Univision Beta is meant to help the company expand audience reach in the Hispanic community through the use of emerging digital and social platforms. Initial projects already underway include expanding coverage of the 2016 presidential elections to new storytelling and messaging platforms such as Snapchat, Purple and Slack. 

?Mobile consumption will only grow and it will continue to over-index for the Hispanic community and Univision?s multicultural audiences,? said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, director of digital innovation at Univision. 

?There will be a focus on continuing to improve the loading time of news and information on mobile devices and finding new and engaging formats that are specifically designed for mobile consumption,? he said. 

?We will also stay close and experiment with messaging apps and news and information bots that allow us to provide our communities the news, information and entertainment they seek with more interactivity.?

Univision has already been ramping on digital for some time, increasing its digital footprint by 94 percent in the past year. 

Univision Beta is intended to help drive a similar pace of digital momentum going forward. The new division is part of the company?s ongoing collaboration with MIT Media Labs. 

From a content perspective, the focus of Univision Beta will be on news and information, areas where mobile has had a significant impact on consumption patterns. 

?There are 33 million Hispanics on mobile platforms and 32 million on social media platforms,? said Jose Zamora, vice president of strategic communications at Univision News. ?That is why we have been experimenting with Facebook Live, Instagram and mobile messaging platforms like Purple.?

 

Besides exploring new digital opportunities and implementing new technologies, Univision Beta will also develop data-driven analytics tools to support news and business-related decisions. 

The decision to create an innovation division comes at a time when traditional media companies are more focused on creating content specifically for mobile users as young consumers are increasingly getting their news from mobile-first platforms. 

The growing popularity of news sources delivering snackable content geared towards millennials is forcing traditional publishers onto mobile-first platforms, but older media companies still miss the mark on delivering the shorter, punchier content these readers want (see story). 

?It has been projected that there will be 40 million Hispanics on mobile platforms by 2018,? Mr. Martinez de la Serna said. ?The opportunity at hand will be to continue to innovate and find the best new tools, formats and platforms that conform to the highly digital, mobile and socially engaged lifestyle of our audience - the launch of Univision Beta will allow us to do it strategically.?