WTI Magazine #11    2014  Jan, 3
Author : Umberto Mucci      Translation by:

And so, it's 2014! First of all I want to wish everyone of our readers to have a wonderful, gorgeous and very happy Italian and American new year.

2013 has been very important for We the Italians: we started our website! For those of you who don't know, We the Italians – our name is a tribute to the preamble of the United States constitution, We the People - is an Italian startup, a project born with the goal to give a little contribution to unify the Italian American community; to educate the Italians who live in Italy about the love, the pride and the success of our fellow Italians who live in the US; and to tell the several positive things that happen in Italy and that very rarely are told all over the world, not to mention in the US and, to be honest, even in Italy.

We started putting together the archive – the one and only online – that now contains more than 2500 website (and it still grows every week!) regarding noncommercial groups, institutions, associations, departments which has something to do with Italy in the US, and vice versa. Then we started to research for news – any kind of news – regarding these matters, and put them on the website: every content tagged, divided per state – and then per areas – and per kind of content: education, travel food and wine, business and lifestyle, art and heritage, sport and entertainment. Today we put circa 20 news every day. Either by the tags, or by our search engine, or by the areas, everybody can easily browse through all the 10.000 contents of our website.

Then we added the calendar: we put everyday circa 10 new events. Even if we're already the most complete calendar of this kind, we're not satisfied at all: we're sure that every day a lot happens in the US regarding Italy and we still don't know about it. That's why we're in constant search of collaboration, and we strongly advise everyone who wants to promote a content about Italy in the US, to email us.

We started to organize events, either by ourselves and together with other partners: we already had two in Italy and one in the US, and more will come. We are an online service, but we believe that meeting people is the best way to establish a relationship, and this is why 2014 will see our presence in the United States grow, still maintaining our being Italian with pride: we're happy to be the ones in Italy who show how much we care about our fellow Italians in the USA. It is not by chance that We the Italians was born in Italy.

But we also have our own contents. In the website you will find all the 60 weekly interviews I've done to different personalities who had something interesting and various to say about the relationship between Italy and the US: in different sectors and places, about different matters and activities, regarding history, emigration, the present, the future ... everything about Italy and the US. And we're very proud of our magazine, which is already ten numbers old. It wasn't and isn't easy, for a small startup, to create something like this: we're getting better and we'll grow, but we provide every week interesting contents about Italian art, food, wine, places, fashion, plus a little something about Italy and the US, written for us. We'll soon restart with the column about the Italian language, and 2014 brought us two exciting news. The first one is the agreement with italia.it, the official website of tourism in Italy. Their contents will be promoted through our website, we started with the magazine but there'll be more. The second one is that starting this week we'll have a bright, young Italian girl, Francesca Papasergi, who will describe every week something important happened in the Italian politics: it's a very difficult thing, but she's very talented and she'll do it with competence and impartiality. Many of our readers asked us about this, because they cannot understand Italian politics: well, neither we often do here in Italy, to be honest, but Francesca will help you and us in this harsh endeavor.

We also started our weekly newsletter. We already have more than 5000 recipients, who weekly receive it in one of the nine different versions. The magazine, the interview and a smalls election of the news tagged "Italy" and "USA" are in every newsletter; but then the other contents are customized per areas, with a small selection of the news of the week and a list of the events taking place in the area you are in the next weeks. It is something unique on the web, and we're very happy for the enthusiasm this effort has generated among our readers.

We signed an agreement with the editor of a fantastic book: Explorers Emigrants Citizens. We already started a common project of crowd researching, with the intent to give a home to all the contents stocked in a closet or somewhere else in our fellow Italians living in America, regarding their family their history, their experience of Italian Americans: we want to help them share them with us, in a transparent way.

Many other important news are coming soon, with exciting partners and regarding the most important things for the Italians in the US. We're growing, we're learning, we're changing: as every startup does. But what can't and won't change is our love for Italy and for the United States of America, and our will to cooperate with every one of the group, the institutions, the companies, the departments, the chambers of commerce, the cultural centers and above all the persons that like to be in contact with everything and everyone Italian in the USA. So, please use our website as a promoter of your news, an accelerator of your contents. Tell us about you, your activity, your group, your mission, your effort, your events. Like our facebook page, subscribe our newsletter, browse our website. Spread the word among your friends, your associates, your members: the more we are, the better it is, not just for us.

Let's work together! Thanks and again, happy 2014!
Umberto Mucci