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Black Web 2.0’s Angela Benton and Latoicha Givens will Present at 2009 Blogalicious Weekend in ATL

Robin Caldwell — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:56:07 +0000

Blogalicious Weekend makes it debut in Atlanta tonight with two of BlackWeb20.com’s best: founder/publisher Angela Benton and legal columnist Latoicha Givens. Both will join hundreds of female bloggers of color for the first event celebrating our unique presence in the blogosphere.

Angela will be seated as a panelist in the breakout session, Upgrade You: Taking Your Blog to the Next Level. And Latoicha will be seated on the panel, Possibilities and Pitfalls of Having YOU on the Net. Both sessions will take place on Saturday, October 10.

Authors Denene Millner and Nelson George will be there as well as corporate marketing reps and a few other surprise guests.

The conference closes on Sunday, October 11.

2009 Blogging While Brown Wrap Up

Markus Robinson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:03:25 +0000

The 2^nd annual Blogging While Brown Conference, held at the University Center in Chicago, IL, was an extraordinary gathering of participants from diverse backgrounds and a wide range of technological skill levels with many ideas. Though the participant’s backgrounds were diverse, they gathered with one common goal; to discuss the issues affecting bloggers of color. The event, founded by Gina McCauley the founder of What About our Daughters, and Michelle Obama Watch, brought together speakers with different levels of expertise to provide tips, tools and insight on a wide array of topics including branding, creative and design, monetization, and industry trends and research. Speakers included; Hajj E. Flemings, founder of Brand Camp, Angel Laws founder of Concreteloop.com, and Eric Easter, Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing just to name a few.

New to this year’s conference was the Beginning Blogger Bootcamp (BBB); an intensive workshop for those who have a desire to blog, but don’t know how. The bootcamp, taught by McCauley, touched on a range of topics for beginners including; how to post text, links, images, audio, and video; to intermediate topics including; the use of widgets, and gadgets, search engine optimization, podcasting and social networking. “The bootcamp was modeled after a class I taught for the Red Cross NAACP, right after Hurricane Ike.”, said McCauley. “Each participant received course materials, and laptops were provided for those who did not bring their own; because I believe that in order for you to learn it you must do it.”

After monitoring the tweet stream it seemed like one of the most popular speakers was Hajj Flemings. Fleming’s session on branding introduced such terms as Grustling (Grinding + Hustling = Grustling), and a list of memorable one liners including:

If you’re the smartest person in your group, then you’re in the wrong group.
Create quality content that is credible & creating quality contacts is paramount.
The best time to start something was a year ago. The next best time is right now.

Another notable speaker was Naoko McCracken of Wordpress. Naoko, introduced the audience to Buddy Press, a Word Press plug-in that allows users to add social networking features to their blog. Gina was particularly excited, “I was just researching using Ning to add social networking features to my blog. Now I am really excited about trying Buddy Press”.

I spoke with multiple attendees who had nothing but high praises for this years’ conference. “The conference was great! It was intimate enough to allow some real, meaningful conversations and diverse enough (in experience) to learn some things from a lot of angles.” , says Fredric Mitchell of Bright Plum. Mitchell, a panelist and first time participant says, “…in all honesty, the conference benefits immensely from Gina’s personality… her admittance that she is a ‘do-er’ helped keep the focus that this isn’t a conference about airing out grievances or what minorities aren’t doing or covering…it’s about learning tools so that u can tackle any problem and make it an opportunity”.

As for the future of Blogging While Brown; Gina announced the development of two small spin-offs of the conference; one on the west coast focused on Accessing Capital and one the east coast focused on Social Justice and Community Organizing. The courses, which she hopes to start in 2010, will accommodate approx 50 people, and will focus on teaching the users the “hard-skills” necessary to move black and brown blogs to the next level. Locations and dates have not been finalized for these and future Blogging While Brown Events, though we will attempt to keep you posted as soon as plans are released. One thing’s for sure though, we can’t wait!

If you’re upset about missing this year’s BWB, don’t fret, the conference was recorded and is available at Next Generation Web.

Shout out to all the blogs represented at the conference:

Audio: RapRadar.com Founder and CEO Elliott Wilson

Markus Robinson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:00:33 +0000

In this edition of the Black Web 2.0 Show, I sit down with the Founder and CEO of RapRadar.com Elliott Wilson. Elliott boasts an impressive resume, spanning across nearly 20 years of monitoring and documenting Hip-Hop music and culture. Elliott’s career was jump started after he co-founded an independent magazine, Ego Trip, which subsequently morphed into successful books and television shows. Shortly after Ego Trip, Elliott became a music editor for The Source, and a rap/Beatbox editor and columnist for CMJ: New Music Journal.

Just prior to launching RapRadar.com, Elliot served as Editor-In-Chief of XXL Magazine and founding editor of XXLmag.com, as well as an executive producer of VH-1’s Ego Trip’s Miss Rap Supreme and Ego Trip’s The [White] Rapper Show.

Elliott and I discussed a wide range of topics including the differences between print and online content production, his personal blogging style, his impressions of other the Hip-Hop blogs, as well as the controversy surrounding Vibe selecting RapRadar as one of the top 50 Hip Hop Blogs.

Enjoy!!
[display_podcast]

Blogs Join Forces to Create “The Black Family Blog Network”

Markus Robinson — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:15:54 +0000

In a post entitled Surviving the Economic Forest Fire, I mentioned that one of the keys to surviving during the economic slow down was to join forces, create partnerships, and begin working together. In a African-American targeted niche blog industry, it’s sometimes very difficult to reach and impact the numbers readers we would like too if were just “one blog armies”. It’s also financially difficult to expand and improve upon our web offerings if we don’t make the necessary capital to cover the cost of expansion. This is especially difficult during tough economic times, as ad revenue slows and the amount of web properties (ad inventory) increases. That’s why working collectively with other blogs within a similar genre allows each blog to feed off the other blog’s successes. One of my favorite examples of this is the creation of the “Black Family Blog Network.”

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler, founders of the award winning website “Blackandmarriedwithkids.com“, have launched “The Black Family Blog Network”. The network will group together a collection of black targeted family websites including; Blackandmarriedwithkids.com,
CocoaFamilia.com, and CelebrityBlackMarriages.com to increase their online reach, voice, and ultimately impact. The group’s mission is to support the fact that successful black families do exist and challenge the old stereotypes concerning marriage and family in the black community.The Tylers believe this collection of sites will provide more positive affirmation dealing with black relationships and parenting through interesting topics, photographs and video content that will be updated on a daily basis. Each site will also list the latest stories from other network sites at the bottom of each web page thus allowing users to stay current on the latest network topics.

Summary of each site:
Blackandmarriedwithkids.com is the flagship website which deals directly with relationships, marriage and parenting. Since launching in late 2007 the site has experienced explosive growth, added great contributors who provide various points of view and won two black web awards for Best Blog – Culture and Best Lifestyle Blog. The site has also been featured on local and national media outlets such as XM Radio, The Monique Show and Essence.com.

CocoaFamilia.com is a baby and children products Blog. The site will feature reviews on products such as clothing, toys and health conscious food choices that are of interest in the African American community. There will be a special focus on products made within the African American community.

CelebrityBlackMarriages.com is a positive entertainment Blog which focuses on news and photos of black celebrity couples and their children. We plan to balance out the negativity that’s found on most entertainment sites while at the same time showing positive images that we believe will reinforce our message.

JD’s World: Jermaine Dupri launches Blog

Markus Robinson — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:00:39 +0000

Global14.com, is the virtual home for rapper /super producer Jermaine Dupri. After cutting his blogging teeth over at the Huffington Post, Jermaine has now branched off and created his own virtual outlet. This blog serves as the place where JD reports on his daily grind, including exclusive photos of his studio sessions, as well as exclusive pictures of his antics outside of the studio. JD is also using the blog to promote his music as well Pop Watch, his new line of watches.

The blog started with one post in December of 08, but for the last few months JD has really picked up steam, contributing to the new blog almost daily since late January.

While Global14.com is far from social marvel that is Thisis50.com, and while JD’s social media game may not be as tight as Diddy’s and Soulja Boy, it seems as many celebrities are finally figuring out that creating their own online space, where they (not their record companies, or PR reps) communicate directly with their fans, is necessary for branding and marketing themselves and their products.

Harlem Heights Adds Depth Online

Nokware Knight — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:19:55 +0000

Harlem Heights, a reality show about a group of Harlem professionals in their late 20’s, debuted on BET last night. BET did a great deal of marketing the show off and online. To extend the shows brand online BET also put in work on their own website, including video clip extras and a blog covering the cast.

A number of media companies have tried to transfer their audience online via their own websites, but BET proves that they understand how they can address their audience in a way that adds more to the experience. The Harlem Heights video extras and blog entries tell the audience more about each individual character, giving us a little more insight than can be drawn from the unscripted 30 minute episode.

It’s a strategy that would work best with reality shows with casts too large for the audience to get to know much about each individual personality, the VH1 dating shows in particular currently execute this well. BET also uses Hulu as a distribution channel for many of their shows, Harlem Heights is among the many, so if you want an easy way or an alternative to finding shows like Harlem Heights Hulu is another good place to start. It will be interesting to see if BET plans to continue developing the Harlem Heights brand online after the show ends using all or individual cast members through digital channels.

EX-XXL Editor to Launch Online Hip-Hop Magazine

Markus Robinson — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:27:50 +0000

Do we need yet another Hip-Hop blog? According to Elliott Wilson the answer is yes! Wilson, the former editor of XXL magazine plans on entering the already crowded online hip-hop magazine business. RapRadar, slated to launch March 9th (interesting date choice), will attempt to create a voice that, according to Elliot, “has been lacking among Web sites that cover rap—that is, something akin to Perez Hilton.”

There are a lot of sites out there that do news, and a lot do gossip,” says Wilson: “But not a lot of them can put it into the proper context, where it’s journalism versus pure gossip. I want to raise the bar journalistically. The public is hungry for both.

Wilson also plans to allow artists and producers the opportunity to post entries a la Huffington Post (haven’t we heard this before?).

If Jay-Z wants to express his feelings about Obama, there’s not really a forum where he can do that right now,” he said. (Wilson’s Soul of a Hustler, an authorized biography of Jay-Z, is scheduled to published in Spring 2010 by Atria/Simon & Schuster.)

Wilson—whose wife, Danyel Smith, is the editorial director of Vibe—still thinks rap magazines are viable, and is hoping Rap Radar will eventually make its way to print.

Source: FolioMag

Smooth Mag Blog Struggles

Nokware Knight — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:00:21 +0000

The most popular Black men’s magazines have been having a comparatively hard time adjusting online. King-mag.com and smoothmag.com have both seen their total traffic in terms of unique visitors per month drop to about half of what it was a year ago. Much like in the print world, that has left Smooth as an also-ran behind the more popular King Magazine, whose web traffic is still four times that of smoothmag.com. To make matters worse, dimewars.com has eclipsed smoothmag.com in traffic since last summer, essentially making smoothmag.com the third most popular online magazine targeting black men.

Smooth owes at least some of its digital woes to an identity complex that has faced a number of men’s print magazines forced to move online to stay competitive. Audience who paid for access to the print magazine have been accustomed to getting what they want for free online. Advertisers who paid big bucks to showcase their products in magazines are more hesitant to spend the same amount of money marketing online because they have so many more options to choose from and can negotiate to pay far less than they do in print magazines. To appease the online audience, publishers would either have to give some of their printed content away for free or add original content to its website. Either way, it costs the magazines more for less return.

Smooth originally put teasers, partial versions of printed articles, on its website to entice readers to buy the printed version. In a perfect world, the rest of Smooth’s more formidable competition would do something similar, forcing the audience to pay for the content and keep the magazine running profitably with no more than a slight deviation from the original business model. Black Men Magazine, for instance, chose to put none of its original editorial content online. King, the leading black men’s magazine in print and online, chose another route that has or will force its competition to follow them on the web. King published its printed content online as well as added the occasional online-only piece. In order to to stay competitive on the web, Smooth had to bring something to the table as well.

Instead of giving away content it paid for, Smooth introduced smoothblogger.com sometime between September and October of last year. Although it seems like little more than a blog with a social networking component, the platform is a unique amongst minority and general interest men’s online magazines. No noteworthy online men’s magazine has a true social networking component, instead opting to build community through comments and messaging boards, a tactic that has worked well for king-mag.com and askmen.com in particular. If smoothblogger.com were to ever catch on among its niche and fringe audiences, it could very well decrease the distance between Smooth and its online competitors.

Still, it’s been at least five months since smoothblogger.com launched, and the results are less than impressive. As of this posting, the site has fewer than 800 members and hardly more than a handful of visitors signed in at any given time. Part of the reason may be that a men’s lifestyle magazine social network doesn’t give much reason for its audience to talk to one another. Most social networks thrive off of mutual interest among members that include business, careers, sex, or specific community-based interests such as art, politics, music, under-the-table activities, poetry, etc. They are probably the only reasons people see a benefit in promoting a friends list or sending notes to directly to individuals rather than just joining in on publicly displayed forums and comment boards. Myspace thrives in part because many of its members use the site to openly promote their interests in music and entertainment or to date other members. Until recently, BlackPlanet was a social network with a reputation for being little more than a dating service.

Many of the women who join smoothblogger.com are current and aspiring models who are there to promote their careers more than interact with the rest of smoothblogger.com community. Men on smoothblogger.com probably have little to no motivation to talk directly to or make friends with one another. It’s not like they are using the site to cut deals behind the scene.

Smooth still should move forward with the site, as its the one place its competitors are not a step ahead of them. But smoothblogger.com needs to find its purpose and its focus fast, a particular set of reasons for why readers of the magazine would sign up to be members of its social network. It can start by dedicating a handful of bloggers to specific subjects in order to give the site some editorial authority and a reason for readers to go there first. Smooth would also likley benefit from better cross-promotional marketing and integration that more closely associates smoothblogger.com, smoothmag.com, and Smooth Magazine with one another.

Big Box Black History

Jade — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:54:41 +0000

This year marked a historical year in black history. As celebrations happen in communities throughout the world, there are also things going on online. The three best known Big Box stores (Walmart, Target and Kmart) have found their way online to celebrate black history month. They all took very different approaches and formed interesting partnerships for their initiatives. Below is a short summary of what you will find at their sites.

Since 2005, Walmart has created a microsite every February for Black History Month. Walmart’s OurVoice, this year, focuses on the individual and families.

Walmart is here to help you do just that. Through Walmart´s partnership with Ancestry.com, you will be able to research your family´s origins, learn the importance of family history, begin discovering your heritage through articles, beginner´s instructions and applications, and find the resources to start unraveling your past.

Walmart also created a really nice myspace page, that will serve as a place for current history makers to come together.

Share with others through the OurVoice MySpace community. And find out who will be recognized for making an impact in the community with the Impact Awards, sponsored by Walmart.

Walmart has also partnered Tavis Smiley to promote his traveling black history museum called America I am, that can also be found on twitter @AmericaIAmExhib.

Target’s Dream in Color seems to be a continuation of what they did last year. Instead of focusing on the family, Target has made the choice to focus on female trendsetters and artist.

Target Honors the Accomplishments of African American Women We’re celebrating Black History Month this year by introducing four amazing women who contribute to the proud legacy of African Americans.

There is also a very clear retail slant, as the people in their video heavy site talk about how wonderful it is to shop at target. There are no real community integration aspects, but the video production is great. They also formed partnerships for their initiative, the Smithsonian Museum and Scholastic.

Kmart’s Share the Word took a different approach with their online offering. Rather than focus on Black History, the focus seems to be saving, specifically, women shoppers saving. There is also an instant win contest for a Trip to NYC for a taping of the Steve Harvey morning show, and a quiz (Walmart had one of those too), but apart from that, the site doesn’t really seem to be capturing the essence of Black History. Their partners for this initiative are, the Steve Harvey Morning Show and Mocha Moms.

All in all the sites are doing very different things, and all have different benefits. I like Walmart’s the best simply because they tried to integrate meaningful community interaction, whereas, Target really seemed to take time to create an impactful online experience. As for Kmart, it is nice to see they did something, I just wish it didn’t feel like it was put together at the last minute.

Twenty-Eight Days Turns Black History Into Black Progress

rahsheen — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:25:48 +0000

AT&T recently rolled out a new campaign called Twenty-Eight Days which uses a Facebook Page to create a community of people interested in changing the focus of Black History Month:

“Black History Month is traditionally a time for looking back,” reads the site. “But what if we used every single day of this month to shape tomorrow? Don’t let a day go by without finding and sharing inspiration, empowerment and motivation.”

The site features an events calendar with the headline: “Don’t let today go by without getting a step closer to reaching your goals,” and has a task for you to complete each day which will help you get moving and be productive. For 2/18, the calendar says:

“Don’t just admire phenomenal people, do what they do. Set aside five hours a week to practice, develop or strengthen the talents that will make you phenomenal.”

The site is very simple, but also has the potential to be very powerful and shows how a Facebook page can be used for something positive. Twenty-Eight Days encourages you to engage with the community by sharing your own inspiration, giving a shout out to those who have motivated you, and asking for advice if you need help.

In addition to hosting inspirational quotes, the micro-site features wallpapers and photo albums, along with community events like career fairs and job openings. For more information, check out their intro video.

The work was conceived and produced by the Austin, Texas-based Sanders Wingo, AT&T’s African American agency of record.