Finding Something Interesante in Silicon Valley

Antonio Altamirano is one of those 21^st century tech-savvy visionaries who sees what others don’t see. In this case, it is a market that has high potential in the technology field, but has been among the least tapped into: the Hispanic community. While Latinos have yet to receive focused attention from most technology companies, data from eMarketer shows that Hispanics are not only interested in technology, but they are well-connected online and often fall into the “early adopter” category.

Altamirano launched Interesante, a website devoted to curating content that is interesting and useful to the Hispanic community, in late 2012 and has watched the page visits double in number on a regular basis since then. Interesante’s aim is to not only generate viral content, but to “productize it.” Altamirano explains, “If there is a brand that wants to advertise with us, they can use our product to go viral.”

Interesante is fueled by an algorithm that is constantly evolving to give each visitor exactly what they find interesting via 25 specific channels that match preferences based on social engagement and response to content. Interesante’s projected growth through the end of 2013 is to receive two million page views per month with 500,000 unique monthly visitors. Altamirano boils it down. “The combination of those matches with the base content already in existence [on Interesante] turns it into a magnet for the Latino community.”