Por Los Ninos, a Web Site That Speaks Their Language
Spanish-speaking kids age 14 and younger now have a Web site of their own where they can learn, chat and play. The site--https://www.yupinitos.com--was launched this month by Miami Beach-based Yupi Internet Inc., making it the first to target Spanish-speaking children in the U.S.
Yupinitos is organized into sections for sports, learning, entertainment, games and the animal world. It also offers supervised chats and membership to Club Yupinitos, where kids can interact with characters and send their own stories, jokes, drawings or pictures of their pets to be posted on the site.
Through partnerships with Fox Kids, Sony, Columbia Pictures and DreamWorks, Yupi also is giving children access to television shows, celebrities and music. The site also offers e-mail, electronic greeting cards and translation services.
Parents can preset their children’s online time for scheduled chats, which are moderated by Tia Tata (Aunt Tata). Yupi’s virtual aunt makes sure topics are appropriate for children, and parents can lock the site so their children can’t surf elsewhere.
Several Latino-oriented portals in English and Spanish are targeting content to teen audiences, but Yupinitos is the first to target younger children.
Children can learn educational trivia such as the origin of the potato, or papa, in the Andes of Peru (the word comes from the Quechua language). An interactive literature section offers age-appropriate stories, and the site features a mascot of the week.
Yupi Internet Inc. was founded four years ago with https://www.yupi.com, one of the first portals addressing the growing needs of Spanish speakers online. The children’s site is the latest in a string of launches and acquisitions by the portal.
Among other recent additions: https://www.ciudadfutura.com, a Spanish-language online community; https://www.mujerfutura.com, a site catering to Spanish-speaking women; and https://www.amarillas.com, a bilingual business-to-business community for the Americas and Spain.
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Times staff writer Lee Romney covers Latino business.
