Disclaimer: I type as fast as I can, there are grammar errors, typos and more issues with this. I do my best to be as accurate as possible. But due to the nature of "real time" coverage, there will be issues.
Nacho is up on the stage ready to kick this event off, I snapped a picture, Ill post it live later. There seems to be under 150 people in this room. Honestly, I am a bit excited as we start off this event. Huge congrats to Nacho for putting this all together. We are a bit late to start, maybe that is by design. I have no reception for my pda in this room, plus no wifi, kinda of painful for me - but I will run up to the room or find the speaker room asap. FYI - a Yahoo PR girl is next to me, Heather, met her before, I'll publicly say hi to her here. Yes, we did talk but it is nice to reach out via blog.
Gaston Taratuta from IMS Inc, there are a large portal in Latin America and a large newspaper. Key Elements, the economic landscape, 80% of the DFP of the US go through Latin America. He tells us not to underestimate the power of the smaller locals in Latin America such as Colombia, Peru, Chile, etc because they have large penetration for internet usage. In 1996 - 2000, Yahoo displayed banners that were CPM based and keyword base not auctions. CADE has the same yahoo model. UOL used a keyword base client buys the first result for a period of time, not auction, then they moved to CPM base. Yahoo was the leader in Brazil. In 2000 - 2002, Yahoo bought Cade, UOL bought miner and then Google came into the market. Between 2000 and 2005 Google became a big brand in Latin America on both the user and publisher front. Terespondo.com was founded by two young guys, Juan Calle and Daniel Echeverria. Terespondo.com 100% based on CPC keyword auction, like GoTo back in the day. Terespondo business model was to secure as fast as possible distribution deals with major players in Latin America. The deal was the first five responses will be commercialized by Terespondo through an auctioning system. Publishers receives either a revenue share or a CPM guaranteed for searches generated. He shows the campaign by Terespondo running on UOL. They worried about showing too many sponsored results and not enough visible organic results (remember Ask Jeeves). By 2002 Terespondo secured deals with MSN, Terra, UOL, iG, Estadao,etc. By 2004 Terespondo was covering most of the major sites in Brazil, they owned the market between 2002, and 2004. In Mexico, they did well, not as well as Brazil. He shows Argentina, a fight between terespondo and Google. The "games begins" in 2002, Google and Overture had conversations with those in Brazil to use their sponsored search. Overture's approach was that they were not destination sites, they don't care who you display in terms of organic results. Google said, we are a destination site looking to provide the best results, Google required both organic and sponsored to be in the same deal - no picking and matching. Terespondo.com decided to talk to Google and Overture, since it is hard to compete. Overture in October 2004, launched in Brazil. Overture bought Terespondo in April 2005. Google launched in Brazil in June 2005. Google bought AKWAN in 3Q 2005. Brazil has 650M searches per month (US 4.5B searches), Mexico 250M, Argentina, 150M. Brazil 8M ad dollars, 3M in Mexico and 1.5M in Argentina.
Eduardo Valades from iHispanic Marketing Group. 44M US Hispanics who spend 575billion dollars. 15.7 million online US hispanics. Spend $5.6 billion in 2003 online. 20 countries in Latin America, spanish, Portuguese, spanish. Is search a commodity? Search is the number two reason people go to the Internet, behind email. They also asked which search engine is the most relevant? Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc (published this data at SEW blog in March 06). Search experience? Google, Yahoo, MSN, in that order. Favorite places to go online, in Latin America, the internet cafe is the most popular place (hence Nacho's proposal to Google). What are Hispanics Searching? for web sites and information, then products then images then news, then music then maps, local info, movies, video and other. Language preferences between US Hispanics and Latin America (you can imagine the difference). They believe that there is a lack of spanish language content out there. Some more data, all posted in that SEW post, ill try to link to it NOW. Bottom-line, lots of opportunity in the Hispanic market both in Latin America and in the US. Also, mobile devices are huge and mobile search opportunity is there. 25% of US hispanics have used mobile search and 20% of Latin Americans have used mobile search.
Gonzalo Alonso the General Director of Google Mexico. Search is pervasive in Latin American, usage of a search engine when researching or purchasing a product online; 93% Brazil and 99% Mexico. Search is well developed in Latin America. Brazil, Google gets bumped down by Orkut on the chart. Mexico, Colombia and Chile are doing well on the cart. They want to see Argentina move more. As in US, users search on most days they connect (some graph shows it). Search pageviews per usage day higher than US. More people search deeper, more pages viewed, in Latin America then in the US (lack of content or quality search?). 78% of search pageviews take place in Google in Latin America. What users are searching in Google. May 2006, Brazil popular queries, "rebelde," "enem," etc. Mexico, "ronaldinho," "amor en custodia," etc. Google has 20 domains for Google in Latin America, in three languages (spanish, portuguese and Quechua). Some Google products localized for Latin America; Search, Orkut, Blogger, Gmail, Toolbar, Desktop, Earth, Picada and Google Scholar plus AdWords AdSense, etc. AdSense network is on terra, Ubbi, and Cronica. They have resellers like Clarin and Planet and also comarketers such as locaweb and bighost.
Peter Celeste from Yahoo! Search Marketing, General Manager, overseas Latin America and Canada, he was with the company since 2000, with GoTo.com. YSM connects advertisers to the Internet's most valuable audience with the industry;s most comprehensive sit of highly effective products, offering the greatest level of control. Yahoo's footprint in global. Q4 2000 in the UK, then Q1 2002 in Germany, then Q4 20002 in Japan, then Q4 2004 went into Latin America. This year, they will launch in Argentina, the "panama platform" will allow them to expand more, with geotargeting and linguistic technologies in 2007. In 2005 there were 850M internet users worldwide, 22% latin america and in 2010 there will be 1.6B internet users, 21% from Latin America - most the growth is from outside of the US. There is a 20% increase in Internet users in the past 10 years, most growth from outside of the US, i.e. globally. Since launching the TR platform in Sept 05, Mexico advertiser base has grown over 50% Q over Q. Advertisers on YSM Brazil reach over 95% of users searching online. Yahoo! has over 70 partners in Latin America (UOL, MSN, etc.). Yahoo! Telemundo reaches more than 75% of the online audience - 12.5M us hispanics each month. Online ad spending targeted at Hispanics is projected to increase 32% this year to $132 million, compared with a 25% increase to $15.6B for the overall us internet ad market. The population of 16M hispanic users of the Internet in the US is projected to expand roughly 30% over the next five years.
