Danay’s Musings

- The company exercises its option to extend the initial round of financing raised in May 2008

- The additional capital will be used to boost its operations in Brazil and develop new products

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Sonico (www.sonico.com), the Latin American social network that organizes people’s lives online, announced that DN Capital and other major national and international investors have provided an additional $1.7 million to the $4.3 million raised during last year’s round of financing.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090630/ARTU003LOGO )

“This influx of capital will help us boost our office in Brazil and grow our social communications platform, allowing us to incorporate key improvements for our users. We will also continue to focus on developing strategic alliances and attracting the best talent in the industry,” said Rodrigo Teijeiro, CEO and Founder of Sonico.

Sonico welcomed a group of top local and international industry executives to its ranks this year, including Alexandre de Freitas, who joined the company as Country Manager of Sonico Brazil in October, and Angel Gambino, who joined the team a month ago as Vice President of Business Development.

Sonico has been a part of the social network boom this year, experiencing steady growth in its user numbers (more than 43 million by late December). The company has joined the OpenSocial platform (a Google and Yahoo-led initiative, among others, to develop and share social applications); launched Public Pages, which allows companies, brands, politicians and celebrities to join the online conversations and interact directly with users; and, in November, opened an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a market where it already has more than 9 million registered users.

From an institutional perspective, many Sonico executives actively participated in business, technology and social media events and lectures this year, including: the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, and its Latin American counterpart, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the MIT Sloan Latin Conference, in Massachusetts, U.S.; La Red Innova, in Madrid, Spain, and the Social Media Forum in Santa Clara, California, U.S. Sonico was also recognized by the Great Place to Work Institute, which placed it 19th in its ranking of the best places to work in Argentina. In addition, BusinessWeek magazine’s list of the best technology start-ups ranked Sonico as one of the top 5 global companies with the greatest global reach potential.

“It’s been a busy and very rewarding year. In 2010, our efforts will concentrate on further developing the ‘organize your life online’ concept, which allows users to have a personal profile, a professional profile and a public profile, all of them managed from a single account,” added Teijeiro.

About Sonico
Founded in July 2007, Sonico is the social network of Latin America that organizes people’s lives online. Developed with a strong emphasis on user legitimacy, privacy and personalization, it has been widely adopted across Latin America. This social communication platform has over 43 million registered users and allows individuals, organizations and brands to interact in a useful and entertaining way. Located in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, with a team of over 80 people, Sonico was elected by BusinessWeek as the 5th tech startup with the highest global growth potential. Sonico closed its first round of capitalization of USD 4.3 million in May 2008, with an extension of USD 1.7 million in December 2009.

For more information please access http://corporate.sonico.com

SOURCE Sonico

Web portal Terra USA has partnered with media company Interactive One on a three-year initiative to cross-market and cross-sell their respective audiences.

Terra will manage all ad sales and share exclusive content with MiGente.com — the Hispanic-American social network owned by Interactive One parent company Radio One. MiGente.com claims an audience of about 3.2 million U.S. users.

by Gavin O’Malley

Along with catering to core audiences, Terra is “providing advertisers with the opportunity to effectively access the second- and third-generation of bilingual U.S. Hispanics,” said Fernando Rodríguez, CEO for Terra USA.

Interactive One was launched two years ago by Radio One to complement its existing portfolio of media companies, which reach a mainly African-American audience.

Just last month, the interactive division named former Napster chief technology officer, David Wolfe, as its new chief product and operating officer.

While the Terra partnership was in the works prior to Wolfe’s appointment, he has been tasked with creating “innovative Web products,” and driving the strategy of the company’s portfolio, which also includes the social-networking site BlackPlanet, news site NewsOne, and the entertainment site Urban Daily.

Terra Latin America, the parent of Terra USA, claims roughly 60 million unique monthly visitors worldwide.

source: MediaPost

The dangers of sharing personal information on the internet may not be as serious as in Mexico but brands can learn much from that country’s caution, Angelica del Valle says.

We Latins are a wonderfully social breed: we are a society that loves to party and is in constant hunger for recognition. We are natural voyeurs and we love to watch and to be seen.

So it’s no surprise that visiting our friends online has become such an incredibly popular way to stay in touch before the partying starts.

Updating our social profiles is now an important part of our everyday activities. A great profile lets you strut your stuff even before you arrive as well as adding to the gossip and sense of occasion.

Sadly, however, this is one party that might be over and for serious reasons. Recent investigations revealed that social networks have become authentic paradises for kidnappers who have a profitable business in Mexico.

The media verdict has been delivered by national TV: avoid problems by not using these sites. They warned that criminals can use such information to select future victims and even join their friends’ networks to learn more about them.

Social networks have become the security-free back door that has left the rich vulnerable. Some social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook, have responded by sending newsletters recommending how and what to publish as well as encouraging consumers to use the privacy settings that are a built-in, but rarely used, feature of these sites.

Such concerns have forced us to become extremely innovative if we want to connect brands and consumers in what is now a complicated security-focused environment. We’ve developed four guidelines for digital planning in social media in Mexico, but they apply to any market where privacy concerns are rising.

They reflect the reality that the era of being free and easy with personal information on social networks is over.

Build trust. Always remember to separate interaction from database capture. Don’t force users to give you their information before they can get to know you. Give, give, give and only then ask. Once users are confident that you are honest, then they will trust you.

Be security obsessed and brag about it. Talk about how much you will protect consumer information and promise to keep it to yourself.

But stay relaxed. Nobody likes a brand that freaks them out about personal information: it creates doubts. Just be simple, firm and friendly.

Your brand is an endorsement. Great brands can generate an “I belong” feeling. A strong brand can be your best security credentials.

Here in Mexico these lessons are hard won. As digital leaders, we need to educate our brands, our consumers and sometimes, even the social networks on how to regain what we as a society have lost … the freedom to trust strangers online.

Angelica del Valle is the digital project manager Mexico for Universal McCann.

source: Campaign Magazine