Black Web 2.0

The anticipation is building here in our offices for the MIX08 show in Las Vegas. I am looking forward to seeing the lastest and greatest MASH UPS with Live.com Silverlight, and the new features in Visual Studio, SQL 2008, and Windows Server 2008. (more…)

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?

Today is the official release of Alicia Keys As I Am, and I must say that the camp behind her at J Records had a mean widget game leading up to this day.

The widget includes news updates, video clips of Alicia in the studio, and videos uploaded by fans.

The widget comes with instructions for adding it to your favorite social networks — either your facebook or MySpace account.

But this post today isn’t really about Keys’ record release or J Records’ widget game. It’s a lot more about the vulnerability and security risks encountered with social networking, particularly as it relates to Alicia Keys.

This YouTube video reveals how the MySpace page of Alicia Keys (along with Greements of Fortune, a French funk band, and Dykeenies, a rock band from Glasgow) was hacked on November 8, just five days before her record release. [Shout outs to MML for the tip.]

What this hack reveals is that:

…MySpace is suffering from the major drawback to any practical, open platform for the masses. “Security and functionality exist in an inverse relationship,” he said. “The more functional you make anything, the less secure it tends to become.” [The New York Times Bits Blog]

Takeaway: All that Web 2.0 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Well at least MySpace isn’t. Of course the hack won’t affect Keys’ record sales, but it makes for a great headline (innit)?

This video features Jay Smooth of illdoctrine explaining what record labels could learn from the way Radiohead handled the release of their latest album, inrainbows. Basically the group made the set available on their website in a manner where the user could decide how much they wanted to pay, even if it was nothing. This generated great buzz for Radiohead and their album, and this is exactly the point that Jay Smooth makes about Jay-Z’s American Gangster in this video. All of the hype about the album is taking place on the Internets because someone leaked the album. Jay (not Z) feels that labels could learn a lesson about this and learn to leak their albums instead of having it happen without being part of their own marketing strategy.

Why the majors don’t get it, I’ll never know, but independents have started to understand this a lot better. For instance, that image above this text is for the release of Saul Williams’ latest release, Saul Williams Presents The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust. Williams took a page out of Radiohead’s book and released the album today on his site with the option to pay a $5 donation or to download it for free. In this instance Williams is in control of the event of selling and distributing his record, and therefore the hype about the album will be about the actual release date and not an unofficial leak.

I’m starting to think that Jay Smooth is on to something with his theory. I just hope the labels and its execs are listening.

Technorati Tags: hiphop2.0, jaysmooth, illdoctrine, records, music, labels, leak, leaks, label, video, saulwilliams, radiohead, jay-z

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I’ve been talking about this Soulja Boy Web phenomenon every moment I get — on my own blog, in blog comments, in face-to-face conversations. So of course it was funny today, when perusing my Google Reader for coverage of Pop!Tech and Web 2.0 Summit (mainly because I missed not actually having been there), that I ran across this bit of information on the Popular Science Blog about a Soulja Boy discussion at Web 2.0.

Apparently, Hitwise charted the Soulja Boy boom by tracking the amount of traffic streaming from social networking sites to search engines to his official Web site, and predicted back in May that the rapper (who was virtually unknown at the time) would become a major mainstream success.

And just in case you don’t know what Hitwise does, peep this:

The Hitwise online competitive intelligence service provides daily insights on how 25 million people interact with over 1 million websites in 160+ industries. Our unique, global network of Internet usage data is integrated into our user friendly service, helping you better plan, implement and report on your online branding, search marketing, content strategies and online partnerships.

Now we’re not saying this is the best of hip-hop, but we’re definitely saying, well at least I am, it’s the best example I’ve seen of an artist utilizing the power of the Web to break his career. Sure, Cassie broke on YouTube, but how many records did she sell? The truth is, all the work on YouTube, MySpace, et. al. paid off for this cat. I’m sure the fact that he created dance lesson videos didn’t hurt either. We know that a lot of these dirty south dance songs end up being one-hit wonders for a lot of artists, but this Web community built up around this artist is outrageous. You won’t see me cranking anything anytime soon, but I can respect Web gansterism when I see it.

If you’re in the music industry, please study this Soulja Boy site now. Then click over to the Soulja Boy Myspace profile page. Then peep that Soulja Boy YouTube channel.

Now read this:

Thanks largely to YouTube, “Crank That,” the song and dance, have been ubiquitous for the past three months. Since it was posted in August, the instructional clip featuring Soulja Boy doing the moves has been viewed on YouTube more than 11 million times. Video variations of the song, including manipulated Winnie the Pooh and Dora the Explorer cartoons, have also become Internet hits.

And this:

That may be true because the rapper established his song and dance on the Internet before securing a major-label deal. But “Crank That” - built on a rudimentary arrangement featuring little more than finger snaps and a bouncy keyboard riff - is hardly groundbreaking. Like the “Macarena,” the song and dance are hot for the moment.

From baltimoresun.com

They don’t have classes in school on this stuff you know. There’s no handbook. This is the closest you’re going to get to a case study right now. This is Hip-Hop 2.0.

What a novel idea, making what’s probably going to be one of your most watched programs a Webisode as well as a television program. It looks like BET has really begun to understand what they’re supposed to use BET on Blast for. (Though they still haven’t integrated it (BET on Blast) into BET.com proper yet. Please, just put a media player with most recent video in a multimedia box on your home page. Please. Though I must say major props to finally overhauling the home page and other areas of the site, but I’ll save the rest of my comments for a post exclusively about the new site features shortly.)

BET realizes this will be one of the most widely viewed programs for its network, outside of the various award shows and American Gangster, and well of course those syndicated reruns of The Wire. In that regard, this move makes about as much sense as any business strategy ever could.

As for Hip-Hop Vs. America itselr, I haven’t yet watched the program, but at least now I don’t have to check schedules to find out when it’s airing or even turn on BET on my television. This is a great move for connecting with customers as well as clients. This is an easy 360 advertising play. Say if I were Chevy, I’d buy air time and Web video time in one package, and cut overall costs by getting a deal on purchasing an extended package. Brand awareness hits the consumer in two places — BAM!! I’ve already discussed the benefits for the consumer — the show is now on demand, watchable anytime, anyplace.

WebContentStrategy.com recently expanded the definition of content globalization:

“…content globalization is typically defined as the adaptation of Web content, interactive media, printed documents, or packaging to meet the cultural, linguistic, and business requirements of a global audience…expand that definition to include content focused on the various ethnicities that make-up what we call America.”

What if this definition was expanded even further to include sub-cultures? The result would be something similar to HipHop.cn. HipHop.cn is a web portal that offers not only global Hip-Hop news but news that is also specific the the local Chinese Hip-Hop scene. The whole portal is presented in two languages, English and Chinese. What I find most interesting though is the forum community, naturally like most users who select the English option on the website I expected to at the very least have navigation in English, not so. Sprinkled throughout the forum you find a mix Chinese and English posts with the majority being Chinese however ALL of the content featured in the Magazine section and in the Media section are in English. My favorite is an introduction video for HipHop.cn’s Rap Challenge that is done in both Chinese and English, if this is not content globalization I don’t know what is.

Hopefully at the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival. The 2008 SXSW Panel Picker allows users to vote on what THEY think should be included in the panel line up. Vote now (scratch that, get EVERYONE you know to vote) because the poll is only open until September 21st!

Here is a quick description of the “Where are all the Black Tech Bloggers?” idea submitted by Lynne d Johnson:

In August 2007, Podtech Vlogger Loren Feldman got dressed up in black face (a tech nigga nonetheless) and asked the question, “Where Are The Black Tech Bloggers?” While Feldman’s video drummed up controversy and was labeled as racist, it got the blogosphere thinking and talking. Especially the black tech bloggers. Here’s your chance to discover that they really exist, and to learn how they think about technology, and well, people like Feldman.

Vote so that there can be representation at SXSW and it can be proven that black tech bloggers do exist.

Take a look for yourself…

Radio One

TV One

I really don’t know what to say about this one. Don’t get me wrong, Radio One’s corporate site is much better then it was but honestly I was just expecting much more from this “Urban Media Specialist.”

TV One, on the other hand, is much better then its parent site. However, when I come across a website that targets African-Americans and the color scheme is one of the many typical “afro-centric” color schemes used for this demographic I become disappoint. My disappointment is only because I know that there is no specific color scheme that can limit the culture. We are all colors.

I will say there are many, many things that I loved about TV One’s website, one being the integration of community. While not as “robust” as MySpace it offers many of the same features such as member profiles, member blogs, member groups called “Clubs” and a “Friend List” which is displayed on your profile. While you can’t customize your profile with themes or embed video and music, users can share clips from TV One’s programming and link to WMV from their blog (some even link off of the site to YouTube). They also seem to have a fairly active message board.

Overall I think TV One’s online community is a step in the right direction but I think Radio One’s corporate web site needs work.

Essence Studios’ first project will be “30 Dates in 30 Days,” the industry’s first interactive, online reality dating show, set to debut in September on Essence.com.

The show will pair five single women with six eligible bachelors each for a week’s worth of dates. Documented on video, each webisode will feature one of the six consecutive dates with different bachelors, complete with post-date testimonials.

Viewers will be asked to vote each day on which bachelor she should go out with, what she should wear, where the couple should go on their date, and whether she should go out with her selected bachelor again.

“30 Dates in 30 Days” culminates with a group-date event featuring the viewer-matched couples. Read more on EURweb.com

Looks very interesting, particularly how web users will be able to interact online with the webisode’s singles.