Sonico, think Facebook for Latin America - you may recall in a previous post, recently announced that they have passed the 15 million mark in registered users (content in Spanish) - keep in mind they have only been around for 9 months. In the beginning of 2008, the network had about 7.3 million registered users. These numbers are supported by a March 2008 ComScore report.

So it seems like they have surpassed Hi5, Orkut, and Facebook (LATAM registered users) and thus becoming reigning leaders in Latin America…

Mashable first reported on this and as a result were contacted by Hi5 to clarify - to which immediately a follow-up post was written. According to a more recent comScore report (April 2008) - Hi5 is clearly still the leader in overall traffic.

This does not take away from Sonico’s strong growth (or any other of the social networks in the region)…what I gather from all this is that Latin America is poised for a huge boom of online communities, conversations, opportunities, and yes, even challenges. And as internet penetration increases more and more, expect this phenomenon to out pace even Sonico’s growth.

Offline the Latin culture is very warm and social – this seems to be translating online. According to Comscore and Analytics 2.0 the number of people creating profiles on social networks has increased by 103% from Jan 07 – Jan 08. The study included Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.

Some interesting figures:
• Orkut - 12.9 million (up 27% from 10.1 million in ‘07)
• Sonico - 7.3 million (Sonico launched during the second half of ‘07)
• hi5 - 4.2 million (up 72% from 2.2 million in Jan. ‘07)
• MySpace - around 3 million (13 million users in all markets analyzed)
• Facebook - 2.2 million (up 4,152% from the Jan. ‘07 count of 52,000)

Says Ramiro Prudencio, Managing Director at Burson-Marsteller:

“The growth of social networks in Latin America is extremely important for those of us who manage brands and issues. People are engaged, sharing information and shaping public opinion – especially younger internet users – through these networks. If practitioners and clients think they will drive successful and effective communications programs through traditional media alone, they will be missing a tremendous opportunity. Moreover, there is an opportunity to quickly apply what we’ve learned from working in the US and Europe over the past couple of years as social networks have taken off, and offer clients unique insight as to how things are likely to trend in Latin America.”

Interesting post on TechCrunch about the Spanish language social site Sonico. Brief recap if you do not want to read full story:

- Social networked focused on LATAM
- Over 8 million users
- Ranks 167 on Alexa
- Recently launched Portuguese version
- Tremendous growth in last six months

You may recall our recent Facebook post (about its Spanish version) - see the comments posted by Juan Pablo.

It is likely that you have heard about the social network Hi5, then again maybe not. While it does not rank in the top 10 social networking sites in the US - it does rank very high in most Latin American countries (in some even as the top online destination). I am not sure if there is any real explanation for this, Google’s social site Orkut is a favorite in Brazil. Neither of these networks were specifically developed for the South American markets…they have just been “overtaken” by them.

I have a profile on both: my Hi5 network is made up of my friends I made in Venezuela and Bolivia while my Orkut network has all my Brazilian friends I met while working at Terra.com. A little secret - most of them are on Facebook too. The question is, will any one country or region for that matter take over Facebook. Honor Gunday, the founder of one the largest social networks in Turkey, Zurna, coined this possible phenomenon as Orkutization.

It is always worth while to check out which social sites are the most visited in your country - you may be surprised and find additional communication opportunities.

Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, has just launched a blog, is on YouTube, and is sharing his photos on Flickr. His first post seems to be a transcript of the YouTube video and is a callout to all Ecuadorian internet users to actively participate in the building of the new constitution – ehem, wouldn’t that be the ultimate democracy (even though only 8% of the country is online).

The president and his cabinet definitely see the value in this channel and want to actively participate in the conversation (reach out to a younger, more connected, and skeptical audience), I am curious to see how much they will listen and how honest of an initiative this will be perceived as. In the last 10 years, Ecuador has gone through about nine presidents, of which some are currently not allowed back into their own country – warrants for their arrest (charged with corruption).

Last thought, I wonder who is really authoring the blog…

Do you think country leaders should be blogging? Why or why not?

I would say that online shopping has become second nature in the United States with $100 billion being spent in 2006. In other places around the world, such as Latin America, this is not the case. For one, cash is still king and postal services are not all that reliable – put these two together and you are likely not going to get many people buying things online.

During my time at Terra.com (I worked for the US Hispanic portal), the top reasons for not buying online were:

• Did not have a credit card
• Did not believe their package would be delivered
• Security concerns about giving out information online (specifically credit card numbers)

As with most of my post on LATAM – things are changing. Mexico reported that $482 million were spent online in 2006, a 53% increase from the year before. Internet sales are expected to grow even more in 2007, estimated at about $765 million. Interestingly enough, 61% of all sales came from users in Mexico City. 60% was spent on the travel section and 34% on computers / electronics.

Online consumer confidence is definitely growing…

The Economist (August 18^th – 24^th issue) has an interesting article, “Adiós to poverty, hola to consumption”, about the rise of a new middle class in Latin America. There are several factors that are contributing to this, as per the article: “faster growth, low inflation, expanding credit and liberal trade.”

What caught my eye was that the sales of new cars, computers and consumer electronics are at record levels in Brazil and Mexico. The new discretionary income and spending habits are surely going to spurt the internet and broadband growth in the region. More and more people will spend time online. Currently there are a total of about 100 million people surfing the web in Central and South America according to Internet World Stats. And as more people are online, marketing money will begin to shift as well (see prior post) – not to mention the conversation in itself. Are you ready to listen?

On a side note, it was recently announced that the country with the most MSN Messenger users is…BRAZIL with 30.5 million IMers, which is about 77% of the Brazil’s online population…OMG!

Yesterday Peru was rocked by an 8.0-magnitude earthquake that according to CNN killed 477 people and left 1,003 injured. The earthquake has damaged much of the telephone infrastructure, so many have turned to the internet for communication and news purposes.

Post’s on Peru are flooding the blogosphere, as are videos and photos. New blogs dedicated to the event have been and are being created. But opposed to analyzing and talking about “digital” I would rather promote sites where you could make a donation to those in most need:

http://www.charitynavigator.org

http://www.worldvision.org

http://www.care.org

As far as I know, our B-M people were not directly affected. Hope everyone has a safe weekend.

The Chilean government, Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency to be specific, has launched a channel on YouTube with the purpose of opening the conversation between government authorities and the public.

Definitely a good initiative to reach a younger audience and voters. It seems like they have also left comments open without moderation - which is a good thing, anything else would have been seen as censorship, especially coming from the government. I just hope that viewers will actually get a response to their comments.

Current video topics range from Iraq, violence, gas to football (the real football). While their site could use a little design work, overall it is refreshing to see the use of such a communication channel by a government in the Latin American region.

The IAB in Argentina just released the latest numbers in regards to online advertising for the first semester of 2007 - and the numbers are pretty impressive: $16.7 million, considering it’s a 30% increase to the previous year. Most of these monies went to banners, rich media, and search marketing.

Much of the increase is due to the the growth of online users (about 13 million), broadband, and accessibility in general. The top industries investing in online campaigns are: automotive, telecommunications, banks, entertainment, and personal hygiene.

The country will likely continue to see this type of growth - with an expected investment of about $40 million for all of 07 - the second semester will be even more promising.