Online Hispanic Trends

Best Practices for Engaging the Online Hispanic Market: An Interview with Best Buy’s Ana Grace

Best Buy has long been a leader in successfully reaching Hispanics across multiple channels. The retail chain currently maintains a complete Spanish language site while also leveraging successful mobile, online, and traditional elements in their Spanish language marketing mix. 

Bixal had the pleasure of interviewing Best Buy’s Hispanic Initiatives Site Manager, Ana Grace, to discuss the retail chain’s strategy in engaging the Hispanic market.

Now that the site has been up and running for three years, Ana Grace describes the site as......

Read the full blog on Bixal's website

The Latino Digital Divide and Young Latinos' Cell Phone Usage

The Pew Hispanic Center released two new reports today: The Latino Digital Divide: The Native Born versus The Foreign Born and How Young Latinos Communicate with Friends in the Digital Age

One of the key findings in the first report is that technology among foreign born Latinos still lags behind their U.S.-born counterparts, especially in the area of Internet use.

  

The second report on how young Latinos communicate provides some great data on how Latinos ages 16-25 use their cell phones to communicate as summarized in the table below, the differences between natives and foreign born, and cell phone ownership and use as compared to young non-Hispanics.

 

Source: The Pew Hispanic Center

The Hispanic Mobile Opportunity

The ever-increasing sophistication and accessibility of web-ready mobile phones has made using a phone for information and entertainment needs an essential part of everyday life for millions of Americans. However, not everyone is connecting to the mobile web in equal measure. Demographic data on mobile phone usage reveals that U.S. Hispanics, especially younger Hispanics, have been over-indexing in mobile media usage for years.....

Read the full article at HispanicAd

Smithsonian Latino Launches Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life

The Smithsonian Latino Center launched the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum, an avatar-based 3-D virtual world featuring immersive learning activities, this week in Second Life.

According to Artdaily.org, "The program includes a welcome video using the latest in virtual-world filmmaking technologies known as “Machinima” that guides users through key areas of the museum."

"Tour sites include the “placita”; the Sin Fronteras Café; the Afro-Cuban instrument room; the “Son Clave” music lounge, featuring award-winning digital collections from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings; the amphitheater and the Smithsonian Expedition Wing, where users can learn about key archeological expeditions in Mexico through the work of Matthew Sterling; and the Olmec Legacy Collection at the National Museum of Natural History."

Read complete article at www.Artdaily.org

AOL Making Significant Investments in the U.S. Onine Hispanic Market

It's been a busy month for AOL in terms of launching new sites and content for the U.S. Online Latino audience. This activity seems to be a strong indication that AOL is making serious investments in this growing market.

This week AOL People Networks announced the launch of its Bebo U.S. Latino site in collaboration with Hearst Magazines Digital Media and AOL Latino.

Bebo's Lifestream Platform allows users to connect with other users and with content from multiple sites, including Flickr, MySpace, Facebook and others.  Users can connect with existing friends or others who share common interests and tastes.

AOL Latino will contribute music and entertainment content and Hearst Magazines Digital Media will provide other interactive content, including content for young girls planning their quinceñeras - http://www.bebo.com/mis_quince.

Source: Finchannel.com

AOL also launched another Spanish language resource called TecnoPadres.com, a site designed to help less technically savvy parents navigate the web. The site aspires to help parents monitor their childrens' use of the Internet and keep them safe and the site will license and translate content from the OnlineMom, a site/blog that was created by a tech-concerned mother, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

New Program Helping Elderly Latinos Get Online

Generations on Line, a nonprofit group, is helping decrease the digital divide with its online software designed to help older Hispanic adults get online. 

The software uses "simple elder-friendly and culturally sensitive Spanish in a clear, uncluttered interface with familiar icons. Onscreen help pages guide users through basic applications, including free e-mail, searching, and links to useful information."

Kudos to IBM for helping fund the translation of this program for this underserved population.

For more information: www.generationsonline.org.

Source: PRNewswire