Gaming and hip-hop seems like they’re worlds apart. However, they might not be as disparate as you think. Both have loyal and passionate fans. Each has a fair share of heroes with larger than life mythos. In a mashup reminiscent of a Reeses Cup, The Koalition has combined the two topics to create a thriving web property. From their modest beginnings as a bunch of guys voicing their opinions in a gaming forum, the Koalition staff has banded together to fill a space that’s often ignored — the African-American gamer.

According to Managing Editor/Director A.B. Frasier, the mission is simple, “introduce more gaming to the hip-hop world.” To that end, news-driven gaming content and reviews rub elbows with celebrity interviews and music videos. While every artist interviewed by the staff may not be a gamer, it can still be a win for the site. By featuring artists on the site, there is a unique opportunity to get their content in front of an audience they might not necessarily encounter if the site was gaming-only. In addition to the Koalition’s target demographic of gamers 18-30+ in the United States, the site has an international following. With writers living in England, the website has covered the grime scene featuring artists like Baby Blue.

Like most websites, thekoalition.com is ad-driven, but Fraiser alluded to several business ventures in the works in the realm of consulting. Page views are at 50,000 a month with continual growth. That’s no surprise since the site  was named the 2009 Black Weblog Award winner for best technology site/blog. But with every triumph, there’s a roadblock. Their Koalition crew have seen their share of challenges along the way, the biggest of which is procuring the actual games.

“I notice on the hip-hop side of things, you don’t really have to be a popular or well known site to get an interview with an artist,” Frasier explains. “All you have to do is be in the right place at the right time. When you’re running a gaming site, these developers and game publishers really won’t give you an exclusive or a copy of the game to review unless you’re a worthwhile publication”

Challenges aside, TheKoalition.com continues to brush the dirt off their shoulders to bring readers the latest in gaming trends. Some trends that have drawn A.B.’s interest include Microsoft and Sony’s entry into the motion control gaming market and the rise of pre-order downloadable content which Frasier calls an “increasing headache for gamers.” He’s taking a wait-and-see approach to 3D gaming, but noted that in a poll conducted on the site about the trend with the majority voting that they’re excited about gaming in the third dimension.

African Americans are some of the biggest video game consumers and yet we are horribly underrepresented in the industry. Hopefully with sites like The Koalition and fellow black gaming sites, Konsole Kingz and TrueGameHeadz leading the way, we’ll start to see more video game heroes that look like us.

If you live in a major city in the U.S. you’ve probably attended a First Friday event. First Friday is an institution, a reliable source of social and business networking for black professionals. From its start in New Jersey in 1988, the monthly event now has active chapters in 35 cities across seven countries.

To further expand its reach, First Friday has embraced the net and created 1stFriday.com. It’s a website that acts as a one stop shop for African Americans searching for local services and information, including travel, childcare, and home improvement. The site sums it up best describing itself as the “Black community’s destination for information for us — by us.”

On January 21, 1stFriday.com launched Connections, a social and professional networking community. Based off the offline First Friday event, Connections purpose is to create viable local online black communities. Part of the inspiration for the idea came from a New York Times article that described the problems professional single black mothers had finding reliable childcare.

At first glance, you might be inclined to write Connections of as another social networking site in the vein of BlackPlanet or Facebook, the focus on building online local communities would place it closer to Craiglist. This is no coincidence. Craig Newmark, creator of Craigslist serves as an informal advisor.

“He’s a big believer in our platform,” says 1stFriday.com CEO Jay Ward. We’ve consulted with him regarding the growth of Craigslist. We’re very much trying to create a Craigslist-type of environment for the African American community.”

While it might have some Craigslist influences, 1stFriday is a unique site. To guard against scams and unsafe behavior, moderation tools are built into the platform as a first line of defense.  Ads promoting or soliciting sexual activity are forbidden and Ward promises that the site will be aggressively moderated so that the same quality expected from an offline First Friday event will continue in the online sphere.

Connections is a relatively to navigate. Creating a profile has the user going through the usual sign up rigmarole. Once the profile is completed, users can take advantage of the people search map, a diagram displaying other users that match your interests. Users can also participate in a myriad of groups including Foodies, Technology Industry, and Single Moms. On the user-generated blog front, I saw a few helpful articles including “The Top Ten Ways to Piss off a Judge”, “Independent Film Production”, and “The Curvy Fashionista”.

To create the Connections platform, 1stFriday.com teamed with Leverage Software, “the only enterprise social networking platform that integrates “people-matching” and “geography-based” features.”

“We’re excited to see our community management technology deployed in such and innovative and meaninful way, especially for a community the size of the U.S. African-American market, said John Stanton CEO of Leverage Software.”

To date, 1stFriday.com and Connections have dedicated communities for the western and southwestern U.S. market including Portland, Dallas, Denver, and San Francisco. However, the platform is open to anyone looking to make a new connection. If the 20-year success of the offline First Friday events are any indication, 1stFriday.com and the Connections community are worth a look.

The video game industry has had its share of ups and downs as  of late. A shaky economy combined with improved gaming experiences available on mobile phones have done their best to take the financial wind out of gaming’s sails. According to The NPD Group, the industry as a whole experienced an 11 percent drop in profit over the course of 2009. Despite this, the industry continues to grow and thrive especially in the area of casual gaming.

Last year we read about Zynga and Playfish making it big with their brand of addicting gameplay and microtransaction. This year a new player steps into the arena promising to take the game in a whole other direction. Heatwave Interactive is set to go into open beta with Platinum Life sometime this year. The beta launch will initially roll out on Facebook, with plans to roll out a subscription-based version a la World of Warcraft at a later date.

Even though Heatwave specializes in creating entertainment software, it’s not always fun and games. It takes a lot of work combined with a sound business model to keep the business afloat. One way Heatwave differentiates itself from the competition is employee contribution. According to Executive Producer Mykel Mitchel anyone at the company can come up with a game idea. “We have an open forum every quarter and people can pitch their ideas whether its an iPhone game or a full-blown MMORPG.”

This open door idea policy helped bring about the creation of Heatwave’s latest software, iSamJackson. The company’s first iPhone app, iSamJackson features famed actor Samuel L. Jackson voicing over 150 original phrases on a unique soundboard app. The app recently debuted in the Apple app store in both a clean and explicit version. (Editors Note: We covered the iSamJackson app briefly on BET.com)

Described as a “nice little side project”, the app was completed over the course of a weekend thanks to the high level of expertise of Heatwave’s development team.

“The Apple team said that this was the cleanest app they’ve seen in a year and a half,” said Mitchell

There’s also a contest where users can enter a line they think should be on the app. No word if the winning line will be added to the app, but it’s a really cool way to make a fun application even more enjoyable.

Working with Samuel L. Jackson is always impressive, but this isn’t Heatwave’s first brush with celebrity. The company has already inked a deal with multi-platinum artist T.I. to appear in Platinum Life. And as the game moves closer to launch, more big name artists signed onto the project will be announced.

Where does a fledgling three year old company get so much juice? It starts with co-founders Anthony Castoro and Donn Clendenon. Castoro has the gaming chops as a veteran game designer and producer while Clendenon brings the business sense. Together, they’ve put together a team that loves what they do and have the contacts to reach almost anyone thanks to Mykel Mitchell and his extensive connections in the entertainment industry. Coupled with their philosophy of inclusiveness at all levels, Heatwave seems to have found a successful formula and are ready to do the unexpected.

Dynamik Duo is at it again. The entrepreneurial team of Ashton and Ryan Clark has launched yet another business and it looks like another winner. The 21-year old twins recently rolled out UTicketIt, described as the “premier event management and registration” website. After navigating the unpredictable and oftentimes unorganized experience of purchasing tickets for college events, the Clark twins decided to build a better mousetrap.

The site’s premise is simple. College organizations, government organizations, small businesses and even non-profits can use the site to create a central information hub for an upcoming event. Event promoters post the event on UTicketIt. Once the event has been created, the promoter can send out promotional blasts, collect money, and distribute tickets in a one stop shop kind of deal.

Some of the Clark’s potential clientele utilize Facebook to get the word out about upcoming events, but as Ashton points out, it can become a real hassle when it comes time to do a final tally of attendees. “Just because people click the button, it doesn’t mean they’re actually going to attend.” To cut down on the headaches, the site creates an easy to read report that includes name, email address, phone number or any other information that the organizer deems pertinent.

Another event planning dilemma UTicketIt diffuses is lost or forgotten tickets.We’ve all experienced the old sweat-inducing panic of not having your ticket. And then there’s the frustration of trying to convince skeptical security that you left your ticket in your other pants, while your friends go into the party. event-goers can. Instead of sweating it out turning out pockets and purses, attendees  can walk up to the event organizer and give the answer to a security question that was asked upon attendance confirmation.

The site is set to launch sometime in February. But while we wait for Dynamik Duo to revolutionize the event planning forum, we can show our digital support. UTicketIt is currently entered in two competitions. The Morehouse College Innovative Business Plan Competition 2010 asks entrants to put their best business foot forward and submit their business plan to compete for a $20,000 top prize. They are also entered in the SparkSeed Social Entrepreneurship Competition that pits young entrepreneurs in a contest to see who has the best startup.

Voting for the SparkSeedCompetition closes on February 7. If you want to help Ashton and Ryan take home the gold, go to the SparkSeed page and click the follow button. With the simple click of a button, you’re laying the foundation for the next generation of black business and tech, pretty heady stuff when you think about it. So vote now and lend your support!

Blacktv247.com is self-described as being ” the single largest internet destination exclusively focused on Black inspired programming”. After spending a good amount of time on this site, it has some definite potential. The channels range from your typical Sports, Music Videos, Comedy and TV to some intriguing channels such as Education, Business and Lifestyle. There is even a very current Haiti Relief channel which shows that this site has an eye towards pertinent current events. The website has a player built in so everything is web based and easy to share via all the major social networks.  They have scoured over 100,000 hours of video clips that relate to African American culture. They have clips from back in the 1960’s and some from just a few days ago. The position that blacktv247.com is taking in the media world is the space between the mainstream broadcast television and the hidden videos that are found on YouTube.  It simply aggregates them all in one place similar to sites we’ve covered in the past like BlackBottom.com.

The parent company of Blacktv247.com is BTV247 Inc, which is based in Playa del Rey, California. Additional properties in the BTV247 Inc portfolio include BTV Productions and Best of Blacktv247.com. The two founders of BTV247 Inc are Justin Beckett (a Telly award-winning writer and producer who also launched Fluid Music in 2004 which has become one of the largest distributors and aggregators of independent music) and Cecil Cox (an Emmy-nominated producer and former senior executive of Mundy Lane Entertainment, Denzel Washington’s production company).

Within the website, there is an option to submit any video that a content owner wants to include in the programming for Blacktv247.com. Although this option is currently invitation only, this could become a viable resource for entrepreneurs, independent musicians, fledgling comedians and other people to spread the word about their work. Similar to how stars have been born on youtube, this could be another medium to engage and embrace. Note that once you submit content to the site, it still remains your property and there is no exclusivity which is a good thing for people trying to spread the word about their work.

The interface for site is very slick and smooth. Load times were a bit slow at random times, but the site is still in beta, so we can assume load times will continue to improve. The site aggregates videos from numerous different sources such as Hulu.com, YouTube, Current TV and others. There is old school footage of a Dr. Martin Luther King interview from 1967, a funny interview of Muhammed Ali, a classic In Living Color skit and a great look at some black entrepreneurs in a BE Next Segment.  If the site looks vaugely familiar to you it might be because you’re thinking of a video search engine called Blinkx.com.  Blinkx does have an API where certain partners can integrate their technology into their own site.  No word on if this is the case with Blacktv247.com.  Blacktv247 also appears to be taking a similar business model as blinks which relies on advertising and focuses on distributing and syndicating content through large partners like Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others.

Check out Blacktv247.com, what are your thoughts?

Whether it’s a new business or established business, any business owner will tell you, getting the word out about your services is a big part of the battle. After all, if no one knows how to find you or that you even exist, how will you be able to build a clientele. A major tool in attracting new customers has always been marketing material. But quality promo gear can be costly to produce. Some people try to cut corners and create the business cards, websites, and letterhead themselves, but unless they’re a graphic designer, the result more often than reeks of amateur hour.

So what’s a business owner to do when the budget’s tight, but they need professional-looking promo materials. Quark, the company behind the popular layout design software, QwarkXpress may have the solution. The software company has just launched Quark Promote, a more accessible way to create killer promotional tools. Promote features a number of professionally designed templates that can be applied to everything from postcards to brochures. The templates are very customizable. Users can choose which pictures and color schemes to use as well as enter their own copy.

Once the design has been finalized, users can create a preview and if they’re satisfied with the results they can have the materials shipped by mail or locate an available printer. Quark Promote has partnered with a number of large scale printers including Alphagraphics. Unlike their competitors, Quark will not be charging for the use of the templates. They’re also forgoing charging a shipping charge. According to CNET, Quark is in talks with Getty and iStockphoto to provide a wide variety of stock photos for customers to choose from.

Quick and easy to use, Quark Promote removes the intimidation factor that QuarkXpress can create in favor of a wide market appeal. It’s a viable business solution that’s affordable and accessible which small business owners will appreciate.

TwellWishes is a brand new web app that “allows you to send well wishes to your friends on Twitter for occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, or whatever you’d like!” Twitter doesn’t really provide a method to learn details about the people who follow you. Standard procedure is to simply follow them and monitor their tweets, but by the time you notice it’s their birthday, it’s probably too late to do anything about it. TwellWishes hopes to change that by giving you a heads up about upcoming events and provides a virtual marketplace for exchanging gifts.

Tiffani Bell

TwellWishes is brought to us by Yahya E. B. Henry (@YahyaHenry, entrepreneur and fellow GA resident) and Tiffani Bell (@tiffani, geek and Ruby on Rails developer, you might remember her from her guest posts written here and her Peeps of the Web interview). Great to see a young black-owned web application stepping into new territory. Besides simply allowing you to keep up with events related to your followers, which is pretty cool, it’s the virtual gifts that are most intriguing.

For many of us, virtual gifts seems kinda silly. You’re buying something for someone that they can never touch, it’s completely intangible. For the most part, virtual gifts don’t even do anything. They just sit there on your profile for the world to see. So why are users on sites like Facebook buying tens of millions of dollars worth of virtual swag?

As we start living more and more of our lives online, I guess it seems logical that many things we do in the real world may find a way to translate, whether it makes sense at first or not. It’s easiest to see how these virtual gifts work when you think of intangible goods like music or movies. Seems logical to give someone a music download or pay for them to watch a movie online.

It seems that the same concept of giving, even when the end user isn’t really receiving something they can use, is still enough to get the cash flowing. These virtual gifts carry significance in establishing identity, serving as status symbols, sending romantic signals, and otherwise building relationships. Everyone knows how much a particular gift costs, so owning something expensive in the virtual space is just the same as owning it the real world.

TwellWishes seems like a simple, but fun idea and I wish them success.  This business model has already proved to be successful on other platforms and the chances of it exploding on Twitter high.  Jumping into the virtual gifts market may allow Twitter users to get some bling, but it also goes to show that it’s not really the thought that counts.

It didn’t take Essence, BET, or Bob Johnson entering the market for us to realize that  original black video content was a hot segment of the online market. The explosion of web series created either by black people, for black people or both (AJ Christian does a great job of documenting some on his blog), has made this segment even more enticing. But one of the largest hurdles faced by webisode producers is the same obstacle most online content producer’s face, only worst. That problem of course is trying to get their content in front of the right audience. Webisode producers can’t rely upon search engines the same way most bloggers do, and most new websidoes don’t have the budgets to advertise, nor do they have the influence online to get noticed. So how does a Black Webisode gain traction? That’s a question that Jonathan Moore intends on answering with his new start-up Rowdy Orbit.

Launched in September of 2009, Rowdy Orbit’s goal is to deliver culturally relevant, original stories to people of color online. The site started out of Moore’s frustration with not seeing the consistent images of people of color especially online.
“I always wanted to show people of color in a positive, more dynamic light. Because I was really tired of seeing us as the joke or punch line or some type of stereotype that wasn’t true. Once I understood the power of the media. I decided to strike out and do something new, while bending some traditional rules in the process.”

Not only is Moore attempting to tackle the negative portrayals of blacks, but Rowdy Orbits is also quality web content get discovered. By grouping sites from a variety of different genres, including a cooking show called Soul Delicious, starring Chef Mel, a hip hop influenced chef, and situational comedy starring Jaleel White (Steve Urkel from Family Matters) called Road to the Altar, Rowdy Orbit is combining the audience and appeal of each websiode creating a one stop shop for original black webisodes. “Our business model is surrounded by helping webseries creators stay Independent or go to the next level and providing a platform that doesn’t disrupt or clutter the viewing experience. We exist to help web series creators to understand and pursue a non-traditional, process driven pathway of telling an honest and culturally relevant story in their own voice.”, said Moore.

Ever since it’s launch a year ago, Microsoft BizSpark has been doing very well at helping startups become successful. They have been focused on helping startups accelerate their software development process and provided access to business resources and mentorship. They have accomplished this by not only providing the technical resources necessary for success, but by also facilitating access to the right partnerships, marketing channels, coaching, and leadership.

Up until now, BizSpark has taken a broad approach, creating a network of more than 25,000 startups in over 100 countries.

This spectrum of partners includes entrepreneur support organizations such as the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), European Business Angel Network (EBAN) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). It also includes financial institutions such as HSBC, law firms, consultants, outsourcing organizations, and hosting companies such as Rackspace, GoGrid, GoDaddy and PEER 1.

Taking things a step further, Microsoft has launched BizSpark One.

“The idea behind BizSpark One is to cast a finer net using Silicon Valley best practices, and then lift the net up to find the startups that are most likely to succeed in the market and shape the industry’s future,” says Lewin. “Following the filtering process, our local subsidiaries in 10 countries will partner with the corporate team to help these startups to become the ‘ones to watch’ within the BizSpark program.”

Most interesting about BizSpark’s recent changes is the software that makes it all possible, Azure. Azure is a complete and scalable Microsoft cloud computing platform. It allows startups to develop their applications with minimal up front investment, taking care of their hosting, equipment, labor, and expansion costs to name a few. It features automatic on-demand resource allocation. BizSpark partners will receive 750 free compute hours per month for eight months.

This is a very exciting announcement, lowering the bar for developers to create innovative projects on a stable and scalable platform. Microsoft is definitely thinking outside the box this time, cutting out most of the busy work and uncertainty involved in a startup. If you’re already a BizSpark partner, feel free to tell us about your experience. If not and you’re startup needs a boost, it might be just what you need. Not sure what Azure can really do? Check out Seesmic.

Some of the most liveliest discussions here in the past have occurred around topics related to advertising networks.  Most of us have been an associated with an ad network at some point in time, some of us still are, while others have moved on to an ad rep or direct sales.  When joining an ad network or engaging an ad rep firm some sort of contract must be signed, however these contracts are far from boilerplate and most of us simply aren’t lawyers or don’t have the resources to retain one.  Here are 10+ things to consider when joining an ad rep firm:

1. Post-Term
If a rep firm or ad network has a post-term in the contract, where they still get paid on advertising (if they introduce your site to the advertiser)  you broker yourself or via another firm after the contract has ended , you should kill it if you can. Once the contract is up, the publisher needs to be totally free to do what he/she wants to do, without any claim to future revenues.  Gorilla Nation includes a post-term in their contracts.

2. Performance Clause
I would recommend some type of ratio of performance, where the ad rep firm is responsible to perform at a particular level. Especially, if a publisher has an exclusive deal, you need to make sure you are getting sufficient consideration every month if you are giving up exclusivity. You can put a performance clause in the contract such as for every 1M pageviews, the publisher needs to get 2K net revenue from the exclusive rep firm. If the site does 10M pageviews, the rep firm must perform and sell at least 20K per month on premium direct sales and if they don’t for 2-3 consecutive months, you should be able to get out of the contract. If a rep firm has a “star property” or anchor property, they will most likely focus on that property when pitching to advertisers, leaving the smaller publishers behind.

In addition to a performance clause, you need a clause that says the rep firm is responsible to provide with a quality service level. You want to think of as many “outs” as possible, with “outs” being options to get out of your contract.

3.  Leave Some Room to Sell Some of Your Inventory on Your Own
Leave some room for you to handle some of your direct sales. It’s important for publishers to build traffic and scale first but if you grow very fast, you need the flexibility to start selling a portion of your own ads, with your own direct sales team. You could select a category such as music to focus on and give the rest to the rep firm. As you get bigger and stronger, you can then negotiate more away from the rep firm.

4. Play Rep Firms Against Each Other
Negotiate from a position of power, once you find more than one rep firm that is interested, you should use this interest as leverage. “X is offering me a better deal, can you beat these terms”

5. Set Your Own Rate Card, Don’t rely on the rep firm
This needs to be in the contract. The rep firm may be trying to sell you too low or too high. You need full flexibility to determine the pricing of your brand/site. You can work with the rep firm but you should have complete control over your rate card.

6. Ask How Many Account Reps do they have per site within your vertical
If the reps are overly stretched and your site doesn’t have a large following 500 UV’s+, don’t expect a lot of attention and support.

7. Net Payment Terms
Anything beyond net 60 is suspect.  However, if the CPM’s are high and the partner has a good reputation, I think you can go with 90 but nothing beyond net 90.

8. Misc Fees Deducted from Your Revenue, on top of the revenue split
Beware of shady terms such as the ad network or rep firm having the ability to deduct fees from your revenue, in addition to the revenue share. Some firms will try to be slick and say they can deduct fees related to trafficking, ad serving, and sales, in addition to their revenue share. This is unacceptable and an obvious red flag.

9. How many employees does the rep firm have?
Beware of big promises. If a firm has 1-3 employees or the key executive you’re working with is working from home, these are obvious red flags. What this could mean is that this firm doesn’t have the bandwidth to effectively sell your brand to Fortune 500 companies.

10. Beware of firms that sell Black only, not Quality
If a rep firm is “selling” their business on the fact that is Black owned and not on the quality of their partners, sales, growth, financials, etc., this is a red flag.  You shouldn’t care who owns the rep firm and you should weigh firms on their merits and what they can do for your business.  Young “pro Black” publishers/bloggers often “buy into the kool aid” and get exploited by these type of ad shops. I personally had to threaten AdGroups after I smelled some “shady” dealings/practices. “I don’t care if you’re Black owned, where is my money?”

Bonus

11. Provision for M&A
If your website is acquired on a M&A deal, you need to be able to get out of the contract as an acquirer would most likely want to go in a different direction on ad sales. If you are “locked tight” into a contract, this may influence your deal price or prevent a deal from even going down. You need a “M&A out”.

12.  Beware of the Auto-renew
Some firms require a 30-45 days notice or they will auto rnew your contract and you could be stuck with them for another year.  Obviously this is not ideal especially if you are unhappy with the ad rep or they haven’t preformed to your expectations and you’d like to try alternatives.  If you are already in an auto-renew situation mark your calendar to send your contact termination notice.  Don’t get caught slippin’.  Gorilla Nation includes auto-renew in their standard contracts.

13. Consult an Online Advertising/New Media Lawyer No Matter What
Or someone who specializes in online advertising/new media. Even if you don’t have any money, you can find a lawyer who will work with you where you can pay them later or break up the balance into payments.  I don’t care how smart you think you are, if your site blows up, a bad deal or some “uneven” clause only a slick lawyer would understand who wrote the contract in the interest of the rep firm could end up costing you millions!