I recently had lunch with a industry colleague who is running the Spanish language division of a large online publisher, and we got to talking about the state of the Hispanic digital media industry. He gave me numerous examples of how his company’s senior leadership was unwilling to put the necessary resources behind his Hispanic group, and his frustration at the missed market opportunity.

I began thinking about the Hispanic digital media industry as a whole, and I started to realize what a funk it’s in. Think about it – when was the last time a major player entered the Hispanic digital market? What was the last major move by a media company into the Hispanic digital space? Long gone are the heady days of 2005-2007, where new players were constantly entering the market, competing with established media companies like Univision, Terra, and Starmedia to push the innovation envelope.

Obviously, the recession has played a big part in this. Most media companies, and the investors that roll the dice in this sector, got hammered in late 2008 and 2009. I’m sure a lot of

interesting projects and new ventures were shelved because of the recession.

This worries me as a professional who evangelizes the power of digital Hispanic marketing. I hope entrepreneurs who know and love the Hispanic market take advantage of this lack of competition to build new lucrative businesses, and hopefully bring back the innovation that has been missing the last 24 months.

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