As of Oct. 15, Google's new .soy domain, meant to appeal to the Hispanic community, became available to the public.

According to Google, the .soy domain, which translates to "I am" in Spanish, is designed to "cater to the growing digital needs of the U.S. Hispanic market, offering brands, publishers, and consumers a place to create, collaborate and share."

Google also said the domain gives Hispanic brands, publishers and customers "a place to build, create and share culturally relevant Web content," EFE reports.

Various companies have already taken the .SOY domain name, including the Hispanic Heritage Fund, Ella Institute, Latinos in Technology Innovation and Social Media (LATISM) and República communications agency.

"It's a domain that is focused on the incredibly large U.S. Hispanic market and caters to both individuals and brands," Jorge Plasencia, co-founder, chairman and CEO of República, said in an interview with EFE Friday. "As Hispanics, our identity is so important that when Google announced this initiative we didn't hesitate to become partners in its launch."

Originally, República was using the .net domain.

"There's .com, .net, .org, and now we have a domain that represents us and celebrates our Hispanic community," Plasencia said.

Ana Roca Castro, founder of LATISM, also explained why the .soy domain is appealing.

".soy represents the epiphany of a new era for the Latino community," she said, according to Google's iam.soy page. "With latino soy, LATISM will highlight the disrupters who are using technology to empower the U.S. Hispanic community. Our goal is to bring together all Latinos in tech together to form a familia where every member can find support."

According to EFE, Hispanics represents the biggest minority group in the United States with 55 million members.

"We have the numbers, but [businesses] need to reflect on what they're doing to reach this big market," Plasencia said.

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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