Interactive One\'s Site for Latinos

September 9, 2012, 9:16 pm

By TANZINA VEGA

Interactive One, a digital media company best known for creating content for African-Americans, is set to announce on Monday that it has started a Web site aimed at urban Latinos.

The site is called Zona De Sabor, which, roughly translated, means Flavor Zone.

It is in English and is geared to American Latinos ages 25 through 37 with entertainment news and other content. Smokey D. Fontaine, the chief content officer for Interactive One, said he wanted to create content for that audience after the success of MiGente.com, the company's Latino-themed social network, which had 316,000 unique visitors in August.

“It will be written with a voice that comes from a place of cultural awareness, that c omes from a place of having a shared experience,” Mr. Fontaine, above, said. “How we discuss Sofia Vergara, how we discuss Julián Castro and how we discuss the Video Music Awards may come from a different place” than content written for a general market audience, he said.

Mr. Fontaine described the audience as “English-speaking Latino adults who are well educated, have a high consumption of entertainment, but want it in a way that's slightly different from how they see it in the general market.”

The site follows those from other media companies catering to the Hispanic market in the United States, like NBCLatino, Fox News Latino and HuffPost Latino Voices.

Mr. Fontaine said that while he welcomes the competition, Interactive One has a unique advantage. “We pride ourselves on understanding audiences of color,” he said. “We are focused on the African-American and Latino and urban communities online. That is the DNA of our company.”

La st year, NBC News and Interactive One announced a partnership that combined editorial and sales resources for NBC's African-American news site, TheGrio.com, and Interactive One's news Web site, NewsOne.com. Other Web sites under the Interactive One brand with an African-American focus include The Urban Daily, for entertainment; BlackPlanet.com, a social network; and HelloBeautiful, for women; and other news properties like Radio One and TV One.