Posted on Mon, Nov. 04, 2002
BEYOND THE NET

Internet reunites immigrants with homeland
By Janine Warner

El Salvador's largest daily newspaper, El Diario de Hoy, receives about 80 percent of its website traffic from outside the country; most of the visits are from expatriates who want to know what is happening in their homeland.

To fully appreciate this statistic, you need to know that a fourth of the Salvadorans in the world live outside of El Salvador. Some six million people reside in this small country; the other two million have migrated to the United States, Australia and elsewhere.

By most estimates, only about 20 percent of the people in El Salvador are connected to the Internet today. No one can say for sure how many Salvadorans outside the country are online, but there is growing evidence that they are using this new medium to reconnect with each other.

Last month the newspaper and its website, ElSalvador.com, organized the country's first ever Internet awards to honor the best websites in this Central American nation.

As one of five judges of the contest, I reviewed all of the nearly 100 websites nominated in 10 categories and was impressed by the quality and diversity. From the country's first medical professional online -- a dentist offering explanations of common treatments -- to community groups, professional associations and a wide range of individuals, there's a lot happening in this virtual Spanish-speaking world.

The darling of the awards ceremony was an 18-year-old who started playing with computers before he learned to drive. He created a website called PixelFreak.com, where he keeps a personal journal and displays his talent as a digital artist.

He said his parents and grandparents, who took up most of a table at the awards dinner, thought he was just playing around with the computer until they saw his name in the newspaper as a nominee. After winning two awards that night (one for best personal site and the other for best artistic site), René Hernández's family seemed quite impressed with his work.

Perhaps they were even more impressed that he now has a photo of himself with the vice president of the country. René had several job offers before he left the stage with his second trophy. I believe he accepted the one from Banco Agrícola, which won first prize as the best Salvadoran bank online.

The top award went to Cecilia Figueroa, who produces QueOndas.com, which is impressive not only because of its quality and content, but because she manages the website, which is all about El Salvador, from her home in Miami.

In her acceptance speech, Figueroa explained that a few years ago she logged on to the Internet and did a search for El Salvador because she was curious about what she might find online about the country of her birth.

To her dismay, almost the only matches at the time were statistics from the CIA website, and other sites about violence and war. So she set out to create her own website to ensure there would be something more positive online about her homeland.

Last month, her efforts were handsomely rewarded when she won top prize: $45,000 worth of software, computers and advertising, thanks to sponsors Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and the newspaper.

The publisher of the paper also spoke at the event, talking about the value of the Internet in reconnecting Salvadorans. After the two earthquakes that shook El Salvador during the past year, Fabricio Altamirano said the Internet became an even more important communication tool because phone systems were overloaded and people outside the country were desperate for information about those who still lived there.

Altamirano also spoke about the power of e-commerce in connecting economies across borders. If you look over the advertising on his newspaper's website, you'll find that you can buy many products from outside the country and have them delivered there.

When you consider that El Salvador receives an estimated $2 billion in remittances every year from former residents, you begin to appreciate the potential for e-commerce to transform this emerging economy. I was amazed to learn that you can log on to the Internet from somewhere like Miami or New York, order a pizza with your credit card and have it delivered to someone in San Salvador.

It may seem trivial, but it demonstrates both the global and local impact of the Internet. What business model is more local than the delivery of a pizza or more global than the ability to process orders from anywhere in the world?

You can also log on from somewhere like Los Angeles, which boasts the largest Salvadoran population outside of San Salvador, order a refrigerator and have it delivered to your mother or grandmother, even if she lives in the most remote part of the country.

The newspaper's advertising director, Esmeralda Pleitez, said these kinds of transactions are happening more and more often. Her paper is doing pretty well online, thanks to her sales skills and advertisers' growing appreciation of the power of connecting people across borders.

By all accounts, the awards ceremony was a historic moment for this small country and a turning point as more and more people embrace the digital age and begin to appreciate the impact of opening new lines of communication.

If you can log on to the Internet from anywhere in the world and have a pizza or refrigerator delivered in another country, imagine what else the Internet will do for countries like El Salvador in the future.

Janine Warner is a consultant, speaker and the author of several books about the Internet, including 'Dreamweaver MX For Dummies' and 'Managing Web Projects For Dummies.' To learn more, visit www.janinewarner.com.