Swine Flu on the Web

I've been monitoring the news coverage on the swine flu outbreak and have noticed signs of panic on the web as chatter touches on a potential pandemic. No one is more concerned than Mexican-Americans - folks that not only are concerned about their health here in the U.S., but also for relatives back in Mexico. MySpace Latino has seen an increase in talk within its forums on the subject and no doubt thatMexico’s national newspaper, La Reforma, and its site, are seeing an increase in traffic as people try to stay abreast of the developments.

This is really scary stuff, but I'm thankful the web provides access to information at our fingertips to stay informed, and dispel myths or clarify misinformation. I think about the early days of HIV and imagine how frightening it must have been to not know what the disease was, how one contracted it and not have any place to find out info.

What an amazing time we live in to be able to share information and track developments in real time. I hope that this sickness is contained and those affected, recover. Certainly, the web will continue to be my destination for the latest and greatest.

Multicultural Gays Online

Since the beginning of the web; lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT) have found virtual communities to find support. Sites like Gay Cafe created a place where young and old LGBT's could be themselves and find others like them. Gays of color also found refuge in these chat rooms and later, dating sites.

However, there are few places online that connect or provide resources exclusively for Latino or African American gays. For minorities within the LGBT community, there is an additional stigma to being gay driven by a machismo prevalent in their cultures. This dynamic drives many to live a closeted existence and often makes these groups more susceptible to STDs including HIV.

Thrown in, the LGBT community is also not free of the racism that many Hispanics and African Americans endure. Often, minorities within the gay community find it difficult to connect within a primarily "Abercrombie-obsessed" ideal of beauty. Many Latinos and blacks complain that they are approached by gay white men whose attraction to them could be described as a fetish.

Recently, sites have begun to spring up to address the special concerns of these communities. QV Magazine, an online publication expected to launch in Spring 2009 plans to provide special coverage of issues that impact gay Latino men.

Yet for every QV Magazine, there are still more minority groups within the gay community who do not have a place of their own online. Lesbians of color, African American gay men and trangenders of different ethnic groups still need their own place on the web. With the infinite space available, it's just a matter of time before content is created to address their unique needs.

Latino Instant Communication

Data on Hispanic online behavior can hardly keep up with the lightning speed of changes occurring in the ways we use these technologies. One area where we over-index is in communication tools like instant messenger. With family and friends spread across the street to across the globe, we use these tools to stay connected.

Yet top instant messenger MSN is starting to see a decline in Hispanic usage. The culprit, Facebook instant messenger, where a lot of Hispanics are spending their time these days. But Facebook has some competition. A popular feature, the "status update," is already being replaced by Twitter, a service with huge popularity in urban areas.

While Twitter is enjoying growth, its' time may pass before it finds a way to earn revenue. Hispanics are going threw the web at warp speed, Twitter and Facebook need not hold back on the accelerator to keep up.

Multicultural Job Seekers

Employment search sites have reported a surge in traffic as a result of the 8% national unemployment rate. Since Hispanic and African American unemployment is above 10%, one would imagine that they represent a sizable portion of these unique visitors.

Back in January, attorney Cyrus Mehri filed a civil lawsuit against the major advertising agencies in the US. His firm cited data gathered in a commissioned study that shows a clear lack of African American representation in the industry. Some stats showed that African Americans made up just 5.8% of professionals and only 3.2% of managerial roles despite representing 14% of the population. Mr. Mehri's firm also found that blacks earned 20% less than their white counterparts. While the study did not include Hispanics, one would assume that a similar trend persists. Both minority groups contend that they are mostly relegated to roles in multicultural agencies, if they are hired at all.

With high unemployment and rampant layoffs at top ad agencies, where can multicultural job seekers turn to find career opportunities? Career Builder and Monster, the top two job seeker sites have developed diversity enhanced sites to address this need.

For example, Career Builder partnered with MSN Latino to launch EmpleosCB, a site targeted to Latino job seekers. Monster.com partnered with the NAACP to launch a diversity search site.

Despite some of these targeted opportunities, the challenge still remains that there are few jobs to fill and now more competition than ever. But one thing is certain, advertising agencies in the enviable position to hire during this economic crisis should strongly evaluate the potential contributions of a more diverse staff.

Latino Music Downloads

The other day, Scarborough Research indicated the huge strides Hispanics have made online especially in content downloads. The biggest growth has been music downloads. We Latinos love music! That's certainly clear when you see that 32% of Hispanics download music vs. 24% of non-Hispanics.

The top performing sites online have tons of music content. Batanga.com is a music behemoth and relative newcomer having come of age over the past four years. According to Comscore, it attracts about 700,000 unique visitors to its collection of online radio stations of all types of Latino inspired music. Other sites include Telemundo's sister network for Bicultural Hispanics, mun2 which has a companion online site: holamun2.com. Then of course there is mtvtr3s.com which has been growing over the past 2 years. And for Latinos who love their Miley Cyrus as much as their Paulina Rubio, there is Yahoo Música. iTunes now also has a Latino channel. With all of these music options online, one can only imagine that music downloads will continue to be a critical touchpoint to reach truly engaged Hispanics.