Danay Escanaverino

Product Upgrades Connect U.S. Hispanics to What Matters Most to Them, Including More Ways to Experience, View, and Share Their Online and Offline Worlds

MIAMI, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Yahoo! En Espanol today debuts the next evolution of two of its most popular products. Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Messenger have been enhanced to deliver richer and more personally relevant experiences to users, making online search and instant messaging more social and fun with Yahoo!.

“With these new versions of Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Messenger, the company is focused on further connecting users to what matters to them most,” said Armando Rodriguez, general manager, Yahoo! Hispanic Americas. “The renewed focus on providing a more personally relevant online experience will continue to come to life not only across Search and Messenger, but also in other upcoming product rollouts, including the new Yahoo! En Espanol Front Page and enhanced Mail, all on track to launch in upcoming months.”

With these new versions of Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Messenger, the company is focused on further connecting users to what matters to them most

New Yahoo! Search Experience Gives You Personally Relevant Results
Yahoo!’s new search results page is aimed at making Web search more personally relevant. The product delivers a differentiated search experience that lets users better explore the things, people and websites that matter to them most. New enhancements include:

– Results Filtering Options – Provides new tools for refining search results, including exploring related concepts, displaying only results from popular Yahoo! and third-party sites, and narrowing results by different types of content such as videos and discussion forums.
– Easy Access to Search Controls – Provides quick access to Search Scan/SafeSearch, which helps protect users from viruses, spyware and search spam.
– Search Pad – A personal research assistant that lets users capture, organize, save and share information they find while researching online.

For example, now when users search for “Futbol” on Yahoo! En Espanol, on the left hand side of the page they will find Search Pad Options, Search Scan/SafeSearch, as well as links to other major online resources to obtain news on the subject. In the middle section, users will find the most popular links along with quick view photo and video images on their subject.

With the new design, Yahoo!’s powerful query assistance is still available directly below the search box, but is also incorporated into the left-hand column for quick access lower on the page, even when the Search Assist layer is hidden. Users can use this column to easily explore and discover concepts related to your query, and they can also share these search results with friends by using the Search Pad option.

Yahoo! Messenger Keeps You Instantly Connected
Yahoo! Messenger 10 allows users to instantly communicate with friends and family around the world through new interactive and social features. Enhancements include:

– Video Calls – New high-quality video calling enables full-screen,
face-to-face chats at no cost, using the familiar and easy-to-use Yahoo! Messenger environment.
– Updates Tab – A new tab helps people easily discover Updates from friends and family, including status updates, recent Flickr uploads, Yahoo! Buzz stories, Twitter updates and more.

About Yahoo!
Yahoo! attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its innovative technology and engaging content and services, making it one of the most trafficked Internet destinations and a world class online media company. Yahoo!’s vision is to be the center of people’s online lives by delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit http://pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal(http://yodel.yahoo.com).

SOURCE Yahoo! En Espanol

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- 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

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DALLAS, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — The Hispanic Public Relations Association (HPRA) (http://www.hpra-usa.org/) and the Hispanic PR Blog (http://www.hispanicprblog.com/) are joining forces to make history by presenting the first ever Hispanic Public Relations & Social Media Marketing Conference (http://www.hispanicprconference.com/) in Dallas, TX, May 10-12, 2010.

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“This conference will provide attendees with case studies, professional development, career and networking opportunities that are razor-focused on Hispanic PR and social marketing,” said conference co-creator Manny Ruiz(http://www.hispanicprblog.com/about-2), the nation’s leading blogger on Hispanic public relations and the founder of Hispanic PR Wire, a division of PR Newswire. “We believe this case studies-driven event will be the premier annual showcase for all that our Hispanic PR/social marketing industry has to offer.”

This conference comes at a critically important time for both HPRA and the Hispanic market

“This conference comes at a critically important time for both HPRA and the Hispanic market,” said John Echeveste(http://www.vpepr.com/staff.html), HPRA co-founder and senior adviser. “This year, HPRA celebrated its 25th anniversary and, in 2010, we will expand its national presence, while the upcoming U.S. Census and the continued growth of social media will underscore the importance of the national Hispanic market. As the leading organization for Hispanic public relations professionals, HPRA is pleased to co-present this conference to demonstrate the effective role that PR plays in Hispanic marketing and the creativity and innovation that our members are providing in leading the social media revolution,” added Echeveste.

The conference will feature nearly two dozen sessions on a wide range of topics covering everything from how to generate coverage with the top Hispanic bloggers to best practices in Hispanic youth marketing to how to effectively manage corporate partnerships with Hispanic organizations. All of the professional development programs are being defined by a senior executive advisory board consisting of some of the most seasoned Hispanic PR pros in the corporate communications, agency, media and non-profit worlds.

The conference advisory board consists of: Cristina Alfaro (McDonald’s); Jorge Diaz de Villegas (Fleishman); Aymee Zubizarreta (State Farm); Armando Azarloza (The Axis Agency); Alfredo Padilla (Comerica Bank), Ivette Zurita and Lourdes Rodriguez (Hispanic Public Relations Association); Stephen Chavez (Ketchum); Lorenzo Lopez (Walmart); John Echeveste (VPE Public Relations), Romina Bongiovanni (Edelman); Audrey Ponzio (Edelman); Rosa Alonso (My Latino Voice); Mario Flores (Sportivo/RL Public Relations) and Deborah Vallejo (Bromley).

In addition to quality professional development programs and networking opportunities, the conference will feature an exhibition area to connect Hispanic marketers with industry communications providers as well as key Hispanic organization exhibitors. Parallel to the main exhibition hall will be a first of its kind Hispanic Market Career Fair for companies, organizations and government agencies seeking talented Latinos in PR and advertising.

The full, detailed conference agenda/speakers will be released in early January but sponsorships and early bird registration are already available at the conference web site, www.HispanicPRConference.com or by contacting show director Ray Bianchi at 708-620-9738 or by emailing hispanicprblog@gmail.com. The conference will be held at the Sheraton Dallas.

To sign up for conference-related Twitter headlines subscribe at www.Twitter.com/HispanicPR.

About the Hispanic Public Relations Association (HPRA)
HPRA was founded in 1984 as a non-profit organization to establish a network of Hispanics employed in the public relations profession. HPRA has more than 250 members representing public relations, marketing and advertising professionals from agencies, government, non-profit and corporate companies. HPRA is dedicated to the advancement of Hispanic professionals and provides educational seminars and workshops throughout the year. The organization has awarded more than $220,000 in scholarships to Latino students pursuing a career in communications during the last 25 years. HPRA strives to be a resource for communications professionals and for those seeking insights into the Hispanic market. For more information please visit www.hpra-usa.org.

About the Hispanic PR Blog
Founded by Multicultural PR veterans Manny Ruiz of PR Newswire/Hispanic PR Wire and Angela Sustaita-Ruiz of Hispanic Media Trainers, LLC, the Hispanic PR Blog (HispanicPRBlog.com) the PR industry’s premier source for news and views related to Hispanic and multicultural PR. The blog and its accompanying Twitter feed (Twitter.com/HispanicPR) regularly feature columns, stories, white papers, job postings, calendar events and more. The blog’s RSS feed can be obtained athttp://feeds.feedburner.com/HispanicPRBlog. The RSS feed to the Twitter feed is available athttp://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/38222941.rss. The Hispanic PR Blog also features its own news icon for iPhones. To add it to your iPhone, simply bookmark the home page of the blog on your iPhone.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Multimedia assets are available at: http://www.hispanicprwire.com/home.php?l=in

SOURCE Hispanic Public Relations Association

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Premier Thought-Leadership Institute on Hispanic-relevant Communications Issues within School of Journalism and Mass Communication

MIAMI, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — The School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) at Florida International University (FIU) today announced it has created a program of Hispanic Communication Studies to address communications trends and issues relevant to the U.S. Hispanic community. The school plans to continue upgrading the program in the future in order to position itself as the premier thought-leadership institute on issues relevant to the U.S. Hispanic community.

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The new program builds upon an already existing set of courses taught at the FIU SJMC covering Hispanic market communications and Spanish language journalism. It will be headed by the SJMC Department Chairs: Teresa Ponte, chair of the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, and Fernando Figueredo, chair of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations. The SJMC is led by Dean Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver and Associate Dean Allan Richards.

“It makes sense to establish this program at FIU, since Miami is home to the most important Hispanic broadcast-media outlets as well as a large and diverse Hispanic community,” Ponte said. “We have become a feeder school to the news media as well as to public relations and advertising agencies recruiting Hispanics to address the fastest growing minority segment in the U.S.,” she added.

“Our location as well as the significant number of award-winning Hispanic professors in our faculty places us in a unique position to establish such a program,” added Figueredo. “Seventy percent of the students we graduate from the SJMC are of Hispanic heritage, and university-wide at FIU, we graduate more Hispanic students than any other university in the country,” he added.

The SJMC is already making plans to upgrade this initiative into an institute focused on the analysis of communications issues and trends impacting the U.S. Hispanic community. It will include projects such as an ongoing series of seminars with highly distinguished speakers from around the country as well as hosting an annual conference to discuss the most relevant issues on the continuing evolution of the Hispanic media. In addition, it plans to further the current Hispanic-market-driven research agenda at FIU on critical issues affecting the U.S. Hispanic community, with a special focus on how Hispanics consume and interpret news and information.

Follow the School of Journalism and Mass Communication on Twitter and Facebook for updates on the Hispanic Communications Studies Program and other SJMC news.

NOTE TO EDITORS: High-resolution photos are posted athttp://www.hispanicprwire.com/home.php?l=in.

SOURCE Florida International University

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