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Portada Quick Hits: Strong Financing for Latin Gaming Company, Digital Magazines…

and Hispanic Publications Flourish, Hispanic Viewership of NFL Climbs.

Content

Some of the stories people in the Latin Marketing and Media sector are talking about this week:

» Sixteen new Hispanic Publications. Twenty new Hispanic and African American targeted publications were launched in late 2009 and in 2010 across the nation, according to EPMG’s Media Research Department. Sixteen of which are Hispanic publications and four African American publications. According to the PEW Research Center’s biennial news consumption survey, only about one-in-four (26 percent) Americans say they read a daily newspaper in print yesterday, down from 30 percent in 2008 and 38 percent in 2006. On the other hand, there are at least seven of the top ten major Hispanic newspapers that reported an increase in circulation from 2008 onwards. In-language and community relevant newspapers command a great loyalty from its readers because it delivers what no other media format does, which is hyper local and relevant community news.
Read which Hispanic publications were launched in the last twelve months here.

» Hispanics NFL Fans Increase. “Long fans of fútbol, Hispanics are now increasingly taking to that, um, other brand of football. The National Football League, which has increased its marketing efforts in try to reach the emerging market, has seemingly hit pay dirt.”, Fox News Latino reports. Hispanic viewership of the NFL is up nearly 12 percent to date over the last year, according to The Nielsen Company. Ratings are up over that same time period, too, by 6.8 percent, the media ratings company said. “It’s just been a consistent message,” said Anthony Eros, principle at Eros Consulting, who has been involved in Hispanic marketing and sports for some 16 years. “It doesn’t surprise me at all.”

»Strong Financing for Latin Gaming …

Social gaming is an international phenomenon. While Zynga is the leading social gaming company in the U.S., in Brazil it is a company called Vostu. The company has been growing rapidly and just closed a $30 million series C financing led by Tiger Management, with Accel Partners joining the round, Techcrunch reports. Accel partner Jim Breyer, who sits on Facebook’s board, will take a board seat on Vostu. Previous investors Intel Capital and General Catalyst partners also participated. Investors purchased about 10 percent of the company in this latest round, giving Vostu a post-money valuation of roughly $300 million, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. Including previous rounds, Vostu now has raised a total of $46 million. Vostu boasts 20 million active players a month, a tenfold increase from the beginning of the year. With only 40 percent Internet penetration in Brazil, that means that about a quarter of all Brazilians who are on the Internet play a Vostu game. Vostu currently has six social games (including a farm game, poker game, as well as soccer and crime role playing games) which are played on Brazil’s largest social network, Google-owned Orkut.  

Vostu is managed from New York City, but employs more than 200 people in two game-creation studios in Buenos Aires and Sao Paolo.

…and digital companies.

Analytics company ClickFox announced Monday that it has raised $18 million in a Series C Financing Round led by Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners (AIP), Valor TV News reports. The company plans to invest in Latin America. The already profitable company provides customer service analytics at all interaction points–interactive voice response (IVR), Web agent, chat, and retail/point-of-sale (POS). The next step for ClickFox is to invest further in research and development, especially in relation to social media analytics As ClickFox continues to expand its customer base, these investments will be key to deepening its growing repository of customer behavior data representing over 240 million consumers. ClickFox's aggressive plans to expand globally into European and Latin American markets will meet the growing demand for customer experience analytics and expertise.

» Ten Years In, How Satisfied are Publishers with Digital Magazines?

Folio reports that as the digital edition industry near 10 years of age, Nxtbook Media recently wrapped a survey called "Digital Editions: The State of the Industry". The researcher who made the reports polled 233 publishers on their overall satisfaction with digital editions as audience tools and revenue generators, and how mobile apps and tablets will influence their strategy going forward. Interestingly, Nxtbook concluded from the results that there is great latent potential in digital magazines from the perspective of the publisher. In terms of priorities, Nxtbook believes, publishers are more focused on increasing circulation for digital magazines and selling advertising more effectively into the format, than they are on apps and mobile solutions. When it comes to the circulation of their digital magazines, about 40 percent reported modest to great satisfaction. On the other hand, 38 percent were somewhat dissatisfied while 22 percent were quite dissatisfied. Still, the majority of respondents believe digital magazines remain an untapped circulation resource but aren't sure how to capitalize on it, with 59 percent agreeing that, "I'm confident there are many more digital magazine readers out there but I don't know how to reach them" while just 3.3 percent said, "I believe that our digital magazine audience has very little room to grow."

 

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