LatinaLista — With the growing popularity of Facebook, the answer to that question would seem like a no-brainer but not so fast.
According to a post by Jennifer Martinez at gigaom.com, Latinos actually do prefer MySpace.
The blogger cites a study by Quantcast that claims 14 percent of MySpace U.S. users are Latino versus only 5 percent of Facebook’s users being Hispanic.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media properties.
Yet, it would seem that with these numbers, News Corp, the parent company of MySpace and several newspapers, would want to preserve the one media property in their stable of products that they know Latinos actually use — but no.
The biggest hint that News Corp doesn’t see the Latino population as serious consumers can be found in the following statement regarding what their plans are for MySpace Latino after firing most of the management team.
“The MySpace Latino community will remain live and not shut down. We are restructuring and evaluating how Latin will be featured on our site as we know the importance of the genre. Before the launch of MySpace Latino, we frequently featured Latin artists, promotions, and events on MySpace Music and will continue to do so.”
If you missed it, the implication is that the Latino consumer is nothing more than a “genre.”
That’s insulting because it discounts the significance and gains of the Latino community in this country. Latino MySpace isn’t a genre site anymore than the regular MySpace site. It is a site that fills the needs of a substantial segment of this country’s population.
Too bad media executives would rather let good products die rather than expand their vision and see that Latinos are loyal to those whom they feel respect them as readers and consumers — and don’t just treat them as a “genre.”
