StarMedia also plans to cash in on the e-commerce explosion through its recently announced alliance with online retailer LatinGrocer. Since 1998, LatinGrocer has offered a broad array of Latin foods over the Web. It also includes a search engine of 110 million indexed documents, searchable by date, language, and country. When all that information gets to be too much, StarMedia offers users a few places to relax. StarMedia Juegos MultiPlayer combines a variety of interactive Spanish games online.
Users can play games ranging from backgammon to virtual baseball.
Last but not least, the company has introduced a meeting place for celebrity-lovers. Its TalkPlanet area hosts live chats with Latino stars such as Puerto Rican singer Carlos Ponce who chatted live with fans on September 29. StarMedia, of course, is hoping its initiatives will help make it the clear leader in Latino cyberspace. Since 1996, its portal has allowed users to search the Web, review Latin American news customized by culture and dialect, and access e-mail and chatrooms. StarMedia's competitors have been following it to Wall Street, too.