BlackVoices’ Relaunches

Today AOL relaunched BlackVoices. While the clean look of the site is appeasing the biggest and most notable change is the welcoming community that the site now offers readers. For those of you who are like me and like to comment on articles but not so much in forums you will be happy to see that this is now an option. Not to be overlooked the site also has a new logo, which I am happy to see the logotype is free from the block like typeface that is typically used on sites that cater to a demographic of African decent, BV had been moving away from this look for a while now. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to our podcast with BlackVoices Director Tariq Muhammad put that on your to-do list, he gives some great insight on where BlackVoices is headed. In the meantime here is a little of what Tariq has to say about BV:

“Although we are already the leader in the space, there are always opportunities to better serve the evolving needs of our audience,” said Tariq Muhammad, Director of Black Voices. “This relaunch is designed to enhance the overall consumer experience by adding new elements, improving existing features and truly offering a community platform so that our engaged users can connect with each other on issues that matter to them.”

BV will also move forward with having an increased focus on news; breaking it and also giving commentary from a black perspective. Overall nice job, not a huge difference content-wise just yet but aesthetically pleasing, uncluttered, and clean. On thing I would like to see in the future; and frankly if there is this new focus on community should be there in the future; is more community integration. BV has unbelievably active users in their forums, bringing some of this activity directly from the forums into the articles and allowing users to interact with user profiles from within articles could be what ties this whole site together and what makes it truly a community. Right now it is still disconnected of course it is just day 1 though and I am sure there will be other updates to come on BV. Another major web property for Blacks moving in the right direction! Who’s got next?

About the Author
Angela Benton is the Founder and Publisher of BlackWeb20.com. Her experience spans a variety of industries including consultative relationships with companies such as UPS, Bizjournals.com, Realestate.com, and Lendingtree.com.
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