Black Web 2.0

At this years past SxSW “Where are the Black Tech Blogger” panel one attendee asked a very logical and thought provoking question of all of the panelists:

“Is there a place where we all meet or a group that we all belong to?”

Seems easy enough to answer right? (more…)

According to the latest U.S. numbers from Hitwise, the top niche dating sites are steadily gaining market share while their big mainstream counterparts stagnate. This report compared the overall market share of the top 5 dating sites; Singlesnet, Plentyoffish, TRUE, Yahoo Personals, and Match to the market share of some of the top niche categories (sexual preferences, race, and religions). The Black niche category included; BlackPeopleMeet, BlackSingles, BlackChristianPeopleMeet.

While mainstream dating websites declined in monthly market share (-7%), Black niche dating sites grew 14% from 5.26% to 6.01% of US market share.

This decline in market share for mainstream dating sites could be due to a number of reasons not examined by this article including; lack of space for mainstream sites to grow and an increase competition from mainstream social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook being just some them, but one thing’s for certain, the “one size fit all” sites are not meeting the needs of the entire population, creating opportunities for success in the niche market.

Source Tech Crunch via Online Personals

It was going to happen sooner or later. Google took a step forward in intertwining the almighty “G” into one of its acquisitions today. Google will integrate its Adsense product into Feedburner RSS feeds. Mashable first reported this development from a coy hint from Allen Stern via Feedburner’s blog:

FeedBurner will start to look and feel more like a set of Google services, and we will be completing much tighter integration into other Google services such as Google AdSense. (If you are a feed advertiser, don’t worry: we have some happy surprises coming for you as well, and if you are an advertiser who is not yet a feed advertiser, you too shall be blessed with good fortune.

Hmmmm…Hopefully this will be opt in for publishers. Google contextual ads for Black content is not a good look.

Source:

via Mashable

Filmmaker Spike Lee has teamed up with Nokia to direct what is being dubbed the “the world’s first social film”, comprising videos made entirely with cell phone footage from everyday people.

The film’s theme will evolve around the way in which music tells the story of humanity. The final film will run across three acts. Each act will be announced online and people will then have four weeks to produce their submission. “You are seeing first hand the democratization of film,” Lee said in a statement on Thursday. “Aspiring filmmakers no longer have to go to film school to make great work. With a simple mobile phone, almost anyone can now become a filmmaker.”

People can submit text, music, video or images anytime between now and August 21 to here. Nokia will choose 25 submissions and then allow the people to vote online for their favorite. Spike Lee will then choose the winning submission from each act and direct the film through the Web site.

The final film with the three winning submissions and other contributed content will premiere later this year in Los Angeles.

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).

(more…)

It seemed as if the only way to get your face/content on the Tube was to either live in Los Angeles, join the cast of a reality TV show, or know someone in the industry, but as the popularity of online video increases (up 66% over last year according to ComScore) the more people are opting to forgo conventional methods, and creating an online viewership. This phenomenon has become especially important in the black community where TV and Film executives are still having difficulty funding black content, despite that fact that Mara Brock Akil, John Singleton, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry and many others have proven and continue to prove that there is a market and demand for it. Now today’s aspiring black video producers can bypass the network executive approval process with tools and video distribution platforms at their disposal. Producers have complete creative freedom, allowing the success of their content to be determine by the people instead of executives.

Here are just a few people making waves using video distribution platforms.

Andre Meadow, the self proclaimed “Black Nerd” is just one of many Youtube members leveraging the platform to enhance his careers and express his ideas to the masses. (more…)

Interesting post on TechCrunch about Facebook publishing a guide to viral marketing on their site. See below for a full embedded version: (more…)

PaidContent reported yesterday that Essence will team with Warner Bros. TV to launch a new video heavy site this summer. You may remember when we reported on Essence’s “30 Dates in 30 Days” webisode last fall and our initial reaction on the it. Lets take a quick look at what this partnership means for Essence since most of the articles I have read on this only covers what this mean for Warner Bros.: (more…)

In episode # 6 of the Black Web 2.0 Show, I speak with serial entrepreneur Clarence Wooten. The creator of 4 start-ups Clarence’s newest venture, Collective X, was described by Michael Arrington of Techcrunch as “the way LinkedIn should’ve been done in the first place”. CollectiveX is a group collaboration system which mixes the social networking capabilities of LinkedIn with the intranet features of Windows Share Point Services. CollectiveX features include built-in calendaring, discussion boards, file and media sharing.

In 1994 to early 1998, Clarence ran Metamorphosis Studios, Inc., a multimedia and Web design firm. Metamorphosis Studios was acquired in 1998 by MediSolv, Inc. In 1998 Clarence founded ImageCafe.com, a leading e-commerce website solution. With less than $1 million in capital raised, Clarence sold ImageCafe to Network Solutions/VeriSign for more than $20 million. Prior to starting his most recent venture, Clarence was managing partner of Wooten Ventures, an angel investment firm providing seed funding and guidance for entrepreneurs building innovative businesses.

Clarence and I discussed a range of topics including CollectiveX, the business of start-ups, and tips on leading a successful start-up.

Download File Here

You can also join the Black Web 2.0 Collective X Group Site here.

Layoffs at AOL’s Platform A

Technorati b5 media merger, goes kaput

AOL buys Sphere

Yahoo to offer free Analytics Suite

Last but not least:
Why is everyone (Mashable, RWW) doing “ways-not-to-pitch-to-us” posts this week?  We’ll take ‘em!