MeetMe: Thinking Locally for a Global Presence
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- Smartling Translation Management Platform
- Smartling Global Delivery Network
Tech Stack
- JavaScript
- Content Delivery Networks
- Secure HTTP Headers
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Customer Satisfaction
- Digital Expertise
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Connectivity Platforms
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Professional Service
- Software
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
MeetMe has millions of users around the world who rely on its network to find new friends through social games and apps. The MeetMe website and suite of mobile applications attract 2.8 billion page views per month, and the number keeps growing. In the United States, MeetMe is the leader in the “meet new people” category, but the company knew that expanding its reach to global audiences was key to long-term success. That meant translating its website and mobile apps into multiple languages.
The Challenge
How does a dynamic social network that was built over many years with a range of technologies localize the user experience to attract a global audience? The challenges included: Complex infrastructure. MeetMe knew it needed a solution that supported its file types and infrastructure: heavy use of JavaScript, secure HTTP headers, content delivery networks, IP address white and black lists, and multiple development environments. Painful process. MeetMe would have to extract all of its website content and provide it to an agency for translation into multiple languages. The translated content would then need to be accurately imported back into the source code for testing and deployment across MeetMe’s web properties and applications. Release delays. MeetMe wanted to avoid code freezes and delays as a result of the translation and QA process.
The Solution
Using the Smartling cloud-based translation management platform and Global Delivery Network, MeetMe realized the following benefits: Simplified process. Smartling’s comprehensive solution automatically captures content from the web application and extracts it into the Smartling translation management platform for professional translation. Smartling also rapidly delivers the translated web pages via a secure and scalable cloud infrastructure that optimizes delivery of the translated content to users worldwide. No delays. Smartling provides separate environments for testing, staging, and production. Because MeetMe developers can implement code changes while translation is in progress, code freezes, version control issues, and release delays have been eliminated. Preventing problems before they appear. The MeetMe engineering team has integrated its developer-specific localized sandboxes with the Smartling platform so developers can use real-time pseudo translations to detect potential translation or layout issues before new features are made available for translation. The whole company thinks locally. MeetMe instituted a company-wide policy to “think locally.” Marketing and developer teams alike consider localization at each phase of every project. Smartling helps MeetMe simplify its localization process by instantly swapping culturally relevant alternatives for images and videos along with automatic conversions for local date and time formats.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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