Is there a market for a Hispanic
focused news, opinion and aggregation website? A veteran journalist
for the EFE News Agency, the leading Spanish language news service in
the world, seems to think so. Emilio Sanchez, EFE's former bureau
chief in Washington D.C. and Miami, is now at the helm of Voxxi.com,
a Miami-based news website that will target second and third
generation Hispanics.
"We're going after segments of the Hispanic
community that use English as a first language," Sanchez says. "We
have done research and they don't like to read in Spanish."
The website will officially launch on January 12, but Voxxi is running a beta version to work out the technological kinks, he says.&
The template looks very similar to the Daily Beast and the Huffington Post, the AOL-owned site co-founded by Arianna Huffington that launched it's brand of new journalism in Miami this month.
"To be honest the look is a mix from several different news sites," Sanchez says. "The design is important, but it is not the most important."
The key to building an audience will be delivering good original content, Sanchez explains.
"We have some pretty good journalists to offer our audience something different," he says. "We're looking to start with 20 percent original content."
Within six months, Sanchez adds, Voxxi.com will be one-third original articles, one-third aggregated articles, and one-third from bloggers.
The site currently has 10 full-time employees and 10 part-timers. "We're looking to hire seven to 10 more people in the next several months," Sanchez says.
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