Cultural Relevance Brings Hispanic Population to the Web

Hispanic Internet users in the U.S. seek out culturally relevant content and tools, and have multi-language usage habits. The "AOL Latino 2006 Hispanic Cyberstudy," conducted by Synovate for AOL, looks at how this demographic segment uses the Internet.

Within the U.S., the online Hispanic population numbers over 16 million, or 55 percent of the total Hispanic population. Among those 16 million, 77 percent have broadband access.

"Last year, we saw the audience was already attaining critical mass in online penetration," said Mark Lopez, publisher of AOL Latino. "We found that broadband penetration and overall usage was still growing faster than the general market."

Internet usage within the Latino community is characterized by habit and cultural relevancy. The study finds three distinct acculturation patterns, or user adoption of cultural traits or social behaviors of another group. In terms of acculturation, 81 percent of online Hispanics are mostly or partially adoptive of general available content. Nineteen percent measurably tend to look for content catering to the Latino audience. Though over 80 percent are interested in all the content the Web has to offer and read English-language sites, 40 percent also find Spanish-language content appealing. Even the "unacculturated" group seeks out sites in multiple languages, 37 percent prefer content in both languages, and 15 percent stick with Spanish-only sites.