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.

Latin America may soon see a new domain extension: .lat – ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is currently accepting proposals for the development of .lat, and at the moment NIC Mexico (domain registration in Mexico) is the frontrunner.

Most Latin America countries have their own domain extensions, but there are none that cover the whole region. This is good news for companies that not only have a local presence but regional as well – could make a website, at least the URL point-of-view (content is another story) more relevant to a whole region apposed to the country extension. Good for social sites too.

Take VISA for example, their Latin American and Caribbean site is currently www.visalatam.com, once .lat becomes available it could be www.visa.lat. My only question is: will people think it is Latvia, which is actually .lv?

Other’s that have a regional domain extension are Asia (.asia) and the European Union (.eu)

Terra Networks Chile has just launched their online television service: Terra TV, which will feature over 90 international channels and 200 channels through a partnership with JumpTV.  In initial broadcasts, Terra TV showcased World Cup games, the Rio Carnival, and the Oscars.  Chile is the country with the highest internet penetration in Latin America, about 42.4% according to Internet World Stats, while the region as a whole is at about 19%.

At about the same time, YouTube has launched various localized websites, including Brazil (Portuguese) and Spain (Spanish) – I am not sure how this will fly in the LATAM region as the Spanish flag does not relate to any South or Central American country, but at least the interface is in Spanish.

Brazil’s internet penetration is at about 17%, but accounts for over 30 million internet users, making it the country with the most “surfers” in LATAM.  Interestingly enough, Brazil has also developed many of its own web 2.0 sites and applications, they have even created an interface for Second Life in Portuguese – Linden Dollars can be converted to Reals.

Back to video, Latin America is also one of the regions with the lowest broadband access, however, it also has the highest growth and from what we can tell with the various initiatives launched in the last weeks, watching videos online is becoming more and more common.

I have been on Second Life for almost a year – I guess I am still considered a n00b compared to some of the older folk that have been around since the beginning. And I admit, I first went into SL because I was reading about it everywhere, was curious to see what the hype was all about. Next thing I knew I was spending more time on SL than I should have – while my social life took a bit of a hit, I told myself it was research…and to some point it really was.

All this led up to Sunday, June 10, 2007 – on this day the Mexico Tourism Board (a Burson-Marsteller client) held the grand opening of the Chichen-Itza ruins in Second Life. The objective for the Mexico Tourism Board was really two-folded: to create a virtual replica of the ruins for people to visit and learn about the history – call it virtual tourism, which seems to be gaining popularity in SL. And at the same time, Chichen-Itza is one of the nominated sites to become a wonder of the world. Voters coming from SL get a traditional Mayan outfit, virtual of course – pretty revealing too.

The sim features El Castillo (main pyramid), El Cenote Sagrado, and El Templo de los Guerreros among others. Special attention was given to the builds, for example, there are a total of 91 stairs on each side of the pyramid, same as in RL.

One of the key highlights is the audio tour, residents ride on top of a large butterfly which stops at the various sites while the users listens to the history and background of each ruin. The market area features artifacts created and sold by residents, they were invited to set-up their shops free of charge. There will be weekly entertainment featuring various SL musicians such as Dann Numbers, Maximillion Kleene, Juel Resistance, Dexter Moore, Chronic Skronski, and Rookie Rossini among others.

The launch party was a great success, the sim had a total of 33,346 visitors, and traffic is holding up. Various events are scheduled for the next coming months. Come take a look for yourself:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Visit%20Mexico/195/60/37 (you will need to register and download the Second Life software)