While international growth at these companies is nearly twice what the executives see in the U.S., remember that it's not a question of having just 2 websites -- one in U.S. English that gets you 58% of your revenue and a second website in some other language that gets you the remaining 42%. Not at all. The rest of the world means more languages than you care to think about, looking at some 200 odd countries, and studying the demographics within those countries to see which might be appropriate for what you're trying to sell. That other 42% takes at least a few other languages/countries to achieve.

Successful companies do their homework and measure the results. For example, eBay's list of more than 2 dozen supported countries includes most of the top 20 nations with the biggest online populations. Ditto for Yahoo! Google, of course, benefits from the paid and voluntary translation efforts of people around the world, including Elmer Fudd's dialect ("Feewin' wucky? Enter a search and twy it out!").

Elmer Fudd aside, business globalization is first and foremost about business. Those responsible for globalizing websites -- and the revenue they can pull in -- must justify their efforts using the same business metrics that demonstrate shareholder value for other critical corporate initiatives. With some hard work, translation and localization, cooperative national economies, and the right product mix, they might be as successful as eBay, Google, and Yahoo!