Spain's phone company built Terra Networks to own the Spanish-speaking internet before anyone else could. Telefónica gathered its web portals and dial-up access businesses in Spain and Latin America into one company and sent it public in November 1999. The pitch was simple. Hundreds of millions of people read and wrote in Spanish or Portuguese, and few big sites spoke to them. Shares sold in Madrid and New York, with Telefónica keeping control.

One Portal, Two Continents

Terra means earth in Portuguese and Latin, and the company wanted that much ground. It ran portals country by country, from Spain to Brazil, Mexico and Chile, and sold internet access through Telefónica's phone lines. Readers came for news, chat, email and search in their own language. Advertisers followed the readers. The plan leaned on its parent: Telefónica owned the wires, the customers and the brand, and Terra would be its face on the web.

Lycos, Then Home Again

Terra priced its offering on November 17, 1999, at 13 euros a share, or $13.41 for each American depositary share on Nasdaq. In 2000 it bought Lycos, the American search portal, to become a global player. The dot-com crash cut the value of both businesses, and Terra sold Lycos in 2004. In February 2005 Telefónica proposed folding Terra back into itself. The merger closed that summer, and Terra's shares stopped trading in July 2005.

Cover: Puerta Visagara, Gate of Madrid, Toledo, Joseph Pennell. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a city gate (the web portal).