Contrary to popular belief, RealBlack.com does not appear to be Essence’s ad network based on their user agreement:

Real Black is owned and operated by Customerforce.com. By using Real Black you signify your acceptance of all terms, conditions, and notices contained or referenced herein (the “Terms of Use”).

Hold on, now I am confused.  When I saw the widget on Black and Married With Kids it definitely said the “Essence Ad Network”.  When I click on the link I get taken to customerforce.com/essence… and just when I thought my confusion was going to end, I do a search on the page for essence.  It does not appear once, except for in the title bar.

This little tid bit of information shows up on their FAQs:

Ok so what is the Real Black Network?

We are so excited about the new Real Black Network and know that you will be too. Why? Because, like the magazine, it goes beyond the typical, so the Real Black Network not only leverages advertising but grows audience and traffic so that everyone comes out ahead. As we expand, we are engaging with some very exciting partners and sites that want to gain more than simple advertising revenue.

What magazine again? alright, let me stop.  All I seem to be seeing, based on the sites I’ve gone to that are in this network, is an ad network that features Essence ads exclusively. This is obviously going nowhere.

On to the actual RealBlack.com site.

Thank Goodness this site is in Beta, because it needs a lot of work.  From the backwards colors of the stars, the lack of consistency throughout the site, lack of coherent messaging and no explanations for the featured links… the site is a mess.

Customerforce owns the Fatvine.com software.    Fatvine is just a “blog broadcasting platform”.   RealBlack quite obviously was built by skinning fatvine and adding essence ads.  They haven’t even changed the favicon yet.  It just seems like an aggregation tool, not an ad network.  And as I look at it, I am really  having a hard time seeing what the added value is to join.  There are already more than 192 partners, no doubt attracted by the loose association with essence… however, with that many people, and more to come, I don’t even really seeing it as being that big of a traffic driver for most blogs, even with the mandatory widget integration.