18:30: I arrive home after work and return online for a webinar hosted by the community folks in Manila, the capital city of The Philippines where it is presently 09:30 Saturday morning.  (I just linked you to another MCS installation, which is a tool created by Gandalf.) Since Gen’s and my visit, a burgeoning Filipino community has been promoting Mozilla with community get-togethers and other activities, including this evening’s webinar on how to localize Firefox

18:45: Audio/Video test with Regnard Raquedan, the local community leader. I share with him my Tokbox video conference URL and we have audio with intermittent video. Not a big deal, with chat room functionality on Tokbox, I can speak and pass URLs to all who attend the webinar. Those with video can see me on a Friday night in my SF apartment.

19:00: Webinar starts with 7 people initially logging in.  Introductions made.  Active Filipino community includes Regnard, Joel, Kevin, Gian, Bob, Martin, Charmaine, and other guest users joining as we go.

19:15: I pass the following URLs to demonstrate localization:

1. How to create a new localization –  The centerpiece of our documentation written by Stas (and me) that we believe is the one-stop for all localizers to begin (or reference later when a question arises).
2. Localizing with a web tool (in this case Narro) — A sub-article of the above piece.  I gave Regnard a few options to look at before this webinar and he chose Narro.
3. Narro — The webtool developed by Alexandru, our Romanian localizer, and hosted on our l10n-server.

19:30: I walk the webinar attendees through localization of the two main Mozilla l10n file types: DTD and property files.  The demo we constructed has new localizers translating two highly visible strings so they can immediately see the impact of their work.  As show in the document in point 2 above, we choose the “Manage Search Engines…” DTD file and the “Add %S” property file as examples of where to start.  These strings are located in the search box UI of Firefox.  You know where it is, check for yourself! 

19:45: The Filipino community offers translations for these two strings and decides which to use.  Regnard is the initial Narro admin, so he reviews all the suggestions from the community participating in the webinar.  After consensus, he approves the appropriate translations.

19:50: I discuss how we can create a language pack for testing through out the process so we don’t have to wait until all strings are translated to see the fruits of the labor.  Narro allows teams to easily generate .XPIs for testing straight from the UI.  Regnard can do this for the team and we decide to version our language packs (using the date as the versioning number) so people can keep the archive if they choose.  (i.e. Tagalog_langpack_marso_20_2010, Tagalog_langpack_marso_21_2010, etc.,  or something like that…)

19:55: Final Q&A.  Joel asks, “If we install a testable Tagalog .XPI, how can we switch back and forth to our original English-only UI?”  I pass along the Quick Locale Switcher add-on.  Everyone smiles.

20:00: We end the evening with pretty solid progress having been made.  I think the evening was a success.  I retire on my couch to watch Cal and Ohio State win their opening round games of the NCAA basketball tournament.  Go Bears!  Go Buckeyes!  I fall asleep before the games are finished, much to the chagrin of my brother who excitedly texts me updates.

==Signing off==

• Population is 92 million, online population is between 20-24 million
• English is one of the official languages of the Philippines.  Tagalog is spoken by roughly 22 million people in and around Manila.  Cebuano is another language spoken by nearly 20 million Filipinos south of the Luzon region (where Manila is located).
• Depending on what factor we use as a multiplier for our blocklist/AUS ping data, we can estimate that between 3 and 6 million Filipinos are using Firefox.  That is a rough guess, but it places Firefox market share at a low-end of 12.5% and a high-end of 30%
• Most people we spoke to browse the Web in English (Firefox US version), but some did suggest that a local version would have appeal.
• Even further debate arose on whether a Tagalog version would have traction, with an audience of bloggers at Wordcamp responding collectively that it might not.

That latter point does not rule out Mozilla shipping a local version of Firefox.  But, like every other localization, if we were to ship something localized to the Philippines, it will be because a local community member(s) responds to my call to action and decides to help us complete the body of work.

Obviously, Mozilla Firefox is taking off in the the Philippines, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see if the nascent community stepped forward with an offer to localize Firefox.

Finally, take a look at some stats about Firefox in the Philippines.  (All numbers are based on our blocklist data.)

Growth of blocklist pings over one year

The Philippines is #4 on the list

1. To gain further insight into the landscapeof the Web and Internet in the Philippines;
2. To assess whether or not a localized version is something our community here mightpursue;
3. To meet our community of campus reps and others.

It’s been a steamy (as in the humidity), but amazingly kind reception here and we booked our schedules full with meetings and events. That’s all Gen’s amazing work.

As for my WordCamp chat, here is my presentation. I started by taking the audience through our open web demos (video, canvas, svg, css, js etc. thank you Paul Rouget…), and then honed in on describing our Mozilla community, using localization as an example of how we are a global community of passionate contributors working to promote Mozilla’s mission.

My call to action was two-fold: the blogging community can help promote the Open Web through their blogs, AND, if people feel empowered to do so, let’s start a localization for Filipino users.

Feedback from these local bloggers was energetic, questions were poignant, and the message was embraced. My prediction, a Mozilla community here is going to take off if we continue to nurture, empower, and participate.

I am trying to embed the presentation here, based on some code that Gen shared with me, but it looks like it is not working.