NYT: Army sponsors Latino fest with recruiting in mind

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/nyregion/30concert.html?_r=2&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

SearchEngineWatch: Latino or Hispanic

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070730-091728

SearchEngineWatch, a news site and blog focused on search engine optimization for sites, interviews iHispanic on-line marketing consultant Nacho Hernandez who ponders whether or not to use “hispanic” or Latino” in reference to the market.

Highlights

"Q: We also hear the term “Latino,” which is used for the name of this conference (Search Engine Strategies, SES). Does that refer to a combination of the U.S. Hispanic market and Latin America?
A: There’s a debate between using the terms Hispanic, Latino, and “Latina” (we like to use gender in words in Spanish). We really wanted to use the term SES Latino so that we could have one word to describe all that market, and I think that was the best word for it, and it has gotten a really good response from everyone. If we had used the word Hispanic, that would have referred to only the Spanish speaking people, which would have excluded Brazil. So that would not have been a good word to use. Brazil is actually a huge market; it is the number one market in Latin America in terms of search, and in terms of advertisers as well. It’s very important to include them in this conference. Brazil is a great market, and there are a lot of people in the industry trying to grow it as well. So that is why we chose “Latino” for our brand.
Q: Countries in Europe, such as Portugal and Spain… would they not be considered part of the Latino market, even though they have a share language and some shared cultural aspects as the Latin Americas?
A: It was interesting to see that we got a lot of attendees from Spain. I was really pleased to see them, they are all wonderful people, and I got to meet most of them. It is a great market; there is a lot of growth in Spain. When we say Latinos, the focus of this conference was thought to be the Americas. That doesn’t really include the European Market. I would advise that that Incisive Media (the conference hosts of Search Engine Strategies) would [for a future conference] take SES to Spain and Portugal. Spain is growing tremendously, and there is a lot of opportunity there."

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070730-091728

TV Week reviews NBC Mun2 channel.

TV Week reviews NBC Mun2 channel.

It's an exciting project to really tap into the bicultural identify of US Latinos.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2007/07/among_nbc_universals_televisio.php

NYT takes a look at Perez HIlton!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/fashion/29perez.html

SearchEngineWatch: Implementing Latino Search Marketing

Here's the best summary that I've ever seen on Latino search marketing.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3626534

NY Sun columnist says net neutrality hurts poor, minorities

NY Suns columnist Robert de Posada challenges support of net neutrality, saying regulations in favor of net neutrality may hurt the competitive forces in the United States that are making fast internet access affordable for Latinos and other disadvantaged groups. I have to emphasize in the United States. More on that later.

"... the regulations could reverse the competitive downward pressure on broadband prices that has enabled Latinos and communities of color to connect to the Internet and even kill the next generation of online applications that are so critical to online innovation."

I have to say the concept of net neutrality sounds progressive and has all the outward appearances of the right thing to do, so much so that in some circles being against net neutrality is like being against motherhood.

But everyone who uses the Internet forgets that there's a real infrastructure behind it all - stuff that amounts to telephone lines dedicated to data. To you and me, that infrastructure is basically free. Users pay for access to the net and web sites pay for access to the net, but the connection that ultimately links the two is free. That low-cost distribution is fueling some of the most profitable companies on the planet. Googlezillionaies! But the companies that are building and supporting that infrastructure would like a slice of some of those riches.

Here's de Posada again.

"The corporate giants pushing the proposal — Internet companies like Google and eBay — say that the rules are needed to prevent broadband providers like the telephone and cable companies from blocking access to or discriminating against certain Web sites."

Yes, they could very well assert their power over the distribution network to milk some money out of it. What if they did? Some smart person would invest in a company that circumvents that distribution power. Unless of course some idiot politician passes a law that prevents it.

The critical question is can we ensure true competition for services in the United States. I have to say no. De Posada makes an assumption that we could have true competition right here and now. Consumers face tough switching costs in going from one provider to another because of limited choices. There are limited choices because businesses face high barriers to entry to provide access to individual households.

There's good capitalism and bad capitalism. Good capitalism forces competitors to become more efficient for the benefit of most of us. I'm no economist, but to me net neutrality matters when the infrastructure is controlled by one company, especially the last mile. For example, take anywhere outside of the most developed countries.

The EU just sanctioned Telefonica in Spain for being anti-competitive. (see my earlier post by clicking here.)In Mexico, TelMex has a stranglehold on the market.
If there's no competition in building out infrastructure then Net Neutrality IS CRITICAL!

NY Sun story
http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=58924&v=4115545811

Houston Chronicle: Reviews the Latino-packed CBS show Cane

"TELEVISION CRITICS ASSOCIATION FALL TOUR
A stellar Latino cast raises CBS' Cane
Family drama is set in Florida sugar-cane country"

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/entertainment/4995710.html

NY Daily News: Reviews of the NY Latino Film Festival

The Daily News does a very needed review of the eight-year-old New York International Latino Film Festival.

Pictures of Latino life
By Robert Dominguez
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2007/07/25/2007-07-25_pictures_of_latino_life-1.html

Miami Herald: Did Hugo Chavez and Gustavo Cisneros reach a deal on Venevision?

The Miami Herald reports that Gustavo Cisneros - the powerful head of Venevision media in Venezuela - may have struck some kind of deal with left-leaning firebrand and president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez.

http://www.miamiherald.com/579/story/176417.html

NPR's latest Spanish-language podcast

The latest podcast from Maria Hinojosa's "Al Grano" podcast features Patricia Guadalupe from tbe HISPANIC Link newsletter.

http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/510217/11971892/npr_11971892.mp3?dl=1

BrandWeek: Itunes Latino wants to cash in

BrandWeek reviews ITunes Latino. In my humble opinion, if Apple's efforts are successful, it will be a boon for Spanish-language podcasts. Organizations that are successful with podcasts tend to have a great relationship with Itunes. If Itunes Latino takes off, Apple will be the dominant arbiter of traffic to Spanish-language podcasts in addition to its existing dominance with English-language podcasts.

ITunes Latino Hopes To Hear Registers Ringing
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003615154

SF Chronicle: A California Latino remembers the impact of Dominican and Puerto Rican baseball players on his childhood

The author writes about a time when few Latinos were in the spotlight in the United States when he looked to the Puerto Rican and Dominican stars of baseball.
The following is the headline:

A game with more than two colors
Baseball's segregationist policies may have ended with Jackie Robinson, but Latinos also shaped the game in lasting ways
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/22/RVG2SR0E771.DTL

MonterreyCountyHerald: movie La Bamba opened new ground for Latinos in film

I met film maker Nancy De Los Santos back in 1997. She's quoted her in a story that talks about how the 1987 Luis Valdez movie "La Bamba" pushed Latinos into the mainstream.

'LA BAMBA' BROUGHT LATINO CULTURE INTO MAINSTREAM
Directed by Luis Valdez, the movie celebrates its 20th anniversary
By MELISSA RENTERIA
Conexion

http://www.montereyherald.com/lifeandtimes/ci_6421131

LA Times: Culture Clash revitalizes LA threater

It's been a long time since I've heard of Culture Clash doing anything. I remember them from back in the day in San Antonio. The group really resonates with the Mexican-American community. I heard they ran into some trouble in Miami, though.

Culture Clash's 'Zorro in Hell' gives Montalbán Theatre a shot in the arm.
'Zorro' brings life back to the once-promising but lately underutilized Ricardo Montalbán Theatre.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-culture21jul21,0,6514695.story?coll=la-headlines-calendar

FT: Murdoch on the hunt for new deals - like Quepasa?

The Financial Times mentions Quepasa.com in the final line of a story about Murdoch looking for on-line deals.

"The biggest potential targets in the US include Quepasa and Valueclick, according to UBS research."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2754f926-20e3-11dc-8d50-000b5df10621.html

Study: Latino population driving Dallas economy

Booming Latino population helps keep Dallas-Fort Worth economy afloat

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2007/jul/19/dallas-fort-worth-retailers-benefit-significantly-/

Highlights of the highlights
• "Native-born (US born) Latinos were twice as likely to have Internet access as the foreign-born"
• "Native-born (US born) Latinos read magazines more often than foreign-born Latinos."

SanBernandinoSun: marketing speedway to Latinos in CA

Someone is always looking for a Latino angle when it comes to EVERYTHING!

http://www.sbsun.com/sports/ci_6392440

Clickz gets the subtleties of Latinos not quite right

Clickz is admirable in that it broached the issue of Latinos and Latin Americans on-line and its related search marketing, but I have to say it got a lot not quite right.

Here's the story, some highlights and then my comments.

Challenges of the Latino Search Market by Grant Crowell
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3626459

Highlights:

• Internet penetration in Latin American averages 15 percent.
  
• 45.3 million Latin Americans online. From the story, I can't tell if the author means only people actually living in Latin America.

What's amazing about these stats is that 8 years after the outrageous hype about Starmedia, QuePasa, etc. the market is still tiny and still in its infancy.

Here's what I see as wrong with Crowell's story.

1. He lumps U.S. Latinos and Latin Americans together in one group, but excludes Spain.
   
2. He refers to North America as the English-speaking part, excluding Mexico. He refers to Europe as separate from Spain.

It just makes me cringe when non-Latinos talk about the opportunities in Latin America as somehow joined to those of us living in the United States. The author lumps all of Latin America together and excludes Spain. First and foremost, lumping the Spanish-speaking world together is like lumping the English-speaking world together. The English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Jamaicans, Austrailians, New Zealanders and those living in the United States and Belize have only language in common. Mexican-Americans have almost nothing in common with folks from the southern cone like Uruguay.
I just think it's wrong to even try to lump everyone together in a single group.

FortWorthStarTelegram: Cover Immigrant Issues Better!

The Fort Worth Star Telegram offers an opinion piece from a local writer - Richard J. Gonzales - no relation - that urges US Media to take more seriously coverage of Latino issues and immigration. He cites John Quiñones - the ABC correspondent - as a source and a example of what works right.

'Cover this story with the depth that it deserves'
By Richard J. Gonzales
Special to the Star-Telegram

http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/172599.html

AP: chimichangas are not Mexican food

AP does it right; Mexican food is not what you get at Taco Bell and the Mexican government wants you to know. It's based on native American food from pre-Hispanic times - that means before Columbus or any other Eur0peans lived here.

Read more at the Napa Valley Register.

http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2007/07/17/features/food/doc469c2eef3564f201134644.txt

NCLR event draws Hilary, Obama and others

International Herald Tribune reports:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/10/america/NA-GEN-US-Hispanic-Conference.php

LA Times: los beatles de Latino rock - Cafe Tacuba

Finally some decent coverage of Cafe Tacuba.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-culture14jul14,0,7301131.story?coll=la-headlines-calendar

1998 column by Mercedes de Uriate about Latino images in TV news still relevant

Setting the Record Straight About Latino Images

by Mercedes Lynn De Uriarte

http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_8603.shtml

AZCentral: Phoenix malls reach out to Latinos

Valley malls are reaching out to Latino shoppers

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0713biz-mall0714-ON.html

TV Week : Univision debuts web novela

Univision debuts its web novela. I'm glad they are doing this, but it's still reflective of the thinking of traditional off-line - put the tv/radio/magazine/paper on the web. It's just a move from one medium to another. Pretty boring if you asked me.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2007/07/univisions_first_web_novela_is.php

SanJoseMercuryNews: Latino critique of Ken Burns WWII story

Here's the Merc News take on the controversy.

http://www.mercurynews.com/charliemccollum/ci_6364933

Hispanic Link

Hispanic Link begins its first foray into on-line. It's a start.

http://www.hispaniclink.org/WeeklyReport_NewsBrief2.asp

San Jose Mercury News: Latinos to be majority in Cal. by 2042

Education key to Latinos.

http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_6338684

AP: Market growing for Latino radio stations

AP: Market growing for Latino radio stations


http://www.connpost.com/ci_6333170

Reuters: EU fines Spain's Telefonica record $200 m. for anti-competative actions

Reuters reports that the European Union has fined the Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica a record $200 million for hampering competition in providing broadband service in Spain.

If memory serves, Spain has the highest Internet penetration rate of any Spanish-speaking country. According to Internet World stats, it's about 44 percent - higher than any on the Internet World Stats list.
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats10.htm

A Wall Street Journal story on the same subject - the EU fine - reports that the Spanish pay about 20 percent more for broadband than other Europeans and the broadband penetration rate is about 20 percent lower than in other EU countries.

Spain isn't the only emerging nation to experience these problems. Traditional telecoms are the final bottleneck to Internet access in most nations. Without competition or government intervention, internet access rates remain low.

EU Fines Telefonica Record 151.9 Million Euros
The European Union's top antitrust authority fined Spanish telecoms firm Telefonica a record 151.9 million euros ($207 million) for squeezing out rivals from the high-speed Internet market.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=200900487

BrandWeek revisits Pew study on Latinos and religion.

A day after going to my regular Catholic mass, I found this story about Latinos abandoning the faith.

Latino Christians: A Branding Exodus?

What do you think?

HispanicLink: GOP a no show at Latino event

Below is a link to a story from the HISPANIC Link news service, distributed by Scripps Howard, that takes issue with the GOP's lack of interest in an event put on by NALEO- the national association of Latino elected officials. The event was held in Florida, the state with the most Latino support for the Republicans. It also notes that Latinos are now leaning more Democratic.

GOP candidates ignore Latino leaders

Common Names; Common Problem

The following is a column I wrote for the Hispanic Link news service that was never distributed.

Common Names; Common Problem
September 7, 2005
In last year's movie "Hitch," Will Smith plays a matchmaker of sorts who is so smitten by Sarah – a celebrity gossip columnist played by Eva Mendes - he resorts to Googling her.
By turning to Google, Smith's character Alex relyed on the most popular search engine by market share in the world today.

A query on Google is as authoritative as it gets in the Internet age, so much so that at least one commercial service has sprouted up to enhance the chances of getting links to individual's official site higher in the results.

So I wondered, what would I get if I Googled my name – Enrique Gonzales. My name's so common among Latinos that it could be compared to Bob Smith in the states or or Jose da Silva in Brazil.

Putting in the terms "Enrique Gonzales", I kind of felt like I was playing a slot machine on the Las Vegas strip. I never gamble, but I do watch CSI: Las Vegas on occasion. So then, instead of hitting the Google Search button, I clicked the "I'm feeling lucky" button immediately to the right.

Lo and behold, Google brought up the site of a famous Enrique Gonzales, one who works as a sound engineer for musicians such as Joan Baez, the Dave Matthews Band, the Doobie Brothers and MC Hammer.

Ok, enough about him. What about me? I went back to the Google search page and hit the search button this time. Nope. Nothing about me. But I did find a whole lot of other Enrique Gonzaleses; a couple of doctors, a lawyer turned amateur magician in Chile, a Miami dentist, a now deceased poet from Guadaljara, a Methodist pastor from Illinois, a Catholic priest from Colombia and a retiring assistant chief of police from Weslaco, Texas, among others. One even runs a popular restaurant in Cabo San Lucas.

A name is like a brand identity, a unique identifier in the professional world. Think Walter Chronkite or Edward R. Murrow. So how did I a get such a common monikor. Like most Latinos, I have half assumed that I have some distant relative in Spain. In the movie Hitch, Mendes' character finds her ancestor's signature of an entry log at Ellis Island, an immigrant from Cadiz, Spain. Gonzales, in one of the most common definitions of the name, means son of Gonzalo. So I could be looking for some long lost Gonzalo Gonzales.

The thought made me poke around the Internet some more, using Google to filter through to an answer. What I found is what I long suspected as a Mexican-American; the Spanish in colonizing Mexico, the Carribean, Central and South America, the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea in Africa, did what ever it took to give the locals their language, their faith and their names.

In Christianizing the native peoples of Mexico, the Spanish gave European names to the natives. The most famous example is Cuauhtlatoatzin. Who? Juan Diego, the indigenous Mexican beatified by the Catholic Church as a saint for witnessing the apparation of the Virgen de Guadalupe in 1531. I've always wondered why the most famous Apache has a Spanish name – Geronimo.

My Google search also turned up an article by Donna Morales and John Schmal, the co-authors of "Mexican-American Genealogical Research: Following the Paper Trail to Mexico". In it, Ms. Morales traces her ancestry to various native peoples of Jalisco in the late 1600s and her name to one given to her family, most likely by the local Catholic priest. At the same, she traced others in her family to the first Spanish immigrants from Europe to Aguascalietes in the late 1590s.

So if I really digged deep, I could find Gonzalo or could have as much luck as Will Smith finding an original ancestor named Smith. When tracing ancestors, Mexican-Americans with names like Gonzales, Martinez, Lopez or Moreno could be in the same boat as African Americans with names like Brown, Jackson, Washington or Lewis. Hmm.

In the Philippines, the Spanish made naming even more systematic in 1849 when the local authorities created a list of acceptable names for Christianized Filipinos. As a result, in some small villages, everyone has a last name beginning with the same letter, according to one web site.

In recent times, the Filipino naming scheme has resulted in the same identify crisis as I'm experiencing in my Google search. According to a colorful Wall Street Journal report in 2002, some Filipinos have taken to renaming themselves to stand out in a crowd, with one even adopting the first name "Hitler."

That's a bit drastic, but my search did find an "Enrique Gonzales" mentioned in a court case in Manila.

I guess I can't worry. If Will Smith can live with an appelido as common as his, I can live with mine. I might go have a drink with my tocayo in Cabo San Lucas.

InfoWeek: Latinos to drive on-line shopping

Hispanics To Drive Online Shopping Growth

Jupiter Research predicts that Hispanic online shoppers will spend $12.8 billion on retail products in 2007, or 11% of all online retail spending.

Highlights

• Hispanic online shoppers will spend $12.8 billion on retail products in 2007, or 11% of all online retail spending
  
• Hispanic spending online is expected to grow to $21.6 billion by 2011, and Hispanics will represent about 13% of all online spending.
  

LA Times: Review of Mayor Villaraigosa affair fallout

Being a Texan, I haven't followed this issue extensively. Can anyone shed some light?

A Latino star shines less brightly
His career may survive, but many are disappointed by Villaraigosa's involvement in scandal.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-latinos6jul06,0,6071879.story?coll=la-home-center

Pew Internet: 29% of Latino households subscribe to broadband at home

Pew Research finds that 29 percent of Latino households have broadband at home.

Pew earlier this year found that Latino households that are English-dominant are more likely to have internet access than Latino households that are Spanish-dominant.

Key findings from the Pew Report on Latinos and Broadband

• "56% of Latinos go online from any location. This is slightly lower than the rate of internet usage among African-Americans (62%) and rural adults (60%).
  
• 29% of Hispanic adults have a home broadband connection, compared with 31%
  for rural dwellers, 40% for African-Americans and 47% for the adult population
  as a whole. As with African-Americans and rural residents, low broadband
  penetration among Hispanics is influenced heavily by low internet usage within
  this group.
• Among Latinos with home internet access, 66% have a broadband connection; this is comparable to the overall percentage for all internet users (70%)."

The pdf of the report can be found here: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband%202007.pdf

The San Francisco paper had a short blurb on the report.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=18245

HispanicBusiness: Top TV shows for Latinos in English

Hispanic Business does a fair treatment of top TV shows for Latinos in English in a July 3rd story. Here's a sample:

Top 10 English-language shows (June 25-July 1)

• 1. So You Think You Can Dance – 9 p.m. Wednesday (Fox), 4.1
  
• 1. Friday Night Smackdown (CW), 4.1
  
• 1. Hell's Kitchen (Fox), 4.1
  
• 4. So You Think You Can Dance – Thursday (Fox), 4.0
  
• 5. America's Got Talent (NBC), 3.4
  
• 6. So You Think You Can Dance – 8 p.m. Wednesday (Fox), 3.2
  
• 6. Family Guy – Monday (Fox), 3.2
  
• 8. George Lopez (ABC), 3.1
  
• 8. The Simpsons (Fox), 3.1
  
• 8. CSI: NY (CBS), 3.1

Source: Hispanic Business

I think it fundamental for Latino empowerment in this country that corporate America and the political leadership fundamentally understands that Hispanics are part of this country and do participate in English, in addition to Spanish.

It's a tragedy that whenever the press mentions "Latinos" many organizations in the news media jump to use the terms "Spanish-speakers" and "immigrants" as synonyms.

It's fitting that on the 4th of July that I'm writing this again: LATINOS ARE AMERICANS!

The story from Hispanic Business mentions a new movement to force Nielsen to recruit more US-born Latinos into its sample so that its research can reflect the true experience of Latinos in the United States. The movement is called Help Change TV and can be found at www.HelpChangeTV.com

Let me know what you think.

Latino Bank? Why not a Latino airlines too?

I keep hearing of start up banks focused on US Latinos. The idea makes as much sense to me as starting a Latino airlines. Banks are highly regulated industries in tough competition for accounts and loans. Why wouldn't a mainstream bank just offer better Latino service? It's a huge marketing opportunity. How could a Latino bank make money? It makes no sense to me at all.

You've got an entrenched number of competitors who can easily move into the market by getting a clue about Latinos.

Below is a story about a North Carolina operation that wants to cater to Latinos.
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=69317&cat=Business+News&more=%2Fnews%2Fmore-business-news.asp

AdWeek: Marketers moving Latino budgets to mainstream ad firms

AdAge: Marketers 'De-silo' Hispanic Media

The article details the actions of a few large advertisers that have moved their Hispanic spend from traditional Latino ad agencies to mainstream firms with internal Hispanic arms. If the premise of this article is true, then agencies focused on Latinos should be shopping around for a buyer or buyers that could use the additional expertise.

Internet Marketing MX

I found this site focused on marketing on the Internet in Mexico.

http://www.internet-marketing.com.mx/