Universo Online (Portuguese for "Online Universe") (known by the acronym UOL) is a Brazilian web content, products and services company. It belongs to Grupo Folha enterprise. In 2012, UOL was the fifth most visited website in Brazil, below only

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

portals (Google Brasil, Google USA, YouTube) and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

. According to Ibope Nielsen Online, UOL is Brazil’s largest internet portal with more than 50 million unique visitors and 6.7 billion page views every month.

Overview

UOL is the world’s largest Portuguese speaking portal, which is organized in 42 thematic stations with more than 1,000 news sources and 7 million pages. The portal provides website hosting, data storage, publicity dealing, online payments and security systems. It also holds more than 300 thousand online shops, 23 million buyers and 4 million people selling goods and services in its portals UOL includes: *UOL Cliques, ads and publicity portal. *Radar de Descontos, group buying portal. *Emprego Certo, jobs portal. *Shopping UOL, online price comparing tool. *UOL Segurança Online, online safety firm. *Universidade UOL, online education portal. *UOL Revelação Digital, online photo developing portal. *Toda Oferta, buying and selling portal. *UOL Wi-Fi, unlimited wireless broadband Internet access. *PagSeguro,

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manag ...

tool in which shops and people can pay and cash online payments. *UOL Mais, portal with unlimited space for videos, photos, audio and texts. *UOL HOST, hosting and

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mu ...

firm. *UOL Assistência Técnica, technical support services for computers, tablets, and smartphones. *UOL DIVEO, online IT outsourcing firm. *UOL Afiliados, membership program for subscribers and non-subscribers. The program pays UOL associate that remunerates websites and blogs that disclose ads. Each associate receives a quantity per clicks received in each ad or signature conversion.

History

UOL was established by Grupo Folha on April 28, 1996. After 7 months, UOL joined portal Brasil Online (BOL) from

Editora Abril Editora Abril is a major Brazilian publisher and printing company and one of the biggest media holdings in Latin America. The company was founded in 1950 by Victor Civita in São Paulo and is now part of Grupo Abril. Civita had initially found ...

. However

does not own shares in BOL anymore. Portugal Telecom had 29% of UOL, but sold its shares to Folhapar, a company controlled by businessman João Alves de Queiroz Filho of

Hypermarcas Hypera Pharma (formerly known as Hypermarcas) is a Brazilian multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the stat ...

holding in 2010. Grupo Folha and Folhapar are UOL’s main shareholders. UOL won more than 100 awards as one of Brazil’s largest online portal since 1996.

Early years

On April 28, 1996, UOL went online. In July 1996 it put online an operation with a 2 megabit per second base connection. In August, UOL launched a web provider in the cities of Greater São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro coupled with e-mail accounts and the setup of browser Netscape version 2.2 in Portuguese. In 1997, UOL created a series of forums, focus groups and surveys, as well as the online version of ”Nova Enciclopédia Ilustrada Folha’’ encyclopedia. UOL also launched TV UOL (their Video Sharing Platform), with content based on music videos, interviews and movie trailers, and AcessoNet, a company that provides larger Internet access in Brazil’s major cities. UOL also expanded its connection capability to 20 megabits and received the award of best web provider and Internet users favorite’s website of Informática Exame magazine in 1997. UOL absorbed the subscribers of Internet provider Compuserve in Brazil in a move that increased its connection capability to 74 megabits. UOL launched UOL Discador, a feature that eliminated lack of Internet access in case the network get busy in 1998. In the following year UOL reached more than 350,000 subscribers and released UOL Educação portal (UOL Education) and also Placar UOL Esporte, which presents scores of soccer, tennis, volley, basketball, and F1 events all over Brazil and the world. In the same period UOL launched an unlimited web access platform, a

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

online version and started to offer free e-mail hosting via Brasil Online (BOL), a new firm of UOL group. The company also expanded its online operations with portals in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

and

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

2000s

In 2000, UOL launched its portal in

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, established a partnership with Embratel to expand its internet connection to 1.2 Gigabyte per second and released Rádio UOL (UOL Radio), which initially offered a series of music shows, new releases of music and playlists creation. In the same year, UOL launched a partnership with financial website Patagon in a move that secured US$8 million in funding to disclose financial information on UOL portals. In 2002, Mercado Livre became UOL INC’s exclusive partner for auctions in branches UOL Brazil, UOL Colombia, UOL Sinectis and Brasil Online (BOL). In the same year, UOL reached the mark of 5 million visitors per month, 1.5 million subscribers and started a live broadcast of reality show Casa de Artistas 2. UOL went on to supply more than 560 Brazilian cities with Internet access. Afterwards it released the UOL Business channel providing information to corporations and executives and also channels for Brazilian celebrities such as Leonardo,

Raul Gil Raul Gil (born January 27, 1938) is a Brazilian television presenter and singer. With a career spanning over 50 years, Gil has become one of the most famous Brazilian television presenters. He currently presents his own weekly program on SBT chan ...

and Sandy & Junior in 2003. In 2005, UOL made its IPO on

Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo B3 S.A. - Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão (in English, ''B3 - Brazil Stock Exchange and Over-the-Counter Market''), formerly BM&FBOVESPA, is a stock exchange located in São Paulo, Brazil, and the second oldest of the country. Its current form can be tra ...

(BOVESPA). However, the firm went back private in 2012. UOL created the social network UOLK in 2005, which was online until 2008. In the following year, UOL established a partnership with BBC for a website teaching English. UOL also launched a partnership with VideoLog, a video sharing portal. That endeavor ended in 2010. In 2007, UOL established a partnership with Google to improve its search engine and also created UOL Downloads, a website downloads of websites and apps. In the same year, UOL updated the mobile version of its portal, launched a partnership with online game distributor Level Up!Games and launched UOL Economia (UOL Economics), a portal featuring calculators, simulators, and quotations. In 2008 UOL launched Zumo, a technology blog written by journalists that test products and report on Brazilian tech market. UOL also bought Digiwerb, a web and server hosting firm, and launched UOL Mais, a portal offering unlimited space for sharing videos, photos, texts, and, audio recordings. UOL also purchased website and server hosting firm Insite, created an investment simulator in Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo (BOVESPA) and launched a new version of Rádio UOL in 2009.

2010s

In December 2010, via its subsidiaries UOL Host Date and DHC Outsourcing, UOL bought Diveo Broadband Network, an American technology outsourcing company. In the following year, UOL launched mobile apps for news to devices iPhone and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...

, GigaMail and UOL Cursos Online, a portal that offers free courses from distance for languages, formal education, extensions and post-graduation degrees To extend UOL's position outside of Brazil, UOL acquired BoaCompra in 2011, Brazil's largest digital goods payments company specializing in monetizing online games in emerging markets. The business unit, now called UOL BoaCompra, works with more than 400 video game companies including Electronic Arts, Valve, Smilegate and Ubisoft; providing localized payment coverage for more than 5,000 online games across Latin America, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. In 2012, UOL expanded its partnership with Discovery Kids, released an online English course, announced UOL Women portal and also introduced an app on Formula 1. In the same year, UOL released UOL Viagens, a portal with tips, routes and news on trips. UOL renewed its portal layout and acquired the hosting of Turma da Mônica portal in 2013. In 2014, UOL launched a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

for its

chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagin ...

and was appointed by a research of Ibope Conecta the website that most helps São Paulo Internet Users to find information. In the same year, partnerships were established with

Rede TV RedeTV! () is a Brazilian television network owned by Amilcare Dallevo and Marcelo de Carvalho. It is the newest television network, among the five major networks in Brazil, being a relaunch of Rede Manchete in 1999. RedeTV! has modern producti ...

in order to host its website and with Clarín, one of Argentina’s largest newspapers, to disclose UOL’s content in its own Portuguese language portal.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.uol.com.br/
Multimedia (video, photo, music, etc.) sharing pageSearch PageEmail PageHosting PageSite ServiceTV UOL
Companies based in São Paulo Grupo Folha Internet properties established in 1996 Internet service providers of Brazil Brazilian brands Online services