Black Web 2.0

I had the pleasure of being able to talk with Brett Wright of UptownLife.net. UptownLife recently relaunched, a little over a couple a weeks ago, and is more or less the online version of Uptown magazine. See below for the full email exchange: (more…)

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…)

I just received my Dropbox beta invite, and already contemplating getting rid of some of my external storage devices. Dropbox is an Amazon S3 based online storage solution that allows users to seamlessly store your files in “the cloud” making them accessible from any location. Dropbox comes with a Python-based desktop client for both Mac and Windows, that creates and links shared folders from your computer to your online Dropbox. The application creates a folder on your computer called “My Dropbox”. Once files from you desktop are placed in the “My Dropbox” folder, they are instantly synced to your online Dropbox or any desktop computer with the client installed. (more…)

Today Carol’s Daughter conducted a bloggers roundtable on Ustream in lieu of a press conference, bloggers and influencer’s were invited to participate, Black Web 2.0 was fortunate to be one of the participants. (more…)

Though I have been dedicated to Netvibes for a while now I may be making a switch back to iGoogle. Not long ago we covered Netvibes’ launch of Ginger, it’s not shabby by any means and also has lots of cool features, but if you are looking for a start page that can match your personal style or clothes you may want to consider switching to iGoogle. Why you ask? iGoogle recently launched (not sure exactly when but I just noticed it yesterday) Artist Themes. Artist Themes are basically skins by fashion designers and artists. Some notable designers and some of my personal favorites are: (more…)

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).

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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…)

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!

Microsoft released the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008, the new version of its robotics programming platform. Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 contains improvements in its runtime performance, distributed computational capabilities and tools.

Scheduled for release later this year, the first preview of the product is now available for evaluation and testing by developers, customers, and partners. Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 is a Windows-based environment that can be used by academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers for the creation of a variety of robotic programs and testing scenarios. (more…)