– Email?

The secretary’s pen hangs over the half-filled form. I have a desk behind me with five or six students from the institute, all with their forms in hand, and it looks like they need as much help protecting them as I do. Jobs of “pre-digital” management. Seeing them, the woman’s impatience is transferred to the oscillation of the Bic, like an emotional seismograph.

We’ve been reviewing data on college admission forms for a few minutes (name, address, phone number, average grade, preferences…), but the email caught me. foot changed and my face is, of course, a tribute to “what are you telling me”.

— You don’t have it, do you? The secretary looks at me over her glasses. It looks like his Bic was fifth. Reminds me of Tamariz with the old trick that your pen bends when shaken.

No, I didn’t have an e-mail. It’s the summer of 2006, the summer of El Koala and the O-Zone, and I’m 17 years old, with no more internet connection than my occasional weekend visits. neighborhood cyber.

The woman sniffs, puts aside the form and pen—she was now in sixth grade—and begins typing on her desk computer with the skill of a certified typist. At the top of the screen is a multicolored logo on a butane orange background and five white letters: “Terra”.

– Let’s see… What do you want us to say? He throws me.

This is how I created my first email. at Terra Networks.

In fact, by the summer of 2006, almost all of the internet was Terra to me. I know, the company was already far from its best years and that shiny IPO; but for many Spanish speakers, including myself, it was still one of the biggest reference points on the Internet.

The history of one of the great “dotcoms”

To get him out of trouble, my first impromptu email in the secretariat would have disappeared on July 1, 2017, eleven years later. And with it, a large part of Terra, one of the indispensable names of the world’s technological history, would also disappear. century change of the country.

Terra’s origins date back to the late ’90s and had its first major episode in 1999 when it was founded and starred under the umbrella of Telefónica. an epic start in the stock market. At the end of the same year – in November – it entered the stock market with an increase of more than 213% in a single day and soon allowed it to sneak into the largest Spanish companies. Enter Repsol or BBVA—or even the Ibex 35.

As a result of the talent and work of young engineers who have just graduated from university or started Telefónica’s Internet access subsidiary TeleLine, Terra has grown into one of the largest online content companies for the Spanish-Portuguese market. Not only that. In its own way, it was the forerunner of Telefónica’s digital policy and arguably the largest dotcom base in Spain at the turn of the 20th century. With all the good. And it’s not that good.

In 2000, his expectations were so positive that John Villalonga.

The shot was ambitious, but completely missed.

Around the spring of 2000, news from the United States caused Terra’s shares to plummet and set off a period of volatility that led to Telefónica submitting an offer in 2003 to buy 100 percent of the company’s subsidiary’s capital. The firm would soon cease trading in 2005, just six years after its debut on the stock market.

This wasn’t the only move Telefónica made to reboot Terra.

The company adjusted its budget and decided on a comeback. content that works for him in Latin America. The accent – as we told you in 2017 – is embedded in live broadcasts. Big as well. Festivals, some European leagues and even the Olympic Games were broadcast with a wide camera setup.

Maybe the bet didn’t help Terra get back, but it reinforces him in one of his great aspects: He’s a pioneer in the internet. Half a million songs and hundreds of online movies and sports events are covered by a camera screen that even the user can select.

The idea—as one of the company’s executives explained—was clear: to reinvent itself, reposition the brand using the power of the brand, and refocus its philosophy. “From an Internet portal a communication medium“, in a nutshell. The problem is that in 2012 the Network was little like it was in 1999: competition in terms of content was fierce, networks – including Tuenti since 2006 – pushed it hard, and the strengthening of the editorial division did not serve to revive it.

Years later, on June 31, 2017, the once promising Terra announced its decision to close in all the countries it operates in, except Brazil. With this it is an important part of Spain’s recent technological history and for many users it was the first steps on the Internet.

How would you explain his fall from the skies in 2000 to the note he said goodbye to in 2017?

With sum of factorsas usual.

Terra became one of the proponents of the dotcom bubble and suffered the effects of the 2000 crisis with the collapse of the Nasdaq. As a pioneer, he also had to suffer the consequences of his lack of experience with the online business model: keys were lost. “Management was not good and there was no learning curve that allowed employees and shareholders to properly assess what an Internet portal is,” one former employee said. A B C.

“We have learned to live with digital. Early adaptations to devices, vertical markets, products connected to broadband. Nothing really happened because there was a lot of ambiguity in some executives who only cared about their own self-interest.”

The fact that his story ends with a farewell or is punctuated by scandals like the Olé case does not diminish its importance in the digital chronicle of the turn of the millennium. Its name was linked thanks to pioneering bets, movements in the caliber of the Lycos operation, and a rich variety of services. partnerships with companies The caliber of the entertainment industry, as well as Disney or ESPN, among others.

It served, in its own way, as a pool of professionals, as Juanjo Amorín claimed that the end of Terra was announced the same day. “As said on LinkedIn these days, the big school of Internet workers in Spain has emerged from the Terra ecosystem,” the digital entrepreneur underlined in 2017.

And I can say for users.

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