ByteLevel.com recently released its 2011 Web Globalization Report Card: bytelevel.com/reportcard2011. As international student recruiters, we can learn plenty about marketing worldwide:

• Facebook overtook Google for the number one spot; the social media giant's recent innovations gave it the edge: multilingual social plugins, multilingual user profiles, and an overall improved global gateway.
• Native English speakers represent only about 27 percent of all internet users.
  • Chinese speakers rank second with about 23 percent (and growing).
  • Spanish speakers come in a distant third place, at less than eight percent.
  • The number of Arabic speakers online has grown more than 2,500 percent in the past ten years, and now represent 3.3 percent of all internet users.
• Russian has emerged as a must-support language, complementing the established offerings of Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian and German.
• Over the past decade, companies have increased the average number of languages on their websites by two to three languages per year. On average, the top global websites now support 23 languages.
• Among the 250 sites in 25 industries analyzed for the report, no education-related organizations were considered.

USjournal.com can help you improve your web globalization efforts. We feature 16 independent multi-lingual domains, designed to target specific language markets around the world: USjournal.com/en/educators/multilingual11.pdf. Contact cheryl@USjournal.com for details.

• 26-28 May, Vancouver
  ICEF Vancouver Workshop: icef.com
• 31 May at 2:30 pm, Vancouver
  Working with Agents: nafsa.org/annualconference
• 1 June at 3:45 pm, Vancouver
  "Sufficient Funds" -- Determining the Financial Capacity of Prospective Students: nafsa.org/annualconference
• October and November, various locations
  Select NAFSA Regional Conferences: nafsa.org/nafsaregions

CollegeWeekLive, a leading virtual fair organizer, is working with EducationUSA to host another International Day on Wednesday, 23 February. The event is tailored to the needs of university applicants based outside of the United States. Registration for students is free.

• More info: collegeweeklive.com
• Contact: mking@collegeweeklive.com