MySpace to expand offerings for fast-growing Latino audience

The online hangout MySpace is expanding its offerings for Latinos, adding eight bilingual communities focused on bands and celebrities, soccer and other interests.

The year-old MySpace Latino has largely been a translation of MySpace’s English-language site into Spanish. Beginning Tuesday, MySpace is unveiling content geared to one of the fastest-growing groups online.

“It’s been something they’ve been asking for,” said Victor Kong, the Miami-based managing director for MySpace Latino. “We’re not just duplicating everything and having the same exact programs in Spanish.”

MySpace officials say that switching between English and Spanish should generally be seamless. The Los Angeles-based company, a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., will continue to have separate sites aimed at Latinos abroad: MySpace Mexico and MySpace Latin America in Spanish and MySpace Brazil in Portuguese.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, about three-quarters of English-speaking U.S. Latinos are online, an increase from about half in 2002. But a joint study by that group and the Pew Hispanic Center found usage lower among Spanish-dominant Latinos -- 32% as of late 2006.

Sites targeting other groups, including blacks, are in the works, but MySpace is expanding the Latino site now because of its growth. The company said it had added tens of thousands of Latino users each month with little promotion.