HispanicBusiness

Imagine a Chilean-born American citizen, sharing photos in his native language with friends in the U.S., Mexico, and his home country -- via home PC or mobile phone. Yahoo is closing the gap between native Spanish speakers worldwide, regardless of locale, with the introduction of several new initiatives.

First, the global Internet giant announced today that it is reaching out to four new Latin American markets with the launch of sites dedicated to Chile , Peru , Colombia and Venezuela .

The four new sites will offer full features to its users, including home page, search, mail, messenger, answers (users across the globe ask and answer questions on any topic), flickr (a photo and video management community), news and entertainment, mujer (targeted to women's interests), toolbar, and avatars.

Yahoo not only offers its users in Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela locally relevant versions of the site, it also presents new opportunities for advertisers in the region, Armando Rodriguez, senior director of Yahoo! Hispanic Americas Partner Solutions, explained to the media.

"Yahoo's new search marketing platform offers a pan-regional solution that, among other capabilities, allows advertisers to buy geo-targeted key words that are most relevant to each market," Mr. Rodriguez said.

These four sites are additions to the already established Yahoo! Mexico, Yahoo! Argentina and Yahoo! Telemundo (which is aimed at Spanish-speakers in the United States) sites.

This announcement comes in conjunction with Yahoo's 2007 partnership with América Móvil, a Latin American wireless services provider, to bring Yahoo's mobile services to consumers in 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The partnership made Yahoo! oneSearch the default mobile search service on America Movil's wireless carriers' portals and will soon offer locally customized versions for each region.

"By providing compelling mobile experiences and continuing to partner with key operators to provide services tailored for their customers, we can grow usage of the mobile Internet, create new revenue streams and extend our leadership in mobile services," said Bruce Stewart, vice-president and general manager of Connected Life Americas Yahoo!.
A spokesperson for Yahoo said that while Yahoo! Mobile is not available in the new markets right now, it will be in the future.