Reaching Young Hispanics Online

From my email this past week:

Hip Venture Company Creates HipChicas.com

The independent media startup has rolled out HipChicas.com a virtual world aimed at tween Latina girls.

-By Mike Shields

The independent media startup Hip Venture Company, Inc. has rolled out HipChicas.com a virtual world aimed at tween Latina girls.

The Web-based world, which will be subscription-based, will enable girls aged seven to 14 to create avatars and engage with other kids across the globe while following the adventures of a fictional band, the Hip Chicacs. Using custom instant messaging tools on the site, users will be able to communicate in English and Spanish, as well as Portuguese and French while they visit virtual representations of real world locales, including Mexico, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, New York, Cuba and Miami Beach.

Hip Venture is planning to register 100,000 users for a beta trial period before launching the site nationally, said creator Lazaro Fuentes.

Fuentes said eventually HipChicas.com will be ad supported, but any participating brands would need to adhere to the world’s Help Improve the Planet [HIP] theme. He believes that theme will help the site appeal to a more modern, worldly tween audience, one that is being underserved by mainstream kids Web sites and TV.

“We wanted to extend what has been a very broad introduction to Latin culture through things like [Nickelodeon’s] Dora the Explorer,
he said. “We think there is a gaping hole in the market. After these kids turn four and five, content [like this] falls of a cliff.”

Eventually, Fuentes wants to expand HipChicas.com beyond just a virtual world. For example, an animated series in the works. “The idea was to launch a digital kids brand and anchor it with a virtual world,” he said.

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