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Technology Stocks : Claxson Interactive Group Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bald Man from Mars who wrote (30)	2/2/2000 12:23:00 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 66

Could be AOL. Can't find anything else. biz.yahoo.com Tuesday January 25, 8:12 pm Eastern Time Yahoo! gears up to open Web portal for Argentina NEW YORK, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Internet media giant Yahoo! Inc. (NasdaqNM: YHOO - news) is set to offer a Web portal targeted at Argentina, with a launch date as early as this month, Yahoo Latin America chief Roberto Alonso said on Tuesday. Speaking to investors at a Merrill Lynch Latin American Internet conference here, Alonso showed a slide of current Yahoo portals, which prematurely included an Argentine site. ``I do not have a Yahoo Argentina until maybe this month or so,' he said. Yahoo has been moving slowly into Latin America, opening country-specific, Spanish or Portuguese-language, portals in Brazil and Mexico. ``First I have to hire the engineers, the production managers and the sales force,' Alonso said of setting up the Latin portals. ``If we don't have the local people in place, we are just some kind of crazy gringo site.' He made his remarks in an interview with Reuters after his presentation. Competition in the Latin American Internet market has been heating up, with America Online Latin America Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) filing for an initial public offering of $575 million in stock last week. ``It is a pretty good market to move into in terms of wealth and online penetration,' said Gary Arlen, president of research firm Arlen Communications, who identified AOL and Venezuela's Cisneros Group as Yahoo's chief international rivals in the Argentine market. Yahoo also faces regional players such as StarMedia Network Inc. (NasdaqNM:STRM - news) and Argentina's El Sitio Inc., (NasdaqNM:LCTO - news) who have been hustling to capture the hearts of Latin American users before U.S. companies move in in full force. Yahoo's strategy has been to move slowly and country-by-country, and Alonso said the Argentine market was the logical next choice for its Yahoo en Espanol service. ``The market is growing, quickly,' he said. Argentina has about 9 percent of 4.2 million total Internet accounts in Latin America, and is growing faster than the region as a whole, according to Annika Alford, Latin America analyst with research firm International Data Corp. ``Nine percent of Internet accounts of the total region is short of where it should be in relation to where we would expect,' said Alford. Argentina has about 12 percent of the region's PCs, and other technology-related infrastructure, she said. ``But as far as Internet growth we know Argentina is coming from a severe underdevelopment stage in 1998, and now is in rapid growth,' she added. In Argentina, Yahoo will compete with not only the regional sites, but also local content providers such as privately-held Grupo Clarin, Argentina's top media company, which is expanding its offerings onto the Internet through Web portal Ciudad Internet. Alonso said he expects Yahoo's sophisticated technology, which allows for services such as electronic mail, calendar and content to interact, would give a competitive advantage. ``Content is something that is nice to see, but if I can have a reminder sent to my e-mail from my calendar and e-mailed notes when a stock goes up 10 percent, I feel we can build a solid audience that will keep coming back to us,' he said.