Black Web 2.0

Photo by Jordan Hollender for Inc Magazine

This week, Inc Magazine published an article about Allhiphop’s real state of affairs on its website: Allhiphop.com’s Founders Thought a Weeklong Event Would Raise the Company’s Profile and Boost Growth. Written by Kermit Pattison, the article goes into great detail about how 2006’s AllHipHop Week almost brought the business to its knees. Of course they turned it around, but the questions remains whether the company has done all it can to stay afloat? The magazine article also offers advice to AHH, provided by three experts.

One expert talks about partnering to extend the brand, with an example of going into the clothing business. (Oh yeah, we need another hip-hop clothing line). Another talks about getting back to basics in terms of defining the business, and appointing an advisory board. The third expert offers the advice of the company capitalizing off of what it already does well and investing in some real Web marketing. (more…)

In the third episode of the Black Web 2.0 Show we talk to Navarrow Wright CEO of GlobalGrind.com. Navarrow shares his personal experiences (more…)

Qtrax, a legal P2P digital music site, was all set to make headlines today. The New York-based company spent nearly $1 million on promotions at MIDEM Universal reported having been in discussions with Qtrax, (more…)

Social networks have become an integral part of most of our lives and anyone who has created and maintained multiple social networks understands how frustrating and time consuming it can be. If you’re like me you have hundreds of contacts on one social network and haven’t had the time to add those contacts to your other social networks. Imagine a world where all of your contacts would follow you from social network to social network. Imagine being able to maintain new contacts and user profile information for all of your social networks from one simple authentication point. Impossible right? Maybe not. Enter the Data Portability Project. Its mission is to put all existing technologies and initiatives in context to create a reference design for end-to-end Data Portability. To promote that design to the developer, vendor and end-user community.

To accomplish this daunting task the Data Portability Group has coordinated some of the biggest players in social networking, among them: Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and the newest member of the workgroup Digg.

For more information check out this video.

If you haven’t heard of theRoot.com, it is a recently launched joint venture between the Washingtonpost.com and Newsweek Interactive lead by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as the EIC. Gates is also the co-founder of AfricanDNA.com which also powers theRoot.com genealogy or Roots section of the site.

While in general sites that adhere to a minimalist design are appealing, this site seems almost unfinished. This is most likely intentional, as it ends up making the focus on the content. (more…)

Yahoo’s MyBlogLog, which powers the recent reader widget seen on many blog sidebars (including ours) is releasing an API. The API currently in private beta, will allow developers to query MyBlogLog Users’ social networks and pull the meta-data associated with their profiles. How is this significant? Imagine of being able to capture and use the names, ages, genders and blog interests of the people who visited your website. Even better, how about being able query their friends, and their friends friends . Imagine the marketing and research implications. For an in-depth read on the Significance of the MyBlogLog API check out our good friend Marshall Kirkpatrick’s post over at ReadWriteWeb.

If you would like to check out the MyBlogLog API you must request an invite.

The 2008 CES was definitely different from the last few years I have been in attendance. For starters this was the last years will see a keynote from the SOFTWARE DON DADA himself, Bill “To Much Money” Gates. According to his keynote, and his blog, this move is in alignment with his much planned retirement from Microsoft to focus more on running the Gates Foundation. With 50 Billion + to spend, and lots of problems in the world, I believe his time will be spent much better now tackling these issues for humanity. We saw an “All Grown Up” of Sling Media, the company has come far from the small 2 man booth in 2005 to a full grown”BIG WILLY” with big plasma TV screens, jazzy marketing people, and a few hot chic’s in the booth for all the retail buyers who have had their heads under a rock for the last 2 years. In case you missed it, see another $380 Million Silicon Valley Payday at GIGAOM.COMI have to say that this year was the show that “Connected Devices” were literally everywhere. Everything from WIFI enabled Photos frames, portable internet radio devices, Ultra Mobile Personal Computers (Geeks and developers see UMPC). This will finally be the year that users can see voice activated text messaging and phone calls integrated into the car from Ford in the US, and Fiat in Europe. (more…)

While perusing the internet recently I discovered the website for the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC). Although I had not previously heard of NBPC, the site was right under my nose; I had only to type the words “black,” “new,” and “media” in a google search.

A little about the organization:

Since 1979, NBPC has been a leading provider on American public television of quality, intelligent and compelling programming that celebrates the cultural heritage of African Americans and the African Diaspora.

My decision to profile the organization was based on the following statement found at the site’s media center:

In line with NBPC’s mission to move Black content forward in all mediums, the NBPC Media Center has been launched to provide our audiences a front-seat view of all NBPC initiatives in web-based and real world media.

(more…)

Black Web 2.0 is looking for writers who can commit to posting at
least once per week.

You don’t need to be a seasoned pro. If you can research, write and
you love web 2.0/emerging web trends then this is for you.

The following requirements apply:
• The ability to read and write in English.
• Availability to post between Mondays and Fridays.
• A commitment to post at least once per week.
• Posts should be original and not plagarized.
• Honor that we do not sell or embed affiliate marketing links on our site.
• The ability to crop and edit your own images (and to pay attention
to laws of copyright when using images).
• Knowledgeable of, or ability to rapidly learn, blogging software.

We are interested in speaking with serious bloggers only.  Please send
samples of your work to write@blackweb20.com.

A roundup of this week’s hot hip-hop/technology related news.

• Software Morphs Rapper Prodigy Into Global Cipher
  Mobb Deep’s Prodigy has a new album coming out, “H.N.I.C. Part 2.” I didn’t realize that enough people purchased the first one for there to be a part 2, but nonetheless the rapper is hooking up with technology company, Voxonic, to have his upcoming release available in nearly 1500 languages. The cute part is that all of those translations will actually be in his voice. I didn’t know he had 50 Cent reach to warrant this, but whatever it’s an interesting tech tidbit. [WIRED]
• Unlike Trent Reznor, Saul Williams isn’t disheartened
  I suppose after seeing what’s deemed to be Radiohead’s success, and after looking at the downloads for Niggy Tardust NIN’s Reznor felt a little disappointed. Williams says they haven’t even really marketed the product yet though. And besides, it’s still a success if they earn more from it than they would have from a label project. [CNET]
• Global Grind: Missing the Mark
  After GlobalGrind exec Navarrow Wright’s second appearance on Run’s House, African-Americans in the Web industry have been analyzing the project. In most cases it’s the design of the site that’s frustrating the critics, but some also don’t get the business model. [Liz Burr]
• Hip-Hop Word Count
  Everyone’s buzzing about Staple Crops project — a site that uses a a rubric that estimates the education level needed to understand each rhyme as well as, rates the artistic sophistication employed through the metaphors, similes, cultural references, consonantal/vocalic alliteration and overall pattern of each rhyme. Kanye West’s Big Brother gets a 9.
• Wi-Fi music polling device takes heat off the DJ
  Collaborative DeeJaying wirelessly is the premise behind Smart Party, developed by scientists at UCLA. Smart Party system relies on people carrying Wi-Fi-enabled music-playing devices. Software running on each device beams each user’s playlist to a nearby computer, which is connected to an amp and speakers. The computer takes a poll of titles to work out the most popular genre and can also copy and play tracks from each device. It can then play music from the most popular overall music genre or tracks supplied by each party-goer in turn.[New Scientist]

Bonus: Crank Dat Jiggaman