Spotify begins Latin America push with Mexico launch

BBC News, 4/16/13

Music streaming service Spotify has launched in Mexico – its first push into the huge Latin American market. The Swedish start-up, which has more than 24 million active users, has also gone live in Asia – in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Launches in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Iceland mean the service is now accessible in a total of 28 countries.

Spotify is the leader in music streaming globally, but analysts expect Apple to make its move soon. It is believed, but not confirmed, that Apple has come to an agreement with several major labels, including Universal Music, to launch a streaming service which has been informally dubbed “iRadio”. A music industry source told the BBC he expected Apple’s product to be available by the third quarter of this year. However, Spotify’s head start in the market has seen it amass more than six million paid subscribers since its launch in 2008.

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New Working Paper Series: Civic Engagement and Public Security in Mexico

The Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute and the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute are pleased to launch a working paper series on civic engagement and public security in Mexico.

The working papers analyze the range of civic engagement experiences taking place in Mexico to strengthen the rule of law and increase security in the face of organized crime violence.  In the coming weeks and months, the Mexico Institute and Trans-Border Institute will release papers that address topics relating to civic participation and public security, including citizen oversight of police professionalization, community-based efforts to respond to youth gang violence, Mexico’s victim’s movements, and citizen roles in implementing judicial reform in Mexico.  Together the commissioned papers will form the basis of an edited volume.

A ‘like’ for linguistics: Can social media save Mexico’s unwritten languages?

The Christian Science Monitor, 4/1/2013

When Hilaria Cruz chats online in Texas with friends back home in Mexico, she switches effortlessly between two languages: Spanish and her native Chatino. The trick is that, until recently, no formal writing system existed to represent the sounds and tones of eastern Chatino, an indigenous language spoken by 20 small communities in rural southern Oaxaca. Ms. Cruz, a doctoral candidate in linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin, had a hand in creating the alphabet she now uses to post messages on Facebook.

Social media have become a crucial bridge between the academics, activists, and young people who want to preserve the more than 360 variants of indigenous languages alive in Mexico today and the communities who actively use them. Many of these don’t have any formal written system, but a growing number of indigenous young people, computer savvy and sometimes far from home, want to Facebook, tweet, and chat in their native tongue. Both through social media, and perhaps because of it, they’re joining a burgeoning movement to create alphabets and a way to write previously unwritten languages like Chatino.

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Silicon Valley of Mexico: Gateway to possibilities

Global Business Hub, 3/6/2013

Two new partnerships bring a vibrant and growing Mexican tech cluster closer to the already prominent innovation economy in Massachusetts. The goal is to open doors for entrepreneurs and industry leaders on both sides of the border to broaden their potential markets and increase opportunities for collaboration and business.

The World Class Cities Partnership (WCCP) joined newly elected City of Zapopan Mayor Hector Robles for a rare and special signing ceremony during a formal session of the Zapopan City Council. The official document, which inducted Zapopan and the region of Guadalajara (the Silicon Valley of Mexico) into the WCCP network, formalized the partnership between Zapopan (signed by Mayor Robles), university Tec de Monterrey (signed by Director of Innovation & Regional Development, Alfredo Ortíz) and the WCCP (signed by Founder & Executive Director, Mike Lake).

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‘War Correspondents’ In Mexico Address Mainstream Media Shortcomings, Use Twitter To Spread Information

TechCrunch, 2/22/2013

In Mexico’s drug-war-torn cities, a small number of Twitter users affected by narco violence are acting as war correspondents to the masses, providing a public-safety alert system of sorts, according to a recent research paper from Microsoft, called “The New War Correspondents: The Rise of Civic Media Curation in Urban Warfare.”

These “curators,” tweeting with hashtags like #mtyfollow, #reynosafolllow, #saltillo and #verfollow, produce an inordinately high number of tweets compared to other users, informing people about recent violence, clashes and other news in regions where traditional news outlets have engaged in self-imposed blackouts to avoid narco violence.

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Survey shows that Mexico’s youth distrusts IFE (Spanish)

De acuerdo con la Encuesta de Cultura Política de los Jóvenes 2012, los ciudadanos de entre 18 y 29 años confían “poco” en el Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) y en el Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF), aunque la mayoría cree que ambas instituciones son imparciales y autónomas.

El estudio, elaborado por el Colegio de México para el Centro de Desarrollo Democrático del IFE, revela que los jóvenes se informaron sobre los candidatos presidenciales y sus campañas a través de los spots de televisión, y 30% vio los dos debates.

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Facebook page in Mexico draws attention for posts on security risks

Los Angeles Times, 2/19/2013

A Facebook page in Mexico has notched tens of thousands of followers for posting detailed but unconfirmed updates on security risks in the drug-war hot zone of Tamaulipas state. Now, purported assassins have declared a bounty on the head of the page’s anonymous administrator. In response, the Facebook author said the page would not stop gathering and publishing information on shootouts and highway blockades because the Tamaulipas authorities and local news outlets offer nearly zero updates on so-called “risk situations.”

The person behind Valor por Tamaulipas posted a photograph last week of a reward notice that was said to have begun circulating in several Tamaulipas cities calling for information leading to the page’s author or relatives. The flier makes an offer of 600,000 pesos, or about $47,000, for information and includes a cellphone number with a Tamaulipas area code.

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Safety of journalists draws international mission to Mexico

WAN-IFRA, 2/18/2013

Mexican government measures to ensure greater safety of journalists, along with strategies adopted by media and journalists to continue reporting from highly dangerous parts of the country were examined last week by a delegation from the International Press Institute (IPI) and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The delegation met with a wide variety of interested actors including federal, state, and intergovernmental officials; journalists and publishers; foreign diplomats and representatives of civil society groups in Mexico City. The delegation, which visited Mexico from 10-13 February, also looked into other issues challenging independent media reporting, such as media dependence on government advertising and concentration of ownership in the broadcasting sector.

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The beginning of change [in Spanish]

Reforma, Enrique Peña Nieto, 7/16/12

Enrique Peña Nieto

In this op-ed, which was published in Reforma, Peña affirms that his party received an electoral mandate to govern Mexico, and says that he is sure that the TEPJF will rule in that manner.   He says that one of his first goals is to speak with civil society to get their input on his reforms for the nation so as to make Mexico a more democratic society, and sets out three initiatives which he wants to accomplish his first days in office.  These are: to promote the creation of a National Anti-Corruption Commission, to ensure transparency throughout all levels of government, and to create an autonomous association of citizens which can oversee media and publicity contacts made by the government so as to ensure that the people have access to the most transparent and free media possible.  He said that he and his transition team are also discussing economic which will be revealed to the Congress in time.  Finally he concludes by saying that he will respect the law, and will wait until his official confirmation as president-elect before announcing the rest of his transition team.

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The battle of the airwaves

The Economist, 6/5/12

WITH a month to go until the presidential election, Mexicans switching on their televisions and radios can hardly avoid the candidates vying to win their votes on July 1st. In a country with more televisions than refrigerators, dominating the airwaves is crucial to being elected. But ownership of the broadcast media is highly concentrated.

The media’s past subordination to the state has faded since democracy arrived. Power used to be centralised in the presidency. Now state governments, businesses and civic groups all compete with the federal government for news coverage. “Before, the media needed the official sources more than they [the sources] needed the media. Now, it is the other way round,” says José Carreño, who worked as press secretary to Carlos Salinas, the president from 1988 to 1994.

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