As of late we’ve seen so many traditional Black/Urban Media companies either redesign as blogs, create blog properties as part of their holdings, or transform their content channels into blogs.  In nearly every case that I’ve seen this happen not one company has been able to knock it out of the park.  In many cases they merely bunt it. Cases in point…

Vibe relaunching as a blog

Essence.com’s latest redesign

BlackVoices building up their stable of blogs that mirror content channels (BVonStyle,BVonSports, BVonMoney, etc.)

Interactive One adding blogs to their holdings and then tacking those properties on the BlackPlanet.com domain

You get the picture.

Surely blogs have some kind of undeniable allure.  In some cases they are guilty pleasures.  In Media they are the new kids on the block that some love to hate while others embrace.  In mainstream media there is M&A activity in the blogosphere.  Media companies don’t necessarily feel the need to recreate the wheel, challenge what already exists, or create their own.  Long term that would take too much time and resources.  They simply either take a strategic investment or acquire.

My biggest question and concern is why doesn’t this same activity happen in Black Media.  Instead of resulting to the typical “crabs in a barrel” answer I’m genuinely curious to find out what is missing in our economy that we have yet to see this type of activity in recent times.  Especially when Essence is feeling the backlash of their community on their new redesign, Black Voices’ traffic despite trying to incorporate blogs is in a huge slump, and of all Interactive One’s properties Black Planet still out shines many of their properties by light years.  If these companies wanted to diversify their portfolio by adding blogs or appeal to a young audience by “acting” like a blog wouldn’t it make more sense just to acquire a blog that is aligned with your brand and what you are trying to build?  You wouldn’t have to start from scratch, the traffic would already be there, and 9 times out of 10 the overhead would be ridiculously low….lower than the staff that is needed to “act” like a blog.  I know it is a recession but M&A activity isn’t necessarily down.  Sure it is no free for all but it is alive in a smarter and more strategic way.

What kind of economy are we creating if independent media doesn’t happen on some sort of liquidity event?  This needs to at least be an option and at most serve as an example of possibilities.  Not to mention strategically it makes more sense to acquire rather than wait for independent media to seek investment from an IAC, MSNBC, and the like or bootstrap their way to the top.  Then they really become your competitors…head on.

The White House is going open source. Over the weekend, the White House announced that whitehouse.gov now runs on Drupal. Until now, the Obama administration has continued to use tools purchased during the previous administration. These tools severely limited what the administration could do with the website, limiting opportunities for interaction with users.

In switching to Drupal, the White House hopes to not only harness improved security, but also the power that is Drupal’s crazy-flexible modular system. The White House team will be able to take advantage of the enormous Drupal community to add features and improve the way users interact with the website.

Huffington Post reports:

White House officials described the change as similar to rebuilding the foundation of a building without changing the street-level appearance of the facade. It was expected to make the White House site more secure and the same could be true for other administration sites in the future.

Tim O’Reilly points out that there is a vast difference between using and contributing to open source, and hopes that the government will turn their security modifications over to the community.

It’s also important to realize that using open source is very different from contributing to open source. Despite the exaggerated claims in the AP story, that “the programming language is written in public view, available for public use and able for people to edit”, the White House has not yet released any of the modifications they made to Drupal or its operating environment back to the open source community. The source code for Drupal (and the rest of the LAMP stack) is indeed available, but the modifications that were made to meet government security, scalability, and hosting requirements have not yet been shared. In my conversations with the new media team at the White House, it is clear that they are exploring this option.

While this measure may not be an immediate cost-saver (5 different companies are involved in re-building and maintaining the White House web site), long-term costs should fall as government agencies are able to borrow from the greater Drupal community while incrementally improving on the websites code. But the question remains, will the Obama White House share some of the contributions it’s making to open source?

EVERYWHERE, a Social Media Marketing and Content Development firm based in Atlanta, GA set a record October 16-17th for the most widespread social network message in 24 hours. According to Radian6, the official online monitoring company, the phrase #BeatCancer set the record with 209,771 mentions on Twitter, Facebook and blog posts. This translates into an estimated number of impressions generated during this 24-hour period at over 100 Million. Attendees at BlogWorld & New Media Expo, which featured some of the biggest names in social media, were asked to send tweets and issue Facebook status updates with #BeatCancer in their posts. This massive viral effort spawned a worldwide online message that spread and quickly became the #1 most trending topic on Twitter. Not content to just perpetuate a hashtag followed by a message, EVERYWHERE sought out sponsors to raise money for non-profit cancer organizations. Sponsors eBay/PayPal and MillerCoors Brewing Company and Genesis Today were financial contributors to the #BeatCancer campaign and in the brief 24 hour period, over $70,000 was raised.

Of the effort, Guinness World Record® spokesperson, Stuart Claxton said, “We’re always on the lookout for new and exciting ideas, and when approached about a mass social media experiment that rallied people to support the fight against cancer, we were happy to oblige in adjudicating this record attempt.” He further clarified that this attempt “will set a benchmark for social media monitoring moving forward.”

Managing Partner of EVERYWHERE, Tamara Knechtel, who came up with the idea for #BeatCancer says, “We understand very well the power brands have to deliver messages in the social media space. We wanted to score the first Guinness World Record® by using social media for social good. I’m a cancer survivor and just about everyone I know has a close family member who has suffered from the disease. That said, we only had a matter of days to pull this off in time for BlogWorld & New Media Expo. We are grateful to our sponsors, eBay/PayPal and MillerCoors who stepped up to the plate offering a penny per #BeatCancer mention. In the end, they both gave far more than a penny per mention!” EVERYWHERE is now the first social media agency to develop a Guinness World Record for online impressions.

The money raised will be donated to four different non-profit cancer organizations including SU2C (Stand UP to Cancer), Alex’s Lemonade, Bright Pink, and Spirit Jump. All of the non-profits are 501(c)(3) organizations and accredited by The American Cancer Society. A listing of all organizations can be found at www.beatcancereverywhere.com. While the campaign is over, individuals may still donate at the aforementioned website.

The measurement firm Radian 6 provided all of the real-time tracking for the campaign. As of this release the current impressions total over one million mentions of #BeatCancer including tweets sent by athletes and celebrities including P. Diddy, Jermaine Dupri, Larry Fitzgerald, MC Hammer, Perez Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Maxwell, Alicia Keys, Shawne Merriman, and Denise Richards.

Ford is already pretty well known for it’s social media strategy, led by Scott Monty, and was ranked the #1 Social Automotive Brand by Virtue.com.  They not only use social media to engage with current customers (and potential customers) for Ford products, they also use it for Customer Service and to combat “haters” when those situations arise.  In fact I had the opportunity to speak with Gwen Peake (@gwenj), Ford’s new hire for the Global Digital Communications Manager, and she made a point to mention the company “welcomes all comments” good and bad.

Peake’s background is “multimedia” in the truest sense. Throughout her career she has been on a “tour of industries” that are all about communicating to large audiences— she’s been a television producer, a film director, a stage manager for theater, a book editor, a writer for magazines, music and movies, and even owned an online magazine. Most recently she’s joined the Ford team to expand their small but hugely effective social media team to two.

Gwen Peake, Global Digital Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company

While Peake hasn’t been with Ford long she and her team have had a number of wins, including getting Ford CEO Alan Mulally to tweet and engage with bloggers and customers; at one point even taking time on a Saturday to make a phone call to one.  Things like this are just one small part of what Peake and her colleagues are doing to “humanize the brand using social media.”  What may seem like simple use of Twitter and Facebook to a novice is in actuality part of a much larger strategy.  Self proclaimed “social media experts” and “strategist” take note.

At the heart of the effort is theFordStory.com “social media repository.”  This is where you’ll find all things related to what Ford is doing in the social web including first hand stories from customers as well as commentary from the blogosphere.  And yes you’ll find them on Twitter and Facebook but it doesn’t end there.  They are also on Flickr, YouTube, Upcoming, SlideShare, Flickr, Scribd, and Delicious.  They also do blogger outreach and Peake shared that they try to be as human and personable as possible, they contact bloggers more like a friend would and not like a marketer.  Note:  Bloggers if you get form letters from marketers asking for “your help” run…and run fast.

As I mentioned earlier their social media efforts don’t just end with the superficial.  There are many initiatives Ford is apart of as well.  Initiatives like The Wedding Road Trip where a newly engaged couple drove cross country telling friends and family of their news.  InvisiblePeople.tv is another initiative, and a great one at that.  It is a vlog that chronicles the lives of homeless people across America by way of a road trip.   One of the most impressive is the FiestaMovement.com where 100 agents lifestream their time with a Ford Fiesta for 6 months.  Yes Ford sponsors the vehicles in these initiatives but the participants are not paid at all.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with what Ford is doing in the African-American community with vehicles like the Flex.  Those campaigns tend to be less social and are well…just campaigns.  Peake mentioned during our conversation that this is something Ford is aware of and she and her team are tasked with working across the company to make campaigns more socially engaging.  They will be working with various multicultural divisions and we should start to see social media included soon on campaigns targeting the African-American demographic.  Peake not only adds great knowledge to the Social media team at Ford she offers perspective.

Last Monday The Huffington Post announced it would launch a Technology and Innovations section on September 21st.  The section will be lead by Jose Antonio Vargas.  In the blog post last week titled Technology is Anthropology Vargas goes into detail on how this Technology blog will be a bit different than what we are use to.

HuffPostTech will cover how technology in general — and the Internet in particular — is changing the way we live our lives, from politics, education to entertainment. The iPhone 3GS and new Nokia N96 aren’t just cell phones or communications devices; for many, they are primary sources of entertainment. Facebook is no mere social networking site; with more than 250 million users, it’s a democracy of its own, with a population that rivals some of the world’s biggest countries. Indeed, the new section’s overlaying concern — what will connect all the blogs and aggregated news stories in it — is the thinking that technology is anthropology. It’s not the gear, it’s the people.

You can read his thoughts in full over on the HuffPost however, he does go on to say that while they will cover news, rivalries, gadgets and the like most stories will focus on how technology is being used and how it effects the people who use it.  Interesting.

That said, in this world where tech blogs and websites chase the latest of the latest will The Huffington Post be able to take a piece of the pie that is dominated by Michael Arrington and Pete Cashmore?  And should those two be scared?  While a blend of arrogance and confidence will likely display the two as dismissive to the venture, what The Huffington Post stands to bring to Technology & Innovation is the ability for the average Joe to relate to it.  In the long run that could serve as more appealing to the masses than “what’s hot” among geeks and early adopters.

Updated: Here is a quick video from the editor:

To take a look at Jay-Z ’s trending reign on Twitter you’ll have to go back to June 5 when Jay-Z released Death of Autotunes track. We covered it here on the post “Jay-Z Kills AutoTune via Twitter with D.O.A.” Ever since then Jay-Z has been trending on Twitter longer than any other music artist. Jay hasn’t been trending every day since June 5 but every time a new announcement about the Blueprint 3 album was made he would crawl back to #1 trending on Twitter or reappear.

But in a time where trending topics on Twitter can just mean a lot of spam bots and people posting the trending keyword tweets to just to get more followers what does trending on Twitter mean for Jay-Z? There is no simple one answer but here are a few:

It means Jay-Z has a huge Twitter fan base

It means the bots love Jay-Z

It means people are excited about Jay-Z new album

It means …

Either way in a time where people talk about brand management and engagement if you where trying to monitor Jay-Z brand on Twitter I’m sure you would be pulling your hair out right about now. For example, when Jay-Z partnered with Rhapsody for a exclusive premiere of The Blueprint 3 all of the feedback on Twitter wasn’t positive and some were saying the album wasn’t living up to the hype. Personally I think it album is good and thoughtful and not filled with a bunch of hooks for radio play. It’s one of those albums that I think you have to listen to a few times to hear the lyrical genius that Jay-Z brings to the music industry.

I’ll let you be the judge of new album but let’s look at a three ways Jay-Z team is using Twitter and Facebook to promote the new album.

1. Rhapsody mp3 Twitter hashtag contest: “Listening to The Blueprint 3 by Jay-Z http://tinyurl.com/kt8fc7 #rhapsody”.

2. What’s is your favorite “Jay-Z lyric”? Hashtag tweets

3. Tons of Facebook Fanpage questions and contest

4. Using the Roc4Life.com Ning site along with Twitter for user generated content

So will all the tweets and reigning as the #1 trending artist on Twitter for all time lead to a breaking numbers in music sales? Only time will tell.

What do think about the new album?

Best-selling hip hop artist Phonte gives one of the most concise explanations of the beefs recording artists have with iTunes. In this video he dishes on iTunes and discusses his latest project. (Viewer advisory. Yes, he cusses.)

Some days the mayhem on Twitter is funny. Today it isn’t funny to me.

Today I looked in the trending topics on Twitter and saw a familiar name, Maia Campbell, the sweet faced, beautifully locked girl from L.L. Cool J’s TV sitcom, In the House. I read hundreds of tweets but only found one kind post asking that folks stop making fun of her and pray instead. I then saw a post containing the link to a video featuring Maia on Youtube.com. I watched as much as possible and decided to tweet what I knew. Maia is schizophrenic; a fact that brought her late mother Bebe Moore Campbell and her father and step-father much anguish. Maia is a schizophrenic who won’t take her meds. Maia is a schizophrenic and unfortunately, she also has the honor of being a Twitter trending topic and #1 on Google Trends.

The number one hit with Maia’s name is a gossip blog and about 30 comments in on a line chain of comments is the one that states she is a schizophrenic.

This is why I care. My aunt was schizophrenic. She suffered through a partial lobotomy in the 60s, countless visits in and out of mental hospitals, and there were suicide attempts. Last year, Aunt Alice died at the age of 83. She was like a child; her brain locked in an infantile state partially due to the cocktail of drugs she took for the schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. Of all of my memories of her, and there are many wonderful ones, I remember seeing my once beautiful aunt become like a monster when taking those drugs. She’d either be violent like Maia in that video or she’d go into a catatonic state – drawn in and lost.

The hardest part for the mentally ill is the waiting through the side effects, which makes most feel even crazier. And when they can’t stand it, they reject the meds like Maia.

Okay, this is a tech site. Here’s the plea I’d like to make on Maia’s behalf. Trend with truth. Bloggers who are receiving lots of traffic to your sites: Adequately research Bebe Moore Campbell, Maia’s mental illness and Bebe’s last interviews regarding living with a mentally ill loved one. It’s all there on Google. Then I challenge you to report what you’ve found and tell your readers the truth.

Let me make it easy for you. Here’s a hash tag: #MaiasTruth

If you’re determined to trend the girl as a topic on the Internet, trend with the truth. Don’t perpetuate or sensationalize something that affects many African American families.

Now, let’s help some other folks out. Here are some websites providing information on schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. Retweet these, like them on Friendfeed, and post them on Facebook. In fact, email them to your friends. Use your mobiles to spread the truth in love and not a lie in mocking.

Trend with truth.

African Americans have 200% higher risk of schizophrenia than Caucasian Americans

Organized Wisdom: African Americans and Schizophrenia

PAARTNERS: Project among African Americans to Explore Risks for Schizophrenia

Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a new report on users of wireless Internet.  Based on the findings of an April 2009 daily tracking survey, the results of the report were gleaned from data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research International between March 26 to April 19, 2009, among a sample of 2,253 adults, 18 and older.

The survey revealed:

• 56% of adult Americans have accessed the internet by wireless means, such as using a laptop, mobile device, game console, or MP3 player.
• The most prevalent way people get online using a wireless network is with a laptop computer; 39% of adults have done this.
• One-third of Americans (32%) have used a cell phone or Smartphone to access the internet for emailing, instant-messaging, or information-seeking. This level of mobile internet is up by one-third since December 2007, when 24% of Americans had ever used the internet on a mobile device. On the typical day, nearly one-fifth (19%) of Americans use the internet on a mobile device, up substantially from the 11% level recorded in December 2007. That’s a growth of 73% in the 16 month interval between surveys.

And important to BlackWeb20.com readers:

African Americans are the most active users of the mobile internet – and their use of it is also growing the fastest. This means the digital divide between African Americans and white Americans diminishes when mobile use is taken into account.

• 48% of Africans Americans have at one time used their mobile device to access the internet for information, emailing, or instant-messaging, half again the national average of 32%.
• 29% of African Americans use the internet on their handheld on an average day, also about half again the national average of 19%.
• Compared with 2007, when 12% of African Americans used the internet on their mobile on the average day, use of the mobile internet is up by 141%.

The high level of activity among African Americans on mobile devices helps offset lower levels of access tools that have been traditional onramps to the internet, namely desktop computers, laptops, and home broadband connections.

• By a 59% to 45% margin, white Americans are more likely to go online using a computer on a typical day than African Americans.
• When mobile devices are included in the mix, the gap is cut in half; 61% of whites go online on the average day when mobile access is included while 54% of African Americans do.
• Looking across a range of digital activities – some done online typically using a computer and others being non-voice data activities on a mobile device – African American and white Americans, on average, do the same number of activities.

Access the rest of the report HERE.

Who’s No. 1 in website traffic? No surprise — its that 800-pound gorilla, Google, according to Compete.com. Google, with nearly 146 million unique visits, ranked No. 1 in June in the Compete 250, the company’s monthly ranking of the top 250 websites. Yahoo! was second with 142 million visits and Facebook was third with 122 million.

The company’s survey showed that search, entertainment and social networking continue to be the biggest traffic drivers on the Internet.

Despite the impressive performance, Google cannot afford to rest on its laurels. Microsoft’s Bing.com, the web’s newest search engine, saw its traffic skyrocket in June with nearly 50 million visits. It was only the first full month of activity for Bing, as it made good use of an eye-popping, $100 million advertising campaign.

The Google-Yahoo-Bing competition should be fun to watch, and the competition is heating up just as the search engine business is softening a bit. According to Compete, the overall search market declined by 1.7%, and Google lost 0.9% of its query volume. Meanwhile, Bing (and its predecessor, Live.com) served up 19 million more queries than it did in May.

Another Microsoft product, MSN, was fourth at 114 million. Then there was a big drop off to YouTube at No. 5 (78 million), Ebay sixth (73 million), Amazon.com seventh (65 million), Wikipedia eighth (62 million), MySpace ninth (60 million) and Microsoft.com No. 10 (55 million).

Bing’s performance wasn’t the only interesting story. AT&T and Apple both saw surges in traffic after the iPhone 3G S was officially unveiled on June 6th. Consumers flocked to the sites for the latest information on one of the summer’s most eagerly awaited smartphone releases. AT&T’s site traffic grew 8.2 percent and Apple saw a 19.1 percent increase over May traffic numbers. Both sites madeCompete’s top 50.

Another major traffic driver in June was news of Michael Jackson’s death. According to Compete, more than seven million people searched for “Michael Jackson,” with a lions share of that traffic no doubt going to Google. Another big winner in theMJ traffic surge was entertainment site TMZ.com, which saw its traffic soar by 37.4 percent — to just over nine million unique visits.

Quiz sites gummyquiz.com (7.7 million unique visits) and iqquizapp.com (7,9. million) received huge boosts in traffic from Facebook. Each site received more than 25 percent of its referral traffic from Facebook. According to Compete, gummyquiz.com, popular for the “How well do you know me?” application, received 92.9 percent of its referral traffic from Facebook.