(Portuguese, 'Universe Online') (known by the acronym UOL) is a Brazilian web content, products and services company. It belongs to

Grupo Folha Grupo Folha is the second largest Brazilian media conglomerate, after Grupo Globo. It was founded by Octávio Frias (1912–2007) and led by his son Luiz Frias since 1992. The group publishes , the largest circulation paper in the country, whi ...

enterprise. UOL is the world's largest Portuguese speaking portal, featuring more than 1,000 news sources and 7 million pages. The portal provides website hosting, data storage, publicity dealing,

online payment An e-commerce payment system (or an electronic payment system) facilitates the acceptance of electronic payment for offline transfer, also known as a subcomponent of electronic data interchange (EDI), e-commerce payment systems have become increa ...

s and security systems. It also holds more than 300,000 online shops, 23 million buyers, and 4 million vendors in its portals. In 2012, UOL was the fifth most visited website in Brazil. 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. UOL logo old

History

UOL was established by

on April 28, 1996. After seven months, UOL joined portal

Brasil Online Brasil Online (BOL) is an Internet portal that provides email hosting and free email services UOL. History In April 1996, BOL was launched in Brazil by Grupo Abril, one of the largest Communication Holdings in Brazil. Grupo Abril and Grupo Fo ...

(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. Overview Civita had initiall ...

. However

does not own shares in BOL anymore.

Portugal Telecom Altice Portugal S.A. (formerly known as PT Portugal) is the largest telecommunications service provider in Portugal. Since 2 June 2015 the company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Altice, a multinational cable and telecommunications company ...

had 29% of UOL, but sold its shares to Folhapar, a company controlled by businessman João Alves de Queiroz Filho of

Hypermarcas Hypera Pharma is a Brazilian multinational pharmaceutical company and is the largest Brazilian pharmaceutical company by market capitalization. Headquartered in São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is th ...

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 Greater São Paulo () is a nonspecific term for one of the multiple definitions of the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. Metropolitan Area A legally defined specific term, ''Região Metropolitana de São Paulo' ...

and

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

coupled with e-mail accounts and the setup of browser

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...

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 is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

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, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

and

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

2000s

In 2000, UOL launched its portal in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, 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 currently presents his own weekly program on SBT channel. In July 2017 he was criticized for making racist remarks and "s ...

and

Sandy & Junior Sandy & Junior were a Brazilian pop music duo consisting of siblings Sandy Leah Lima (born January 28, 1983) and Durval de Lima Júnior (born April 11, 1984). They first gained notoriety by being the children of Xororó from popular sertanejo ...

in 2003. In 2005, UOL made its IPO on

Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo Bolsa or Pelota may refer to *Bolsa de Valores (disambiguation), a stock exchange in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries *Bank of London and South America *La Bolsa, a town in Uruguay *Juan Bolsa ''Breaking Bad'' is a crime drama franchis ...

(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 The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

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 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 news to devices

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

, 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 Discovery Kids, stylized as discovery k!ds, is a brand name owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Starting as a television block within Discovery Channel, the brand expanded as a separate television channel in October 1996. Discovery Kids on NBC was ...

, 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 smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...

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 messagi ...

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 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.

2020s

In December 2020, UOL launched the Splash Awards, celebrating the best works and celebrities of the year on the internet, music, television and pop culture in general. The first edition included more than 20 categories and winners were chosen based on a public-voted process.

Operations

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) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

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 "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

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.

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