IMVU is the world’s largest avatar-based 3D social network. Over five million people from all over the world visit IMVU each month – 40% from the US and 60% from the rest of the world – to chat, play games, and make new friends. To help global users build real-life virtual connections, IMVU needed to offer their social network in their users’ native language.
Challenge
With no dedicated localization manager, IMVU sought a solution to streamline translation and reduce the burden on their product team. Their localization project lead needed a way to coordinate translations across stakeholders without taking time away from her day-to-day job. In addition, IMVU needed an efficient solution to maintain consistency across content that lived in a variety of different platforms to meet the demands of their user base.
Solution
With the help of Smartling’s translation management system and customer support, IMVU was able to reduce localization to a twice-a-week task. With this level of effort, their product manager was still able to deploy and maintain 15 new localized websites through Smartling's Global Delivery Network (GDN).
IMVU was also able to successfully launch its platform in Korea in less than a month. This launch led to significant growth, with a 45% increase in iOS app registrations and a 43% increase in Android app registrations.
