If you are a company with a multi-language and multi-country approach (what I call the global reach, local touch model), then localizing websites which share a common language presents a particular set of challenges. These challenges have come into sharp focus since Google announced new markup in early December, the rel-alternate-hreflang tag, so that it can more easily serve users what it might otherwise deem duplicate content, in the right language and for the right country.

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I attended my very first UX (user experience for non-initiates) event in Paris ten days ago, during which I listened to information architect Paul Kahn talk about unstructured, semi-structured and structured data.

There was something about the title that appealed to me, and besides, what else was I going to do on a Wednesday evening?

Early in his presentation, he confirmed what I already knew:  people HATE filling in metadata, especially if it’s structured (that is, pre-defined, agreed-to, controlled).

And yet, some of coolest applications of data visualization today rely on structured or at least semi-structured data.

He gave a number of examples during his talk, all of them compelling, but the one I found particularly exciting was an application developed by Microsoft called Pivot (www.getpivot.com).

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