Despite its early success Hispanic Magazine lags in Internet innovation

In May 1994, before I graduated from b-school at UT Austin, Hispanic Magazine approached me about an editor's job.

I said no; number one, I had three hours to finish b-school and two, I want to get involved in on-line. I wasn't interested in any editorial roles.

A year later, low and behold, the magazine garnered a deal with America Online to run a Latino site. I attended an AOL partner's conference in November 1995 and started full time with the magazine in early January 1996.

A few months later, I launched HISPANIC Online on AOL. The site, wholly within AOL's proprietary "rainman" client software, was blessed with prominent placement within AOL - then the most dominant arbiter of on-line traffic on the planet.

Imagine if you will Google giving a Latino site free prominent placement on all Hispanic related search results. It's pretty overwhelming to think about. Now image Google hosting the site, providing free access to community tools such as chat rooms and message boards and giving free ongoing technical support. Impossible to believe? Of course. Now image Google paying the managers of that site. Wait there's more. Imagine Google allowing the site to freely monetize all the traffic it was sending to the site. Completely unbelievable no? Ok, now substitute the words "Google" for "AOL." That's exactly what HISPANIC Magazine received. And I managed that process.

It was hugely successful. As AOL exploded in growth, we exploded in growth. Along the way, we were twice recognized as an AOL "Members' Choice" destination.

In December 1996, the same month StarMedia launched, we garnered perhaps the first paid banner ad focused on US Hispanics. The banner, from IBM, ran in January 1997, more than 10 years ago.

I consider the site, based solely on the content of the English-language monthly HISPANIC, the first social media site ever created for U.S. Latinos.

However, the owners considered our amazing arrangement with AOL much like an on-going print ad, with the added burden of hiring someone to manage the process - me. Imagine one person running the entire Latino space within AOL. And imagine being considered unnecessary.

I did business development, managing the relationship with AOL and partners such as Careerbuilder. I did production, bursting the magazine pages and scripting the code to post them on AOL and a related web site. I facilitated the ad sales, answering all the questions the print reps couldn't begin to understand. I did all the ad performance reporting. I managed chat rooms and message boards. I organized the content. I worked in photoshop, html, javascript, etc.

Then came 1999. I knew AOL would no longer pay sites, give them free hosting and support and allow them to monetize the traffic. If fact, AOL was charging dot com companies an exorbitant amount of money to get what we got for free .. um what we got paid to manage.

In June 1999, I left to attempt a start-up with nothing more than my resume and my credit cards. But without an off-line product or an on-line deal with a distribution powerhouse like AOL, I was unable to secure the financing needed to get started and grow.

Meanwhile, the on-line site of HISPANIC Magazine languished.

As of Aug. 2007, HISPANIC Magazine has no major on-line presence. Its content isn't search optimized. Google searches find only references to the magazine mentioned in other publications. We started with such promise. And now years later, there's basically nothing.