the needs of the customer may vary depending on the level of knowledge

organiza-who are new to technology expect a high level

of reliability and support in order to gain the

greatest value possible (Johnston & Supra, 1997)

Customer service should not be homogeneous

and both the online and physical support

environ-ments need to take into account the experience

level of the end user (Dutta & Roy, 2006) The

customer wants to know what products, services,

and documentation are available to them within

the collaborative environment The content of an

online environment is not limited to the product

or services provided Rather, content includes the

solutions and strategies employed to make it easy

for the user to accomplish important tasks, such

as information retrieval, search, and obtaining

feedback (Calongne, 2001) Support information

or content should include the product and service

quantity, quality, and relevance to the customer

(Palmer, 2002) Technologists often make the

mistake of assuming a certain level of expertise

with the user community Unlike e-mail or

Of-fice products (Word Processing or Spreadsheet),

collaborative tools are fairly unknown to the end

user A Client-Support environment would include

many of the following components:

Training and Education

product and service development

Normally when you discuss the concepts around

a product, you think of products like Microsoft’s

Sharepoint, Confluence, Social Text, or IBM’s Connections These could be considered products from an architecture or operations point of view However, from the customer perspective these are tools A product solves a problem or generates value based on the consumption or utilization In other words, the product is what you can do with the tool Products in the Web 2.0 space include weblogs, wikis, collaborative intranets, virtual workspaces, RSS feed readers, book marking, and professional profiles Each of these can be catego-rized as a product regardless of the tool selected to perform the function Services would include both tangible and intangible value-add activities that go along with the products Services might include templates, user guides, editing, PDF conversion, education, and training Services must be delivered

to the customer and cannot be inventoried for later use Taken together, products and services provide the customer experience that encourages participation and end user involvement

portfolios

Not counting the infrastructure, the model tifies three additional portfolios including the product portfolio, the service portfolio, and the business processes The product portfolio would include the various products developed in the prior section Since most products are meta-physical in nature, they must be demonstrated in the online support environment The service portfolio will describe the services available to the end user The idea is that products must be demonstrated while services must be described Finally, the business process portfolio defines the business processes required to engage in the environment Taken together, a customer may engage with several products, services and business solutions which constitute a solution offering Assuming the ultimate goal of any Web 2.0 application is

iden-the mass adoption of iden-the customer base iden-then you

want to move up the value chain The value-chain

has been well documented by Joseph Pine II and

James H Gilmore

Pine and Gilmore (1997) discuss “the

ex-perience economy” by tracing the value added

to the coffee bean in its various iterations from

pure “commodity” to pure “experience.” In their

evolutionary construct there are four stages, in

ascending order of sophistication the stages are

commodity, good, service, experience They point

out that coffee is traded on the futures market at

roughly $1 a pound (thus, about 2 cents a cup at

the “commodity” level) After manufacturers roast,

grind, package and distribute the bean for retail,

the price jumps to between 5 and 25 cents a cup

(the “goods” level) At a “run-of-the-mill” diner

a cup might run from 50 cents to $1 a cup (the

traditional “service” level) The authors contend

that one can “Serve that same coffee in a five-star

restaurant or espresso bar, where the ordering,

creation, and consumption of the cup embodies

a heightened ambience or sense of theatre, and

consumers gladly pay anywhere from $2 to $5

for each cup.” Thus, by creating value at the

“experience” level, the seller is able to charge an

extremely high premium over that charged by

the “service” provider In defining their terms

they argue that, “When a person buys a service,

he purchases a set of intangible activities carried

out on his behalf But when he buys an

experi-ence, he pays to spend time enjoying a series of

memorable events that a company stages, as in a

theatrical play, to engage him in a personal way.”

The idea is that organizations that support the Web

2.0 implementation must move up the value chain

in order to obtain the mass adoption

Field trials

The first implementation of the framework curred in 2004 As seen in Figure 1, the deployment had already reached the point of saturation when executive leadership contacted the author’s team to see if the framework could be applied to the Web 2.0 area In the past, the framework had been suc-cessfully implemented in knowledge management type implementations These systems included prior research in metadata repositories, registries, and other knowledge applications Focusing on the left most line (Figure 1), demand had leveled off at around 100 collaborative environments with an average monthly variance of +/-5 percent The initial review and prioritization of activities focused on providing the online support environ-ment, automating the procurement process, and developing marketing plans These were seen as obvious gaps in the prior implementation model based on the author’s observations The author was also able contact various user communities in order to ascertain if these gap assumptions were true No official survey was used to collect the information other than informal conversations Figure 3 provides the results of implementing the framework over a 36 month period of time

oc-By the fall of 2007, the studied organization had over 13,000 collaborative sites with an aver-age monthly growth rate of 423.62 percent As the implementation matured, less focus was placed

on the business opportunity area and more on the client-support area This would make sense, since the number of employees that utilizing the collab-orative environment was around 95 percent of the employee population That is to say that 95 percent

of the employees had heard of and used some form

of the application which was determined by the unique user id logged into the system

In 2006, the studied organization was chased by a larger telecommunications company

pur-This purchase brought together three different

companies, all of which had an implementation

of the collaborative suite The adoption rates were

similar to those found in Figure 1, represented by

the two lines located on the right side of the chart

Executive leadership reviewed the

implementa-tions and determined that the framework needed

to be applied in the other two companies as well

The initial step would be to survey the new

orga-nizations to see where the issues lie in adoption

and determine which parts of the framework

should be emphasized Unlike the first field trial,

the author had no insight into the new companies

prior to the integration

survey tool

An employee survey was used to determine which

of the adoption barriers were prevalent Based

upon some initial interviews, the survey was

distributed via e-mail, and incentives were used

to encourage participation One hundred

employ-ees were randomly selected from the corporate

directory Two follow up e-mails were used to

encourage users to participate and the average

return rate was 72 percent The questions on the

1 Have you ever heard of Collaborative or Social Software? (Determine Awareness)

2 If you have heard of these, does your nization utilize them? (Cultural, Political,

orga-or Social)

3 What is the primary use of the Collaborative and Social Tools within your organization? (Education)

4 Please describe your overall impression (use, purpose) of the products in a few sentences?

5 Please describe your experience with these tools in a few sentences (accessed infre-quently, heavy user, loved it, etc.)

Notice that no specific questions were asked

to differentiate between the cultural, political or social barriers The reason for this was that the percentage was expected to be low as compared

to the other issues of awareness and education

In order to ensure the survey group didn’t know Collaborative and Social Software by other names,

a product matrix was included that showed the specific products like Sharepoint, Confluence,

or Open Source The results of the surveys are presented in Figure 4

Figure 3 Collaborative sites after the framework application

and September of 2007 The first response to the

survey showed an enormous awareness issue

in which the vast majority of end users had not

heard of the social offering or did not understand

how the tool could be used Over 77 percent of

the respondents indicated that the lack of

aware-ness or education was the primary reason for not

implementing collaborative solutions in their

environment Only 2 percent acknowledged the

actual use of the tools during the few years and

the remaining 21 percent focused on the cultural,

social and political issues This result would

indicate the need to address the awareness and

educational issues first

Field trials II, III and Iv

Based upon the results of the survey, awareness

and education were identified as the two main

issues The user community simply did not know

the tools existed or how they could be used in a

business environment The current deployment

could easily be expanded to the new organizations

will very little effort For example, the community

of practice was expanded to include the new

or-ganizations as was the ordering process replicated

across all three companies The client-support was

centralized as a one stop location for the end user

community to obtain information and support in

a self service fashion The results of these field trials showed a dramatic increase in demand in just a few months On average, the new organiza-tions increased by 1,608 percent and 78 percent respectively Key actions by the implementation team included the following:

• newslettersPosted to the corporate weblog and wiki

• dailyDeveloped audio and video training

• programsConsolidated business process into a single

• customer experienceExpanded the Community of Practice

• (CoP)Developed additional audio and video pro-

• grams for awareness and education

Figure 4 Survey results (percentage)

Integrated with other Collaborative tools

•

like Podcasting, Audio Conferencing,

Instant Messaging, and Social Software

Celebrated Key Milestones like the 25,000

Collaborative Environment

At the time of this writing, the total number

of collaborative sites had grown to over 28,000

with 2-3 million page views per month The

number of document objects exceeded 2 million

An additional survey was conducted in late 2007

which was similar to the one described earlier The

awareness and education problem of 77 percent

had dropped to 33 percent within the nine months

of implementing the framework

The final field trial occurred in mid 2007

with the deployment of Social Software which

included weblog, wiki, and book marking

applica-tions The major difference in this effort was that

the framework was applied from the beginning

Similar activities were performed including adding

an online client-support environment, training,

education, marketing, and extending the offering

with additional products and services Within 4

months, the total number of information points

exceeded 5,500

conclusIon

In this chapter, we have laid a framework to

support the implementation of collaborative and

social software As discussed, users come to this

technology with a wide variety of experience

levels which cannot be assumed by the technology

community Client-support must be implemented

if the business wants universal adoption and a high

degree of business value The different

compo-nents of the framework address the concerns of

the end user which can put them at ease and create

a more open environment for integrating this new

technology The framework focused on the issues

focus their resources on the components that define

a successful implementation The results of the field trials indicate that within any environment

or culture, mass adoption can be obtained With mass adoption, the return on investment of these technologies will be high

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key terms

Client-Support: Client-Support is a term used

to describe the various efforts to ensure the success

of an environment These efforts would include education, training, communities of practice, online documentation and automated business processes for procurement

Collaboration: Collaboration is defined as

people working together on non-routine cognitive work This activity is about behavior, work habits, culture, management, and business goals and value generated we people from diverse backgrounds come together

Information Worker: The information worker

is a label placed on individuals that primarily work with information and data Information workers perform non-routine, cognitive, or creative work that often requires both structured and unstructured information inputs from multiple sources

RSS: In the simplest form, RSS shares the

metadata about the content without actually livering the entire information source An author might publish the title, description, publish date, and copyrights to anyone that subscribes to the feed A feed reader application is required just as

de-an e-mail client is required to read e-mail

Social Tagging: Social tagging describes the

collaborative activity of marking shared online content with keywords or tags as a way to or-

Weblog: A blog (short for weblog) is a

per-sonal online journal that is frequently updated and

intended for general public consumption Blogs

are a series of entries posted to a single page in

reverse-chronological order These original entries

cannot be edit by others but can be commented

on by anyone

Web 2.0: Web 2.0 is a term used to decribe

the next generation of Web applications where

information flows both from the producer as

well as from the consumer Additionally, Web 2.0 embraces more of a thin client architecture which allows for the assembly of various components Together, end user conent and thin client applica-tions make the Web 2.0 environment

Wiki: A wiki is software that allows users to

easily create, edit, and link pages together like a blog, the end user can actually update the original authors information

Un-This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Electronic Collaboration and Organizational Synergy, edited

by J Salmons; L Wilson, pp 560-577, copyright 2009 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

Chapter 1.14 Security in a Web 2.0 World

Richard T Barnes

SunGard Higher Education, USA

AbstrAct

Web 2.0 has brought enumerable benefits as well as

daunting problems of securing transactions,

com-puters, and identities Powerful hacker techniques,

including cross-site scripting (XSS) and cross-site

request forgery (CSRF), are used to exploit

applica-tions to reveal and steal, at the worst, confidential

information and money, or, at the least, cause

trouble and waste time and money for reasons that

may be best described as fun or simply possible to

do The people interested in transgressing Web 2.0

applications do so for money, prestige, or for the

challenge An infamous hacker from the early days

of the Internet now heads his own Internet security

company A more recent hacker of some infamy

has created a stir of concern and consternation as

to how pervasive and potentially destructive hacker

attacks can be Securing Web 2.0 applications

re-quires a multifaceted approach involving improved

code development standards, organizational policy

changes, protected servers and workstations, and

aggressive law enforcement

IntroductIon

With the multitude of benefits derived from the various Web 2.0 technologies, it is unfortunate that this book needs a chapter on security Although the collaborations, synergies, and transformations of the collective Web technologies (known as Web 2.0) have immeasurably changed society in a good way, there is a bad element that we must recognize, understand, and defend against

The relatively open and participative nature

of Web 2.0 is, at once, a strength and weakness Opening sites to user content and comment creates synergies that would not exist had the sites been restricted to a select few However, it is difficult to restrict user input to only positive discourse; vari-ous motivations compel some to poison this well

we know as Web 2.0

Collectively, the responsibility and burden falls

on organizations and individuals to share in straining the enablers to minimize the damage to our 2.0 Web sites Although it is helpful to understand the motivations behind the various (and growing)

con-2007) The adage “the best defense is a good

of-fense” does not apply well to Web 2.0 security We

cannot proactively prosecute and punish someone

before they commit a Web attack; we may be on

the road to a changing world, but constitutional

rights cannot be trampled upon

It is likely that some are dissuaded by the

possibility of punishment if caught; but if only

a few carry out Web attacks, our best approach,

still, is to mount our best defense It is of course

equally important to prosecute security offenses

The threat of punishment has to be more than

theoretical: Offenders must know that if they are

caught, there will be consequences

This chapter will explore the motivations,

methods, and defenses against the malicious

be-haviors that cost time and money, and lessen the

positives that can come from these technologies

There have been notable attacks to prominent

Web sites; a few of these will be examined for

their causes and associated effects The evolution

of the World Wide Web into version 2.0 has had

social impacts, too What are these impacts, and

are there trends evident that may help us predict

where security attacks and defense strategies will

go in the future? Some possibilities are explored

here and in subsequent chapters

There is an old adage that says those who

for-get the past are condemned to repeat it This idea

cannot be forgotten in Web 2.0 security We must

remember how attacks happened before so we can

avoid similar attacks in the future By examining

the trends, analyzing our mistakes, and

understand-ing our needs, we can improve on Web 2.0 and

make it better That is how we got to version 2.0

from 1.0 Perhaps, as the Web evolves into what

some in the community are calling Web 3.0, the

lessons learned here will not be forgotten

bAckground

It is perhaps ironic that the following definition for application security comes from one of the best known wikis, Wikipedia Application security encompasses measures taken to prevent excep-tions in the security policy of an application or the underlying system through flaws in the design, development, or deployment of the application This definition is an excellent start in addressing

a very large problem However, it does not really tell us why; that is, why is it necessary to prevent exceptions to security policy?

A broader definition may help There are

sev-eral definitions of the word security: The freedom

from danger or the freedom from fear and ety are two variants that tell us why application security is so important to Web 2.0 applications Identity theft, corporate espionage or sabotage, and/or simple maliciousness are certainly enough

anxi-to give most of us some pause or anxiety tion security, as it relates to Web 2.0, is now an area of great attention because of our collective need to be free of these dangers

Applica-A confluence of factors has complicated our lives as Web 2.0 becomes a more significant presence The graphics-rich functionality, col-laboration, and opportunities have not only yielded

“serendipitous innovation” (Tapscott & Williams, 2006), but less desirable consequences, too.Consequences such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and cross-site request forgeries (CSRFs) were not anticipated when foundational Web 2.0 technologies were created Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (extensible markup lan-guage), or AJAX, is a set of Web development techniques that enable Web sites to be interactive and rich with features that make the static Web pages of a few years ago seem, well, static How-ever, it is through AJAX and other technologies

that Web attackers have created innovative ways

to, at the least, cause mischief, and at the worst,

cause severe harm

The subject of Web 2.0 security has a number

of important acronyms; AJAX is one Others

include XML, RSS (really simple syndication),

and SOAP (simple object access protocol; Shah,

2006) This chapter is not necessarily intended

to define and explain these terms, but more to

put them in context with the larger problem (and

challenge) of Web 2.0 security Much of the recent

literature talks of where the burden lies: with the

developers, with the companies, and with the

users The reality, however, is that at least some

of the burden falls on each of us

Developers can build security into the

applica-tions they write instead of adding security later as

an afterthought Companies can elevate security

to an enterprise-level initiative and build it into

the products they sell Although companies have

been victims of security incursions, especially

of late, the user has often been victimized, and

it is often at the user level where good security

hygiene is easiest and best applied

A comprehensive approach to securing Web

2.0 applications stands the greatest chance for

success It is not enough to say that developers

need to do a better job or companies cannot rush

products to market when everyone can contribute

to better security How ironic that one of the great

strengths of Web 2.0, collaboration, can, in effect,

help solve one of its greatest weaknesses!

securIty problems

And WeAknesses

AJAX in this context is not a cleanser made famous

by a television jingle, nor is it a reference to the

Greek who out of madness quite literally fell on

his sword AJAX in this context is a programming

technique that employs a few other successful

essential enabler of the Web 2.0 era, AJAX serves

as the technical nexus for the development of the rich, interactive Web sites that we now take for granted Capable of making direct communication with the Web server, AJAX Web sites can request server data without reloading the Web page These behind-the-scenes data exchanges occur without the user’s knowledge and provide a transparency

to applications that make them distinctly more advanced than their Web 1.0 predecessors.This direct communication between the Web server and Web application also provides an opening for application security transgressions (Enright, 2007) One method of attack, known

as XSS, involves the injection of malicious code into a Web page viewed by others The silent (i.e., hidden) execution of the AJAX code is perhaps one of the biggest areas of concern for IT security experts Because transactions are occurring in the background without the user’s knowledge and input, the potential for the execution of malicious code running unimpeded is large This code may run on the computers of unsuspecting Web site visitors, exposing the visitors to the possible theft

of sensitive information (e.g., banking tion, authentication credentials, etc.) There are several types of XSS attack methods; however, the common denominator in the end result is that the user’s browser always executes code that is,

informa-at least, not authorized, and informa-at worst, destructive

or compromising (McMillan, 2007)

Attacks using the CSRF method have been less common, but a large unrealized potential exists for more attacks (and more harm) in the future The

cross-site in CSRF is derived from the XSS method

explained above and denotes some of the larities between the two methods Where the two methods are most different can be denoted in the

simi-forgery part of the name According to

Merriam-Webster Online, a forgery is defined as an imitation passed off as genuine This is quite literally what the CSRF attack method does: Unauthorized (or

trust on an established (authenticated) identity is

how the Web has worked, and the CSRF method

exploits this common characteristic by imitating

the authenticated user (Waters, 2007)

XML poisoning is another method of attack

Web 2.0 applications transmit XML data between

the client and server as part of their normal

op-erations Although poisoning may sound a bit

overstated, the method will corrupt (or poison)

the XML data in such a way as to disrupt the

processing of the information The effect of this

poisoning can range from denial of service (DoS),

where the targeted server is bombarded with

spuri-ous requests that will, in effect, bring the server

down or render it nonfunctional, to compromised

confidential information

RSS is a method and an XML 1.0-compliant

format that aggregates disparate sources of Web

information into a feed for the user The user

sub-scribes to the feed and sets the criteria for what

information should be included (or excluded) in

the feed While this may sound like an

incred-ible time saver for the user, what it also can do

is expose the user to malicious code embedded

in the source information This code may also be

aggregated along with the legitimate information,

and the user will not necessarily know anything is

amiss This RSS injection method, as it is known,

can install and launch software on the user’s

computer, potentially compromising confidential

information

Web services can be a fertile ground for Web 2.0

security intrusions SOAP is the common protocol

used for Web services remote procedure calls,

and is therefore an often-used method for attack

Parameter manipulation and node exploitation

are common techniques used in

Web-services-related attacks In parameter manipulation, the

variables that are passed in services calls can be

manipulated to suit the attacker’s needs If a site

has insufficient validation of received parameters,

the site is open to attack and compromise Nodes

on the Internet cannot be assumed to be secure:

If a node is compromised, a SOAP message en route can be intercepted and modified as part of

an attack Although there are several variations on the Web services theme, these types of attacks are less prevalent than the JavaScript-based attacks

Who Are the AttAckers, And WhAt Are theIr motIvAtIons?

Just as Web applications have evolved from the static, even boring presentation of webmaster-defined content, so too have the people who stage

attacks on the Web Because evolution may imply

betterment, perhaps it is incorrect to say that tackers have evolved; what has really happened

at-is that their methods have become more sophat-isti-cated as the Web infrastructure has become more complex But, who are the attackers and why do they do what they do?

sophisti-There are no clear definitions or labels for

these Web attackers While the word hacker has

been generally used in a pejorative sense by the media, there are other words that may be more

precise The word cracker, also known as a black

hat, refers to a person who illegally compromises the security of a computer system or network to reach a malicious end A white hat will (attempt to) compromise security, but will also have valid permission from the system or network owners; the objective, of course, is to locate security holes and plug them before they are exploited Not to imply a standard curriculum has been established, but to acquire the necessary skills to be a cracker, one should first be a hacker (Walker, 2005) The

usage of the word hacker has changed over the

years Its etymology has mostly had a creative

connotation However, since the movie Wargames

in 1983, the general (public) meaning has been

to creatively manipulate computer code or cedures to achieve a desired outcome, generally

pro-a mischievous or mpro-alicious one For purposes

of brevity, the word hacker will be used in this

chapter not to be imprecise, but more specifically

to be consistent with the general connotation of

the word

The rebellious, antiauthority teenager may still

exist, but the harm that erstwhile person can do

is now less than before, mostly thanks to much

higher numbers of installed security software

While it is certainly not ubiquitous, the awareness

of computer viruses and worms is higher than

what it was, therefore leading to a greater number

of protected computers There are exceptions, of

course, but the days are mostly passed when a

lone and unassisted teenager can cause significant

harm (without a significant response) from his

basement computer However, the problem will

never go away As new, more complex

applica-tions are deployed, new exploitable vulnerabilities

are found

Perhaps one of the earliest and best known

hackers who had the mind-set, skills, and

intel-ligence for finding vulnerabilities is now out of

jail Having satisfied all penalties levied against

him, he now has his own security consulting

com-pany and has published more than a few books

According to a recent interview, Kevin Mitnick’s

original motivation was “fun and entertainment.”

There was a thrill to gaining access to confidential

or proprietary information (Brandon, 2007)

A hacker of more recent fame, the creator of

the infamous Samy worm that forced MySpace

off line after an XSS attack, created it as a prank

according to an interview shortly after the incident

Despite the greater prevalence of security software,

the Samy worm raised awareness to the increased

risks associated with applications under the Web

2.0 umbrella When it became known that Samy’s

very first AJAX project created the Samy worm,

business and security leaders took note; if this is

his first, what could be next? It may seem a bit

perverse that Samy, the perpetrator of the attack,

did not fault himself or MySpace for the worm’s

success, but instead blamed the client browsers

Like Mitnick who preceded him, but perhaps

to a lesser degree, Samy may have gained more than he has lost from his exploit Although Samy Kamkar was sentenced to probation, community service, and a certain amount of restitution, his reputation has been indelibly etched into Web history One online news source even referred to his exploit as “cunning” (Orlowski, 2005).The motivations behind Web 2.0 attacks have changed While it may have been a prank or an adventure a few years ago, the development of new Web exploits is now the stuff of nationalism, social castes, and real money A denial-of-service attack that hit Estonia in early 2007 is suspected

to be rooted in Russian nationalism, although some security experts dispute the nationalism claim (Brenner, 2007), saying it was motivated

by anger over a government decision to move a revered monument Despite the lingering issue

of why the Estonian attack happened, Russia is thought to be a proverbial hotbed of malware (malicious software) engineering (Brenner) Other than the booming petro economy, the Russian

“other” economy is bleak, and programmers not only see malware as a money opportunity, they also do not believe developing malware is wrong Still, the nationalist bent cannot be discounted; a small Russian newspaper reportedly praised the local perpetrators of a hacking attack for their accomplishment at the capitalists’ expense (Cla-burn, 2007) With a report that a Russian Web server was found to be hosting approximately 400 malware applications (Brenner), and a report that China’s production of malware exceeds Russia, how long will it be before nationalist Web attacks are directed to the Western hemisphere?

In the West, a social order has developed among the people who develop and/or deploy malware

on the Web (Claburn, 2007) Even though Kevin Mitnick has a legitimate career now after paying his dues to society, he is held in reverence and awe

by young and aspiring hackers Samy Kamkar is

their teens, 20s, and even 30s Even though they

are legitimate now because of their admiring fans,

both Mitnick and Kamkar are certainly near the

high end of the hacker social order

The lure of an income, perhaps a large income,

is a major motivator in both the West and in Asia

No longer is malware just written by and for the

exclusive use of its writer Malware kits, that is,

kits for developing malware, are readily available

for sale on the Internet Originators of malware

programs or kits are at or near the top of the hacker

social order These are the people who stand to

earn the greatest amount of money from their

ac-tions, and the money can be considerable Lower

in the hacker social order are the people who buy

these kits to develop their own malware, but that

does not mean they are of lesser significance;

the availability and the use of malware kits are a

significant factor in the proliferation of malware

on the Internet Though the road can be tough

(Kevin Mitnick was arrested several times), the

hope of a lucrative hacking career and the high

status it may bring can be compelling

Malware kits are one source of income

Another money-earning method involves

rent-ing botnets Botnets are networks (or groups)

of security-compromised computers known as

zombies Botnets are also used in spamming (mass

junk e-mail distributions), focused attacks to steal

data, and denial-of-service attacks as client-nạve

instruments They have even been used to extort

money under threat of a DoS attack

Depending on the size of the botnet, that is,

how many zombie computers are part of the botnet,

the weekly rental income can be several hundred

dollars More income can be earned with the sale

of an unpublished security vulnerability, perhaps

up to US$1,000 or more (Evers, 2007) What is

less known, but feared more, are the markets for

identity-related data such as credit card numbers,

social security numbers, and company-related

con-fidential information to be used in espionage

Phishing scams are relatively new, but their

that look legitimate, but are in fact facades oped to acquire credit card numbers, passwords, social security numbers, and other personal data, phishing is proving to be a lucrative criminal method of cyber attack Security firms such as Symantec have included phishing protection in their software, and Microsoft has phishing filter functionality included in Internet Explorer 7 to help minimize the dangers phishing can pose to the unwitting user

devel-WhAt cAn We do?

What can be done to mitigate the security risks and minimize the problems that have evolved from Web 2.0? We cannot eliminate the problem

of cyber attacks on Web 2.0 applications or wise The best we can hope for is to minimize the probability of an attack, or if attacked, minimize the damage done

other-The field is a rapidly changing one, where hackers find a weakness, companies or individu-als respond, and society slowly incorporates and adapts to the changes over the long term During the 1980s, few could have imagined what the In-ternet in general and Web 2.0 in particular could have become in 2007, but what was unimagined then is reality now: Society will continue to adapt One constant, though, is that hackers will exploit

a weakness, and the rest of us will respond ciety’s innovation will always be challenged by the hacker’s innovation

So-Many blame the rush-to-market mentality of companies in getting their Web 2.0 applications

up and running In their haste to meet deadlines, developers forego what few best practices there are

to complete their tasks There are two things that can be done to address this part of the problem

In 1996, Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, used the term “irrational exuberance”

to characterize the overinflated values of the stock market; perhaps companies venturing into Web 2.0

level where their developers can properly include

security into their Web 2.0 applications Secondly,

Web security is a rapidly changing field; to keep up

with the changes, developers should be continually

trained on threats, techniques, and best practices

As mentioned before, there is not one answer to the

security problem, but as companies work toward

a whole solution, they should concentrate on two

of the biggest threat sources: cross-site scripting

and cross-site request forgeries

There is more that companies can do to address

Web security issues Widely acknowledged as a

problem, company confidential or proprietary data

can appear in Web 2.0 weblogs (blogs) that may

eventually become known to the company’s

com-petitors This is not caused by hackers, but more

likely company employees, disgruntled or simply

nạve Companies need to develop (better) data

policies: Their data need to be identified, managed,

and controlled (Vijayan, 2007) Knowing what

data the company has and where they are located

is an essential first step Also essential to know is

who has access to data; that is, companies should

know who should have access and put controls in

place to enforce company policy on data

A more problematic approach is determining

if and how to limit employee access to blogs

Whether deliberate or accidental, when an

em-ployee puts company data on a blog, they become

public and potentially compromise the position

of the company An outright ban on company

computers is certainly possible Web sites can be

blocked, firewall rules can be stringently applied,

and so forth (Fanning, 2007), but how can a ban

be enforced on noncompany computers? The short

answer is it cannot, so the likely answer for

com-panies is to take a middle position; develop, apply,

and enforce a comprehensive data policy that can

extend beyond the company’s parking lot

The onus should not be completely on

compa-nies to address Web security problems

Organiza-tions are generally more strident about security,

data should be guarded as closely as company data Home computers can be current on the lat-est security software just as work computers are (usually) Individuals should recognize the public nature of the Internet and the Web, and realize that

public does not mean safe Web 2.0 has enabled

the Web to become more of a conversation than a billboard; that conversation will have questionable and nefarious participants, and individuals have

One notable and positive trend is the telltale movement to thin-client applications and hard-ware Thin clients are essentially input and output devices only; the applications, heavy processing, and data reside on a server With the advent of fast corporate and broadband networks, thin-client computing is more possible than ever In 1995, Oracle founder Larry Ellison presaged a future where network computers replaced the personal computer (Bock, 2006) Though his reasoning was based on the growing complexity of personal computers during the 1990s and not the security concerns raised in the 2000s, his prediction was nevertheless prophetic Microsoft now has in beta a server-based version of Office that will further the trend of thin-client applications With computing power and data moving to more protected Web servers, opportunities for intrusion are lessened and malware attacks will be reduced

The best practices for Web security are

devel-had not caught up to the technology, but that is

changing now Control Objectives for

Informa-tion and Related Technology (COBIT) is both a

format and forum for governance of all things IT

As practices become established and accepted

by the IT community, COBIT-codified practices

are updated and disseminated through traditional

channels such as conferences and published

standards Web 2.0, podcasts, blogs, and wikis,

though perhaps nontraditional channels now, are

becoming evermore important in communicating

best practices to the people and organizations that

need them

There may be a developing trend with negative

consequences for Web security, at least in the short

term An increasing number of acquisitions of Web

security specialty firms have some security experts

concerned With IBM’s acquisition of Watchfire

and HP’s recent acquisition of SPI Dynamics, will

the products of those companies be less available

to the general market? These smaller companies,

before their acquisitions, were autonomous leaders

in Web 2.0 security However, with their

indepen-dence gone, it is unclear whether their products

will be directly available to the market at large, or

limited as offerings from the acquiring companies

This should be a short-term problem because their

technology, and technology from other similarly

acquired companies, will eventually make its way

to the market (Germain, 2007)

conclusIon

Where are we now with Web security? This

chap-ter has examined the background and evolution

of where we were It is evident now that with the

advent of Web 2.0, the security technology for

Web applications lagged behind the technology

for the social software embodied in Web 2.0

This gap in technologies created an opportunity

for makers of mischief, maliciousness, espionage,

and profit However, the market has responded and will continue to respond

In the context of Web security, terms such

as AJAX and SOAP may never become known outside IT circles, however the impact they have (and will) have on all of us cannot be understated

well-This is certainly not to suggest or imply support

of hackers, their social order, or the nationalistic motivations behind Web security incursions and attacks, but what is the underlying net effect of hackers, nationalists, IT, and security companies?

Is the net effect positive, negative, or neutral? sides the obvious inconveniences and annoyances, the negative side includes companies sabotaged, extorted, and coerced out of uncounted sums of money IT departments have had to divert resources

Be-to the security problem in order Be-to plug the leaks known and identify the holes not yet known, and individuals have had identities stolen and bank accounts drained

Is there a plus side? Perhaps yes—more companies have been created that specialize in Web security, IT department budgets have been increased to augment their security staffs and tools, and while of questionable value, some (formerly unemployed) people in Asia and elsewhere are now working to help meet the burgeoning demand for malware

From a dispassionate viewpoint, one might argue that the plusses outweigh the minuses; that

is, the response to Web security problems has been more beneficial to the many than harmful

to the few A victim of identify theft or the CEO

of a company that was impacted by an attack or extortion will surely disagree

It should be clear that there will always be concerns over Web security A certain trend is that knowledge of the security threats arising from Web 2.0 is spreading, and users, developers, and companies are responding with education, new products, and new strategies to mitigate the risks

In this Web 2.0 world of podcasts, blogs, and wikis,

there is an unfortunate but real repeating process

that helps keep IT security managers employed

As security awareness increases, knowledge

in-creases; as knowledge increases, the potential for

new security threats increases Although security

is fleeting, the field of IT security is forever

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Chapter 1.15 Web Site Localization Practices: Some Insights into the Localization

The e-commerce industry has experienced

spec-tacular growth, change and development This

situation has initiated an enormous business

revolution that has affected the process of

global-ization tremendously The goal of this study was

to analyze the Web sites of localization companies

that provide localization and translation services

to other companies and see if they themselves are

practicing what they are preaching The results

suggest that localization companies are indeed

not practicing what they are preaching Analysis

shows that localization company Web sites are

less localized than the Web sites of their clients,

the multinational companies The findings provide

some implications to domestic and international

marketers who currently operate in or are

plan-future [Article copies are available for purchase from InfoSci-on-Demand.com]

IntroductIon

From the mid-1990s to the present day, the commerce industry has experienced spectacular growth, change and development The global online population is estimated to reach 1.8 billion

e-by 2012 (Jupiter Research, 2008) In 2008 North America accounted for only 17.5% of the online population and that percentage is in decline as countries such as China, Brazil, India, and Russia show the highest level of online population growth (Internet World Stats, 2008) This situation has initiated an enormous business revolution that has affected the process of globalization tremendously (Cyr & Lew, 2003) During the past several years

an entire industry (the localization industry) has

grown up around helping companies design

mul-tilingual Web sites and software applications for

different countries An industry report estimates

the size of the worldwide translation and

localiza-tion services market at US$ 8.8 billion (DePalma

& Beninatto, 2006) According to this report the

commercial market for localization services is

estimated at US$6 billion and the government

market at US$ 2.8 billion worldwide

Localization is the process of adapting products

and services (Web sites, manuals and software) in

accordance to linguistic, cultural, technical and

other locale-specific requirements of the target

market (Localization Program at California State

University, Chico, College of Business, 2008)

Localization is now being seen by

multination-als as a necessary process to develop

multilin-gual and multicultural content to effectively tap

global markets Forester research estimates put

the 2006 global e-commerce revenues at around

$12.6 trillion Furthermore, research has shown

that consumers prefer Web sites in their native

language and Web sites that reflect their local

preferences (Singh, Furrer, & Ostinelli, 2004)

Thus, companies around the world are creating

multilingual Web sites to tap this vibrant online

market Companies like IBM, Oracle, Intel and

other have almost 90 international sites to take

advantage of the global online markets and

com-municate with their global customers This surge

in creating multilingual online content and

soft-ware has also led to the growth of the localization

industry which is helping these companies by

effectively translating their Web sites, user

inter-faces, software, and manuals Beyond translation

the localization companies are also involved in

the following (Esselink, 2000):

• Making visual or graphics, technical and

textual modifications to the site content

• Rewriting the text, translating the text, and

ensuring translation, idiomatic, and

concep-• Modifying graphics, data fields, tables, forms, layout, colors and tables etc

This study analyzes the Web sites of tion service providers in order to understand to what extent these companies are translating and localizing their own sites, and modifying graph-ics, layout, colors, text, policies, navigation, and cultural content The study then compares the localization efforts of the localization vendor company with their clients, who are generally multinational companies This analysis will reveal

localiza-if the companies that are preaching localization are also effectively implementing it on their own Web sites After all, the localization service pro-viders should set the benchmarks for their clients

to follow Moreover, the companies that will be the winners in this fast growing and consolidat-ing localization industry will be the ones that are able to highlight and exemplify the need for Web site localization What is a localization service provider telling their current clients along with potential future clients if their own Web sites are not sufficiently localized? The goal of this article is

to gain understanding of the localization processes used in the localization industry and to focus on the current trends in the localization industry This article is composed of seven sections The first section presents and introduces a review of the globalization and localization literature Section two explains the research methodology Section three provides a presentation of the analysis Section four provides a discussion of the results, section five describes some managerial implica-tions, section six explains some limitations along with future research ideas, and finally section

lIterAture revIeW

globalization and the

localization Industry

Increased ownership of computers and Internet

usage is growing every day Throughout the

world the Internet is rapidly becoming the main

source for information, shopping and services

Furthermore, computer and Internet users are

in-creasingly from non-English speaking countries

One estimate indicates that 32% of Internet users

are non-native English speakers This number is

increasing The result of this huge Internet

expan-sion motivated businesses to recognize the value

of Website localization (Kwintessential, 2009)

Moreover, the unending process of

globaliza-tion is fundamentally altering the manner in

which enterprises do business When businesses

globalize their e-business, there is a great need

recognize that language, cultural expectations

and trust play a huge role when building online

Web capabilities (Culnan & Armstrong, 1999;

Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky, & Vitale, 2000; Singh &

Pereira, 2005; Violino, 2001) For an organization

to be successful in this demanding setting, they

must adjust their offerings so that their products

and services present the appearance and feel of

being produced locally The process of localization

begins with an understanding of a wide range of

linguistic, cultural, content, and technical issues

A product or service presentation has to be tailored

to the local customs and practices of a country or

region For example, producing a Web site in only

the English language is not sufficient because the

majority of the world does not understand English

Furthermore, even if consumers do understand

English research has shown that they prefer Web

sites in their native language (Singh et al., 2004)

While many companies use machine translations

to adapt the language used on their Web sites

(Singh & Boughton, 2002), this type of

transla-their use of rhetorical style and use of metaphors Therefore, a simple machine translation, without

an understanding of a culture and its language, may result in a cultural faux pas (Singh et al., 2004) Beyond linguistics companies also need

to consider such culturally sensitive areas such as persuasion techniques, colors, icons, signs, Web page layout, and cultural values when localizing Web sites (Singh & Pereira, 2005)

Previous research has shown that culturally sensitive Web content enhances the site’s usability (Fock, 2000; Luna, Peracchio, & de Juan, 2002; Singh & Pereira, 2005; Simon, 2001) So, in or-der to effectively communicate to foreign online consumers it is beneficial for a firm to adapt their Web sites to the targeted market Furthermore, research has shown that not only does Web site localization enhance usability but also attitude towards the Web site, perception of the ease of site navigation, and ultimately purchase intention (Singh et al., 2004)

The cultural impact is substantial and Hall (1976) believes that it is very difficult to act or interact in any meaningful way if they do not un-derstand language and culture The consequence

of not including language and culture, when considering global Web presence, is discarding profitable global online consumer The Internet, similar to any other advertising document, is a replica of the culture of the country or locale (Cyr

& Trevor-Smith, 2004; Hermeking, 2005; Singh

& Matsuo, 2004) According to Mooij (1998) advertising mimics a society’s values It can only

be effective when it is inseparably connected to the primary culture of the group for which it is targeted Studies have demonstrated that advertis-ing that is harmonious with local cultural values

ized advertising Several researchers, therefore, have emphasized the use of country-specific cultural values appeal when developing interna-tional advertising campaigns and communication

is significantly more compelling than standard-localization and cultural customization promotes

a better opinion regarding the site ultimately

influencing people’s purchase intentions (Singh

& Pereira, 2005) Luna et al (2002) discovered

that culturally harmonious Web content creates

a more user friendly environment where the user

has clear instructions and comes away from the

Website with a better attitude about the content

that is presented Consequently, the localization

of Web sites also necessitates culturally tailoring

the Web sites to be congruent with the cultural

requirements of the local environment

Miscom-munications, in the international context,

gener-ally take place when the message is seemingly

mismatched with the local culture and does not

produce the response that was expected towards

the businesses products or services The foreign

language, signs and symbols, and Web content

that is culturally different, creates confusion,

frustration, offensiveness and in the long run a

loss of business (Luna et al., 2002)

While company Web sites provide a major

op-portunity to impart and promote a corporate image

and to sell products and services, the effectiveness

of the Website depends almost exclusively on the

value of its content (Pollach, 2005) An effective

Web site is the one where the consumers invest

a considerable amount of time reviewing the

content of interest, requesting more information,

and buying the goods or services offered (Liu,

Marchewka, & Ku, 2004) As such, the quality

and value of a Web site will be influenced by how

the Web site mirrors the culture of the nation for

which it has been designed (Fletcher, 2006; Singh

& Pereira, 2005)

Culture influences just about everything we

do, say, read, hear and think Web sites are not

immune to the affect of culture (Kwintessential,

2009) Those companies that are able to develop,

manage and customize their business Web sites

to the culture of the country they are doing

busi-ness, will generate more interest in their company

and ultimately increase the sales of their products

The differences in cultures require tional businesses to find ways to make their Web sites communicate with different cultures in dif-ferent parts of the world As such, the key acronym that has emerged in this new arena of business operation is GILT or Globalization, Internation-alization, Localization and Translation (Lommel, 2003) Globalization addresses the enterprise issues associated with making a company truly global So, for products and services this means integrating the internal and external business functions with marketing, sales, and customer support in the world market (The Localization Industry Standards Association, 2008) More specifically, Web site globalization includes two complementary processes: Internationalization and Localization

interna-Internationalization is the process of alizing a product so that it can handle multiple languages and cultural conventions without the need for redesign In more technical terms, it is the process through which back-end technologies are used to create modular, extendible, and accessible global Web site templates that support front-end customization (Singh & Boughton, 2005) This process enables company Web sites to be locally responsive to the end-user through front-end customization Internationalization takes place at the level of program design and Web document development (Singh & Little, 2009)

gener-Localization and translation is the process

of adjusting a product or service and making

it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale More specific to the current study, Web site localization is the process of the front-end customization, whereby Web sites are adapted to meet the needs of an international target market (Singh & Boughton, 2005; Singh

& Little, 2009)

The localization industry can trace back its roots to early 1980’s when the software industry was emerging as an upcoming sector of the US economy, and felt a need to translate software

Industry Primer (LISA), 2007) As the

applica-tion of software grew across a cross-secapplica-tion of

industries and with the growth of the Internet, the

localization industry also saw sustained growth

Now the localization industry is seeing a growth

phase with the need for translation and

localiza-tion of software, manuals, packaging, and most

importantly multilingual Web sites The industry

is also undergoing considerable consolidation

During the 1990’s the trend toward industry

consolidation started with small vendors joining

hands to offer “one-stop shopping” for large

soft-ware developers like Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM

who needed translation and localization services

in multiple languages (Cyr & Lew, 2003) The

industry consolidation leads to the emergence of

multi-language vendors (MLVs) which

special-ized in completing multi-language, multi-service

localization/translation projects These MLVs also

used an outsourcing model where they outsourced

the core translation services to single-language

vendors (SLVs); Single Language Vendors

nor-mally work into one target language only, from

one or more source languages (Esselink, 2000)

The acquisition of Bowne Global Solutions by

Lionbridge Technologies in 2005 lead to the

emergence of Lionbridge as one of the largest

Globalization and off-shoring companies in the

industry Similarly, SDL International, another

major player in the localization industry, enhanced

its portfolio by acquiring Trados Inc., which was

a major translation technology solution provider

As the localization industry grows, and serves

new and bigger clients across a cross-section

of industries, it will need localization vendor

companies to invest in process and product

in-novations and R&D to be competitive In order

for these large investments and comprehensive

solutions to be provided, vendors will need to

be backed by substantial capital investments

However, Leon Z Lee (2005), an industry

ex-pert, warns that the current focus of large and

and technology integration from corporate solidations is not a recipe for long term growth and sustainability of this industry Lee (2005) recommends that for the localization industry

con-to be viable it needs con-to expand its role from just

a translation or technology-solution provider to truly embracing the wider concept of localization

by providing international marketing expertise This international marketing orientation will then help the localization companies to expand their offerings by delivering localized information and comprehensive resident knowledge in designing marketing campaigns for geopolitical and ethno-graphic regions in areas of print advertisement, online brand valuation, and Website usability analysis (Lee, 2005)

The next sections of this article will detail the methodology, sample, and the analyses used in this study Additionally, insights into the current level

of localization practiced by localization vendors and their multinational clients are presented

methodology

To analyze the quality and extent of localization depicted on the localization vendor Web sites, the study conducted a content analysis of the vendor Web sites and Web sites of multinational companies More specifically, content analysis methodology was used and a coding system was developed to measure various facets of the local-ization efforts The coding system used in this study was adapted from Singh, Toy and Wright (2009) The coding sheet included items like:

• Ease of finding global gateway on the Web site

• Use of country code domain names of ccTLD

• Translation depth

• Local customer support

• Web site page structure/layout

• Use of Locale-specific graphics, colors and

values

To perform the content analysis two coders

were trained in the coding scheme and jointly

coded several Web sites The inter-coder reliability

on the sample of vendor and multinational client

Web sites ranged from 82 to 86 It is suggested

that inter-coder reliability needs to be above 80

in order to be acceptable (Grant & Davis, 1997)

Thus, the coder reliability exceeded the suggested

threshold

sAmple

Analyzing all country sites (which can range from

10-90 and may include more than 2000 pages)

to measure localization efforts was beyond the

scope of this study Thus, the study measured the

localization efforts on the German and Spanish

Web sites of each vendor company German and

Spanish have been forecasted as some of the top

languages in which multinationals are localizing

their sites

To find a sample of localization vendor

company Web sites the study used the vendor

company data base provided at the Globalization

and Localization Association Web site In total

the study was able to include only 53

localiza-tion vendor company Web sites in the sample, as

these were the only companies we found having

international Web sites for Germany and Spain

Thus, 53 companies and their German and Spanish

sites served as the final sample, which included

almost 106 Web sites and more than a thousand

Web pages The study also analyzed the company

home site (mostly in English) to see the structure

of the global gateway, Web page structure, and

Web content depth and navigation The sample

of multinational company Web sites was selected

from Forbes top 500 international company list

ternational Web sites and Web sites specifically for both Germany and Spain Thus, a total of

100 multinationals with 300 country sites (U.S English, Germany and Spain) were analyzed for this study

results And AnAlysIs

number unique languages supported

guages was to understand how many languages is the company providing its services in The results show that on average a vendor company site had about 7 unique languages depicted On the other hand the Vendor clients, such as Multinational company Web sites had on average 19 unique languages supported This shows that Localiza-tion vendors are far behind their clients in terms

The purpose of finding the number of unique lan-of languages supported on the site (see Table 1)

In fact the mean number of languages depicted

by multinational Web sites (19.38) exceeded the maximum depicted (16) by the vendor sites An independent sample t-test indicates the means are

significantly different (F = 37.708, p = 000).

Ease of Finding Global Gateway

The aim here is measure how visible the link for international sites is from the company’s U.S English home page Based on the comparison data between the vendor and client Web site, it seems 30 percent of client (Multinational) sites have a dedicated global gateway page compared to which only about 9 percent of vendor sites have a dedicated gateway page (see Table 2) The results

of a chi-square test for two independent samples indicates there is a significant difference in the presentation of a global gateway page between vendor and multinational sites (χ2 = 22.191, p = 000) However, it seems both vendor and client

to country-specific sites

Use of Country-Specific Domain

The goal here is to see if the company has invested

in buying the country code top level domains also

called cctld for the country The use of ccTLD helps

in international search engine optimization and

also shows commitment of the company to that

country market (see Table 3) The analysis shows

that no vendor site was using ccTLD exclusively to

create international sites Most vendors were using

some extension of com/Spain of com/Germany

The client multinational Web sites did relatively

better in terms of use of ccTLD About 26 percent

of multinational sites were fully using ccTLD

for their international Web sites The results of

a chi-square test for two independent samples

indicates there is a significant difference in the

localization Assessment of Specific Web Sites (Germany and spain)

country-• Translation Depth: Translation depth was measured to see to what extent are the com-panies translating their Web pages relative

to U.S English Web pages To measure translation depth the study counted the number of English page and local language primary links or main links on the home page of English and local language site The results, in table 4, show that on vendor Web sites about 85 percent of English pages links were translated On the other hand

in terms of Multinational sites, on average about 67 percent of English page links were translated

• Content Localization: This Category

mea-Number of Languages Used

S t d Dev.

Multinational No Of

Vendor Frequency

A Dedicated Global Gateway

Table 1 Number of languages used

Table 2 Web site global gateway page

support, e-commerce related information,

and navigational ease

• Local Customer Support and Contact:

By analyzing the level of local customer

support it can be measured to what extent

is the company localizing its customer

service efforts for a specific-locale (see

Table 5) The results show that while both

the vendors and the client

multination-als are not fully localizing their sites,

the vendor sites depict far less degree of

localization efforts Only about 4 percent

of vendor sites had local support pages

which were equivalent to their US Web site, compared to 24 percent by multina-tionals The results of a chi-square test for two independent samples indicates there

is a significant difference in the use of local customer support between vendor and multinational sites (χ2 = 21.200, p = 000)

• Availability of all policies and merce information such as shipping policy, return, privacy, terms of use, copyright etc

e-com-Table 4 Web site English vs local language links

Table 3 Web site use of country-specific domain

Vendor Frequency

Table 5 Web site level of customer support

Vendor Frequency

Under this category the results for vendor and

client sides were very different Almost 70 percent

of vendor sites did not have policies related to

e-commerce and information use (see Table 6)

This shows that most vendors are not very global

in terms of conducting e-commerce On the other

hand, almost 47 percent of multinational sites had

all the policies available These results suggest

that at least half the multinationals are localizing

their site in terms of e-commerce readiness The

results of a chi-square test for two independent

samples indicates there is a significant difference

in the availability of policies between vendor and

multinational sites (χ2 = 101.136, p = 000).

• Navigational ease in terms of sitemap,

local search, navigation buttons etc (see

Table 7): Analysis of navigation revealed

that only about 8 percent of local vendor

the other hand the 26 percent of the tinational client site had navigational ele-ments equivalent to the US English pages

mul-In general, both Vendor and Client Web sites were not highly localized in terms of navigation However, the results of a chi-square test for two independent samples indicates there is a significant difference

in the navigational ease between vendor and multinational sites (χ2 = 18.085, p <= 001).

• Layout and cultural adaptation

• Web Page Structure (see Table 8): The Overall Look of the Site and Design: Under this category the objective is to measure to what extent the look and the layout of the Web site has been localized for a specific-locale Surprisingly, almost

92 percent of vendor international sites

Vendor Frequency Multinational Frequency Vendor % Multinational %

Navigation Elements Equivalent to English

Table 7 Web site navigational ease

Vendor Frequency Multinational Frequency Vendor % Multinational %

Table 6 Web site e-commerce and information use policies

Multinational sites also did not seem to

achieve much localization under this

cat-egory with almost 45 percent international

sites being standardized The results of

a chi-square test for two independent

samples indicates there is a significant

difference in the structure of the Web

pages between vendor and multinational

sites (χ2 = 66.671, p = 000) (see Table

9)

• Use of local models, graphics, colors

and other cultural markers.Under this

category the study measures if the

site uses local models, different colors

more appropriate for the country, and

cultural symbols The results show that

only about 2 percent of vendor sites are

localized or highly localized, compared

to 20 percent of multinational sites It

seems neither vendors or multinational

clients are truly focusing their efforts

though a growing body of evidence is suggesting that cultural customization of sites leads to better attitude and intentions

to buy online (Singh & Pereira, 2005) The results of a chi-square test for two independent samples indicates there is a significant difference in the use of local culture between vendor and multinational sites (χ2 = 95.101, p = 000).

Discussion

The results clearly show that companies tion vendors and multinationals) are currently not fully localizing their sites in terms of using country code top level domains, global gateway pages, customer support, e-commerce and information use policies, navigation, Web site structure, layout, colors, and graphics It is even more concerning that companies selling localization services are

Table 9 Web site local culture

Table 8 Web site page structure

Vendor Frequency Multinational Frequency Vendor % Multinational %

extent than multinational companies, the firms that

tend to be their clients The localization industry

is not practicing what they preach

In every single category examined in this

study the multinational Web sites were shown

to be more localized than the vendor Web sites

A telling comparison is the number of distinct

languages used Vendor sites average using seven

different languages compared to multi national

sites that average nineteen different languages

This result exemplifies the lack of localization

practices being used by the vendors themselves

Furthermore, over 93 percent of vendor sites are

culturally standardized

None of the vendor sites were found to be

us-ing a ccTLD which is surprisus-ing as international

domains are crucial for international search engine

optimization This may be due to the fragmented

nature of the localization industry wherein small

localization vendors from a specific country tend

to serve their own local market and are content

with their local customer base However, large

localization vendor Web sites also seemed to

show lack of ccTLD use and an overall low level

of localization on various parameters we used

in this study So, do these vendors really believe

that Web site localization practices are important?

From this study’s results, the picture we get is

that vendor sites are lacking commitment toward

localization However, before reaching any

con-clusion we should consider a bigger picture and

understand what are the reasons for localization

vendors to not sufficiently localize their sites? In

the limitations and future research section we

discuss some of these issues

Managerial iMplications

With few large localization vendors like

Lion-bridge Technologies, SDL International, and

Translations.com holding the top positions there

dors are able to serve without much competition However, as the localization industry consolidates and matures, it will be difficult for small localiza-tion vendors to remain competitive and profitable

by just providing generic translation/localization services to niche markets or local country mar-kets Even large sized localization vendors risk losing their competitive position due to industry consolidation, over-reliance on generic translation services, and cut throat price-based competition

If the localization industry wants to keep its petitive position and provide a healthy industry environment for both small and large localization vendors to grow, it must go beyond generic product offerings in the form of translation services, and expand the definition of localization to include not just translation but to also offer:

com-• Localization of the Website lay out and navigation based on locale-specific require-ments

• Cross-cultural Web site and user interface usability research

Localization services firms, in order to be profitable in the future, must practice what they preach They must practice not only to exemplify their services being sold, but also to appeal to an

to their own language and culture (Singh et al.,

2004)

liMitations anD Future

research

The current study is an exploratory study focusing

on the amount of Web site localization used by

vendors offering Web site localization services

compared to their clients level of Web site

localiza-tion (multinalocaliza-tional company Web sites) So, the

data analysis here is a simple frequency

examina-tion The goal of this study was to examine the

use of localization practices frequency and that

goal was met However, further, more in-depth

data analysis could be used in the future Another

limitation to this study was the sample used The

vendor Web sites may not be intended for an

in-ternational audience As stated earlier, many of

the smaller localization firms are serving single,

niche markets On the other hand, multinational

company Web sites, by their nature, are meant

for international consumption Therefore, it is

expected that vendor sites may be less localized

than their client’s sites However, the results show

that even the large localization services firms lack

localized content on their Web sites to meet the

needs of an international market Furthermore,

even the smaller firms should aspire to exemplify

the practices that they preach

Future research directions should include

a closer examination of localization practices

within the localization industry A comparison

between the large localization service firms Web

sites and their smaller, niche market, counterparts

is needed Also, a longitudinal study examining

the increased amount of localization used on

the internet is warranted Is the trend to

local-ize Web sites to a greater extent, or are more

Websites trying to serve a smaller, local niche

market instead of an international market? If

the trend is to serve international markets then

international expansion?

To further shed light into why localization vendors are not actively localizing their sites we need further research to investigate their overall globalization strategy by asking questions such as:

• Are the localization vendors just targeting some large multinational companies from predominantly English speaking countries (U.S., U.K., Australia etc.) and a few other non-English speaking countries?

• What resource and marketing constraints

do these vendor companies face?

• Another interesting question to investigate

is to understand the top management ingness to globalization and their vision for globalization It seems several small and medium sized localization companies are run by top management which has primarily

will-a trwill-anslwill-ation bwill-ackground So is it the lwill-ack

of business education background that is restricting the global expansion of localiza-tion vendors?

Thus, to get a full picture of Web tion efforts of localization vendors, we should not lonely study localization vendors Web sites but also understand their overall globalization strategy and how it has evolved over time

globaliza-conclusion

The findings of this research suggest that both localization vendor and multinationals are barely localizing their Web site offerings This may not

be all bad news, as more multinationals seek to tap online markets and compete for them, the winner will be the multinational sites that are truly localized and speak to their international customers in their language and culture Local-ization service sales may be increased by simply

Not only has research shown that consumers

prefer localized Web site content, but research has

also shown that by localizing you can increase

traffic to Web sites (Ferranti, 1999), and increase

willingness to purchase (Singh et al., 2004)

Lo-calization services vendors may be missing out

on increased sales by simply preaching and not

practicing Actually, applying what they preach

to their own Web sites, according to research,

should increase the amount of traffic to their

sites while also increasing the willingness to

purchase their localization services This means

that the localization industry can look forward

to significant growth, but only if it can educate

its multinational clients about the importance

of localization and the best way to do that is to

practice what they preach

acKnoWleDgMent

The data collection for this study was supported

by students and Gary Muddyman, CEO of

Con-versis Global

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