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?
December 4th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I was there just a few days ago after noticing the ads in myspace and i must say I like the layout but I found it a bit confusing to navigate.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:18 am
I have been new to the site in the last 60 days and view the relaunch as a major step forward. I appreciate the new community enhancements and merging more with the rest of the site. The News coverage is the place I go daily as I find it the best for African Americans on the Web while their Entertainment coverage is clearly the best as well. I find the new navigation stronger then before and the load time is lightening fast. BlackVoices keep up the great work.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:35 am
[...] AOL has done an exceptional job positioning themselves in most major vertical markets, but more than just their presence AOL has completely dominated most of these spaces. Black voices is no exception, the industry leader in the Black Community News, AOL is starting to see the benefit from the success of BV and other niche focused websites. AOL property’s have hit an all time high in high in unique visitors and traffic in March, the company says. Page views to AOL’s network of sites are up 35% over the last year and unique visitors up 11% to 56 million (AOL as a whole draws 209 million monthly unique visitors, says Comscore). AOL attributes its recent success to its year long rebranding and redesign efforts, noting that every key vertical site has been redesigned. (Check out our coverage of the Black Voices Redesign). [...]