Black Web 2.0

During an interesting conversation today the topic of “Young, Black, and…” sites came up and how many of these sites do we really need? How minute can it be before it becomes irrelevant, or does relevancy of a site with Black in its name ever die simply because of the niche nature of the internet today? A simpler and more direct question may be “How many of these sites will be developed before it gets old?” Maybe it never gets old since web users are in general younger in age, or a completely different and possibly more accurate take on it: (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…)

I came across this video on YouTube, I am sure I found it on some other site or someone told be about it but who or where escapes me right now. Anyway, this dude Daniel Beaty was recently on Def Poetry and his piece was called Nerd vs. N*gga. I could try to explain it but I wouldn’t do it justice: (more…)

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was assassinated, as he stood outside of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. He was 39. Media sites and blogs all over, honored Dr. King’s life and legacy through touching articles, thought provoking poll questions, and video and image galleries.

We have compiled the best web coverage of the 40 year anniversary of Dr. King’s death.
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Freeprojectmanager.com released application upgrades last week, this includes RSS feeds for projects, Skype “Status” support for team presence, increased file upload size, contact importing from services like MSN, Hotmail, & Gmail. They also increased the user licenses for FREE account individuals and small businesses from 1 users to 2 because of feedback. (more…)

The former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, Paul Brathwaite, has registered to lobby for Google on immigration issues. Brathwaite currently works for the Podesta Group and is named on, as the Senate registration below: (more…)

In a post earlier today Valleywag reported that Laszlo Bock, Google’s vice president of people operations, assured members of Congress last June that Google, which was lobbying for more H1-B visas for immigrant workers, had plenty of black employees. “We have a very strong internal Black Googler Network,” he said. “We actually view it as our obligation to reach out to underrepresented communities in our industry, particularly women in engineering, particularly African-Americans. “How many [of Google’s employees] are African-American?” asked Representative Maxine Waters. “I don’t actually have that data at my fingertips,” was Bock’s reply. “I apologize.” (more…)

One of our great contributing writers, Maurice Cherry, recently posted an article titled “Where are all the Black Web Professionals.” It is a great read, please check it out. Anyway, what leads me to bring up this post is all the discussion it has generated. It is definitely a touchy subject that hits home for many Blacks working in the web industry and really for ANYONE working in the web industry. We can see that over at 1938 Media (you know, the video blogger who did “Where are all the Black Tech Bloggers“) where Loren Feldman and his readers discuss Maurice’s post. After reading the comments I almost didn’t even write this post, summing the whole issue up to not being able to enlighten people who are as close minded as that. It is really sad how some really believe there is no difference other then presentation between “Where are all the Black Tech Bloggers” video and “Where are all the Black Web Professionals” post. Oh, don’t mind the statistical data (although it may be skewed a bit) from the survey ALA did on about 32k web professionals. That in addition to simple observations from our readers is 1000% more accurate then any video mocking what a stereotypical “Black Tech Blogger” would look like and represent. So, that is the difference. It has nothing to do with the color of the skin of who is blogging on the matter or “Who asked the question first” or who will be seen on Techmeme. Seriously Loren, Grow up. I think what most of us are learning about this whole issue is that it needs to be discussed, intelligently.

BTW Loren thanks for the traffic.