Drumroll please: the “New Italy” (oh-oh-oh it’s Magic)

Pomp and fanfare for the launch of the New image of the Italian brand – “magic Italy” – and without further waiting:

Some have called it “a Photoshop sampler” but I think it reminds me of a 1980s TV logo when everyone was just learning the power of computer graphics. Okay, maybe the early 90s to be generous.

Long live the genius of a true artist like Mirò.

The Government Speaks (funnynglish)

The Government Has Sent Down Word Of Its Answer

Yeah, well kinda.

It is curious, the choice of one particular English word they use…

… il Ministro Nicolais e il Vice Presidente Rutelli hanno deciso di procedere nel progetto, incentrato su una reale collaborazione con le Regioni e su un’ attività di promozione del sistema turistico italiano, che vedrà successivamente ampliate le aree dell’incoming e dell’informazione diretta.

Now is it just me, or does the word “IIINCOOOOMING!” in this case ring of war movies, where our heroes are being bombarded by shells left and right, and after a brief respite which is supposed to induce thoughts of the end of this attack and the resumption of the daily drag of military life in war, we hear the whistle of another, one last shell, which in Hollywood always mean that the nicest and most honest of the remaining soldiers is about to buy the big weekend pass in the sky…

I personally wonder what they are trying to say here.

Oh, and how long does it take the “Ministro per le Riforme e le Innovazioni nella Pubblica Amministrazione” to get off their “Sito temporaneo” and stand on their own two feet, and move onto something that they can rightfully claim their own, and for which they are willing to take responsibility? Mah?

(update)

at least this time it hasn’t taken as long for others to notice:
Quando la montagna partorisce un topolino (in Italian) – Michele Cassone
Italia.it, il Governo rispond (in Italian) – Punto Informatico

Italy: Land of Saints and Pagans

In Italy they have two types of National Holidays, didn’t y’know?

Religious Festivals and Pagan Festivals.

Yep, either you’re destined for Sainthood, or you’re one of those ancient polytheistic heathens that hasn’t seen the light yet.

Vive le France!

After looking through some of the original documents form the feasability studies, I thought, well if France is the target of what this portal might become someday when it grows up, why not take a look. And I was amazed. Amazed at how the designers and makers of italia.it couldn’t have looked at it themslves.

Italy manages to make do with Italian, German, Chinese, and one solid English site (solid like a brick falling on your foot – written with questionable English language skills) with an uneven mixture of British and American usage characteristics.

The French have such a waste of a site: they have something like 42 personalizations between language and national cultures. And looking rather quickly and summarily at some of the English language sites, they are all different, like they might have actually put some forthought into the fact that someone coming from South Africa will have different interests than someone from the UK. WOW, what a way to throw away good money on overkill. Don’t you think?

Maybe more another time… now I’m depressed.

No news is good news

And its corollary (?):

Any news is bad news, at least when its our faithful Italy.It editorial staff making the news:

This just in:

5 W’s

Who What When Where Why

the 5 W’s of journalism, as they are taught to every 4th grade elementary school student before the field trip to the Newpaper offices to meet with a reporter and see tomorrow’s (advertisement section of the) newspaper printed before spending the last hour learning to make those funky upside down boat-hats that the printers don’t need anymore because all the presses are electronic and super-clean and run by technicians with EE degrees and not printers with permanently inkstained fingernails.

But do our beloved italia.it staffers have any clue about this? NO!

Let’s sample some recent inkstains slopped onto newsrag (or the electronic equivalent)…

Ci dispiace (We’re sorry)

Curious error that they teach you about in “Web Design 101″, usually round-about “Lesson 3: using templates to simplify your work”.

“grumpy teacher in the front of the room says gravely”:
When you copy a page to use it as a  template, make sure you change all pertinent information about the new page; be certain you don’t leave a title like “new page” or “insert page title here” in the published page.

Too bad it doesn’t seem like the staff of italia.it got past lesson 2 in the three years they had to prepare things for us…

The winds of change?

Perhaps it is due to the pressure applied to the Italian politicians, or someone of the editorial staff is reading our posts, but it seems that they are working hard to improve the sight of site italia.it for English speakers. Thank goodness.

There is still work to be done, for sure, but the first subtle signs are there.

In some of the situations found thusfar, Enogastronom**** has become something recognizably English-like: Flavours in one spot Taste Itineraries in another (I’ll willingly pass over the fact that editorial consistency is still a bit lacking, as both instances are at least comprehensible).

Still no corrections in the general menu labels, but I immagine there could quite well be technical obstacles to updating that part that call for extra work (maybe to change the CMS they need to call in specialized CMS technicians from Websphere Headquarters, wherever that may end up being for this project, and that probably hadn’t been considered in the €45mil. original budget – better ask for cost overrun at this point).

As I said, more work lies ahead: I just went Change language English > Accessibility > Accessibile projects [sic] and noticed that the menu on the left is already in Italian… and the links lead back to Italian language pages. Oh well, one step at a time.

Oh well, nice start… good thing it only cost €7mil to get this far along, with the English site leading back into the Italian one… maybe they should have paid €8 to get the job done right?

AAA Tourists wanted

Do you consider yourself a world traveller?
Do you check out your every travel destination thoroughly on the web BEFORE buying your tickets?

What do YOU think of the www.italia.it website?

We think that the Italian National Tourism Portal was made with YOU in mind as the potential target, and we’d like to get your impressions. (we already know what we think about it)
Please feel free to leave a comment, or if you have a literary bent, send us your proposal for an article to post on this site.

Buon viaggio, e buona navigazione!

AAA Cercasi traduttori

The Italian Scandal is receiving a tremendous amount of participation (in Italian), with guest authors writing articles left and right. So we could use your help to keep up and be able to spread the word outside the borders of Italy (where the a good portion of the target audience of a tourism portal can probably be found…).

Contact italianscandal@gmail.com if you have good english writing skills, perhaps a good understanding of Italian, and would like to help out.

Thanks.