Those individuals flying into Dublin to attend this week’s Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) conference might have noticed something intriguing upon settling into their hotels, connecting to the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot, and loading up their Facebook pages. Our interest was piqued too, when one of our contacts visiting Éire from the U.S. alerted us of his surprise at seeing this message pop up on his screen:

We take off our hats to Facebook for using geolocation to detect potential users for recruitment into its collaborative localization initiatives. After all, the United Kingdom is an important market, and American English surely would not prove acceptable for Her Majesty, who was introduced to the social networking site for the first time last month.

However great it is to see collaborative translation and geolocation working in harmony to advance localization, the fact that Facebook users who speak the variety of English spoken used in the Emerald Isle are asked to lend their expertise in the British version is symptomatic of a wider problem that we’ve noticed among other dot coms.

For example, Amazon.ie redirects to Amazon.co.uk. The British site displays all prices in pounds sterling instead of euros, making it somewhat inconvenient for those Irish shoppers who wish to quickly see if a gift falls within the 50 euro limit for their family’s Chris Kindle (holiday gift exchange). So,  those frustrated patrons might instead click on the most popular result of a Google search for the keywords “Amazon Ireland.” No, it isn’t Amazon.co.uk that appears first, but rather shopireland.ie, a site that allows Irish shoppers to see the prices of Amazon’s wares in euros.

Still, some companies do go out of their way to acknowledge the geographic, political, and linguistic distinctions between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. YouTube took the time to create both Irish and British versions in addition to its flagship U.S. offering. Yahoo also has an Irish version that is distinct from the British site.

A quick look at history will show why equating the UK with Ireland on the web could be a less-than-savvy business tactic. Yet, thankfully, to Facebook’s credit, a substantial amount of its content is also available as Gaeilge (in Irish), leaving us to wonder what the Queen would think of that.