Eritmo Site Aims To Tailor Latino Content

A new Latin music Web site slated to launch Sept. 7 is taking aim at securing a potentially lucrative niche in the Latin American online music sector.
"Our goal is to be the premier marketer of Latin talent on the Internet," says Francisco de la Torre, CEO of Miami-based Eritmo.com.
To achieve that objective, de la Torre will depend on a passive customization technology that will enable Eritmo to develop profiles of visitors based on their preferences when they check out the Web site.
The upshot, says de la Torre, is that record companies "are going to be able to receive feedback from a specific audience targeted by the labels. Therefore, we will become a very powerful research mechanism in the music industry."
In the meantime, however, de la Torre says Eritmo, a free service to its visitors, will focus on its entertainment content, which is housed in six different channels, including music, news, and chat rooms. Visitors will be able to interact in English, Spanish, and, later this year, Portuguese.
Compelling content will be key for the interim, asserts de la Torre, as the revenue stream for Eritmo will initially be provided through advertising connected to the channels' program offerings.
Eritmo's passive customization technology will play a role in determining the Web site content, according to de la Torre.
"We allow a visitor to be identified by our system, and the visitor will show patterns of preference-in news, music, and concerts," says de la Torre. "When the visitor returns, our system will recognize those preferences and will present those preferences to the visitor. The more the visitor comes, the more our system learns about his experience."
Among Eritmo's founders and board members are Roland Hernández, chairman of the Telemundo Group; Michael H. Jordan, former chairman of CBS; and Derek Reisfield, former president of new media, CBS. Raúl Vásquez, a industry veteran in the Latin American record business, has been named COO of Eritmo.
Says de la Torre, "We are merging talent from different backgrounds, and that sets us apart in terms of covering this interesting and booming genre."
By the end of the year, Vásquez expects Eritmo will begin selling recorded product on a country-by-country basis in Latin America. He envisions alliances with fulfillment houses in the U.S. and Latin America to provide product for sale.
Vásquez adds that whenever the labels "open up their catalogs for downloading, we are going to use whatever format they decide to use. But so far, none of the majors is licensing music for downloading purposes."