Joe Kutchera

The following is a preview to the forthcoming book – The Spanish Net: How to reach and segment the 136 million Spanish-speakers online – from Paramount Books. How can we develop great content online for the Spanish-language world in the years ahead? Much like the Madrid-based blog networks in my previous post, we can answer this question by looking to one of the leaders of publishing in Spain: Gumersindo Lafuente, who founded SoiTu.es, a truly innovative content portal, previously ran the newspaper site ElMundo.es and

This past April I visited my friends Antonella, Mauricio and their daughter Isabel in Barcelona. We had a tremendous time together. I filmed the train ride along the seashore as I approached Barcelona from Tarragona, about an hour to the south. Enjoy the sunshine and palm trees….

Lots of insights coming out about blogging this week. Most notably, Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere report came out. More on that in an upcoming post…. My friend David Berkowitz at 360i wrote two excellent articles this week: 1) Blog search stuck in Beta on MediaPost about how to improve blog search engines 2) Blog Startups and Superstars on his blog – MarketersStudio.com – about notable blogging companies that he met at Blog World Expo. I am hoping to try out Lijit and Zemanta soon.

Last weekend, April 25 and 26, I spoke at the University of Oviedo at a new MBA program in communications and new technologies. During the coffee break on Saturday, I learned something very interesting from Elena, Alfonso, and Igancio, three students from the program. The government of Asturias (one of the states on the Northern coast of Spain) gives 500 Euros to every person between the ages of 18 and 35 as a means of providing them with an educational tool. This includes 350 Euros

My friend Fernando Bravo at Grupo Editorial Expansion introduced me to the folks at Quo España via email, so I stopped by for a visit. Interesting to hear about what they are doing compared to what Quo Mexico is doing. Our web sites are especially different. Quo Mexico’s site hasn’t been redesigned in a while. Quo España’s site is currently part of France Telecom’s network – Orange – although they indicated that they may take it back and build up a business on their own.

Yesterday I took the high-speed Renfe AVE train from Madrid to Barcelona. It used to take 8+ hours and now takes about 3 hours. An amazing experience. The best part of it is that instead of having to go to the airport in a taxi, wait 2-3 hours, go thru security, etc, you can show up 30 minutes or less before the train is supposed to leave, jump on the train and arrive in the center of Barcelona. Check out the video here….

Last week, my brother and I spent a week vacationing in Madrid.  Great fun.  On the way there, the Iberia plane I flew on featured a view from the tailfin occasionally during the flight.  I had never seen anything like it before. Take a look here….