Interview with Fernando Madeira, CEO of Terra Networks Latin America

Hispanic Trending exclusive coverage @ ad:tech Miami

June 26, 2007
By Juan Guillermo Tornoe

Today during a busy first day at ad:tech Miami, Fernando Madeira, CEO of Terra Networks Latin America, spent some time with me discussing his experience with the Hispanic market. I’m extremely honored to share it with you:

Hispanic Trending: How does Terra Networks differ from others in the marketplace and what makes Terra unique?

Fernando Madeira: What makes Terra different from others is our presence in all Latin America; not only in the U.S. but in 18 different countries in the region. It helps us understand what it means to be a Latino, how they behave, and how the use the internet. We understand the Latino DNA, we know which are their similar attributes, that they are innovators that use the internet a lot, not only as a source of information, but as a meant to interact with family and friends. We understand that Hispanics have a strong relationship with their country of origin (or heritage) and they connect to it through our other Terra sites throughout the Latin American region.

We also are a global company, offering Hispanic content in multiple platforms like internet TV, photo logs, blogs, etc.

HT:  How does the Hispanic online audience differ from General Market internet user?

FM: Latinos are more about travel, culture, music, and movie/celebrity content. As far as relationships, Latinos are very similar to Latin Americans; they love and easily develop relationships online; they spend more time online. Hispanics have a more passionate relationship with the internet.

HT: Do you believe that Hispanics should be addressed mostly in English, Spanish or both?

FM: I believe that the content you provide for them should be of their interest. For 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics it won’t matter that much in which language you server them information. In general, 1st generation Latinos prefer Spanish content. At Terra 90% of our content is in Spanish and the remaining 10% is bilingual content for special interest content like sports events. In the near future, we will be adding more English content to our site.

HT: There is a big buzz about user generated content among Hispanics, what trends have you seen at Terra?

FM: User generated content is very important to Latinos. They confirmed this since the inception of our company back in 1995 with the heavy use of chats and forums. Currently, 80 million unique visitors per month are going to chats and forums in Latin America. What we now are seeing is an increase I the use of photo logs and blogs. Specifically, Latinos prefer photo logs and we have identified that this comes from their audiovisual preference. We will be adding in a very near future more features to our photo logs.

HT: What information are Hispanics accessing the most on Terra?

FM: Hard news, sports, entertainment; all of these topics with heavy audiovisual content. Also, as I mentioned before, photo logs.

HT: What can you tell me about your recent joint venture with Azteca America?

FM: We have seen very nice results during the short time that we’ve been live with it. This is the very first stage on our partnership and there will be more content and activities coming up soon. It is a very interesting mix of platforms from companies that know very well the Hispanic Market.

PS: A special thanks to Deborah and Natasha for all their help in facilitating this interview.