Black Web 2.0

Friday July 11th marked the highly anticipated release of the iPhone 3G and the official introduction of the App store on the iphone and on iTunes. If you recall, when the iPhone was first introduced, the 3rd party activation service which required coordination with iTunes and AT&T failed miserably.  Well fast-forward a year later to 2008, and the same thing happened again!

While the fly factor of the 3G phone is just ok (slimmer profile, lighter weight, minor UI changes, etc.), one might begin to question Apple’s ability to partner in the telecom space to launch their products.

Were you impacted when you activated your (1G,2G, or 3G) iPhone? Would it cause you to reconsider a future iPhone purchase?

Bellevue, Investors Brings Alerts.com Back To Life
A few years ago, investors poured more than $18 million into Alerts.com, a developer of software that alerted users when content changed on high-traffic Web sites.
http://www.alerts.com (more…)

I was extremely excited to chat with Ian Spalter, our first profile, today for Peeps of the Web.  He is currently the Creative Director of the Mobile and Emerging Platforms Group at R/GA an Interpublic Group agency.  The agency recently expanded its emerging media practice to focus on the creation of mobile applications that tap into social media.  While Ian is returning to R/GA he had also previously worked for Community Connect.  We Im’ed for about half an hour today and he was able to share more about what he does, how he got in the game, and a little about who he is.  Peep the transcript: (more…)

Lalah Hathaway, daughter of the seventies soul singer Donny Hathaway, has released a new website to promote her latest album “Self Portrait”.  The website, lalahhathaway.com includes a forum, her bio, tour dates, but more importantly it includes Lalah TV. Powered by Mogulus, Lalah TV is an incredible collection of vintage and new videos featuring greats like Donny Hathaway, Mos Def, Patti Labelle and many more. Lalah TV also streams footage of her live shows as well as in behind the scenes interviews with her and her family.   Lalah TV is just another example of the effect digital media is having on young musicians. While enticing a new audience with great vintage content, Lalah is striking up a buzz around her beautiful vintage sound. Let’s see if her digital media investments equates into record sales.

Once upon a time, there were these programs called adware.  They would package things with pretty little applications that has screen savers, or, my favorite, a weather bug, and then they would monitor your online activity and send you targeted ads.  Adware came over scrutiny though, and slowly disappeared in to non-existence,  only to make a comeback not as downloadable software, but in partnership with IP providers.

If you hadn’t heard,  yesterday the Senate talked to a bunch of major internet players:  Google…Facebook…Microsoft, there was also a little start up there called NebuAd.

From the NebuAd Website: (more…)

Just when you thought Twitter was falling off due to its technical difficulties, Twitter gets a new kid on the block: Superhead.

Karrine Stephans recently joined Twitter, and instead of quietly setting up an account, it appears as though she executed a pub stint by announcing her Twitter membership on her website. I suspect she also posted a bulletin to her MySpace fans, and today I learned that she sent this message to her e-mail list:

It’s been a while since you all have heard from me. I’ve noticed everyone has been blogging and video blogging all over the place and it made me want to find a newer, faster, more fun way of communicating with all of you. So, I decided to invite all of you to Twitter! This way, you will receive updates throughout the week, most every day, right to your mobile phone or computers.

To join:
Go to http://www.twitter.com/KarrineSteffans
Click the RSS feed button or
Use your own Twitter account and become a follower of my posts.
It’s that simple.

See you on Twitter!
Karrine (more…)

Microsoft throws it’s weight behind Semantic light weight, POWERSET.COM
Powerset has been closely watched as a potential challenger to Google because of its search engine’s ability to understand both the meaning of search queries and the language of a Web page in order to match the two together. Google has generally eschewed natural-language search in favor of its search engine based on search keywords.

http://www.powerset.com
http://www.microsoft.com (more…)

Does filling your web property with Associated Press news articles about black issues make you a black news source? Well it does if you’re Radio One’s NewsOne. As Black writers continue to struggle for credence in mainstream media, it seems as if NewsOne thinks that Black folks shouldn’t write about their own issues either. Aside from the almost invisible “Featured Blogger” section, and the random (and I mean random) posts authored by the “NewsOne Staff” (whoever that is), NewsOne’s articles are mostly a collection of selected pages written by mostly non-black people about black issues. I don’t mean to pick on NewsOne, we all know that they’re far from the only offender, but I do think NewOne’s website makes for a great conversation about why some black media outlets are losing their luster and black blogs are now picking up steam. (more…)

Every week I get a little box flashing on my screen notifying me that I have an IM that says “Hey, what r u dng?” from my much younger sister .  She belongs to a new generation that, instead of passing notes around class when they decide to not listen to the teacher, is using her smart device to text, IM and browse the internet.  It’s hard to fathom, but there is now a generation of young adults who don’t remember when all computers had  for fun was paint and minesweeper, a time when any information you needed was in your pocket.  As a result of this constant download of information to their sponge like developing brains, they are quite susceptible to “internet hype”.  They have taken viral marketing online to a level I could never imagine.  The other day  “Hey, what r u dng” IMed me from class asking me to pay for her to join a service at $15 a week to get as many friends as possible on MySpace.  I kindly told her “no”.

There’s a whole other aspect though.  This generation of constant co-signers is now old enough to vote (and how cool is it that in their first election there is a viable candidate who looks like them?), they’re going away to school, and looking for employment and most importantly buying things on their own.  You’ve got two seconds to connect.  Everything is available online and/or is mobile and they can access it right NOW. (more…)

Last week Radio One and Yankelovick (a consumer market research agency) released the “largest national survey of African-Americans” and website that hosts the findings on BlackAmericaStudy.com.  It is definitely interesting and gives great insight into Blacks and our relationship with New Media.  The study surveyed about 3,400 Blacks and also states what many of you probably already believed…the digital divide is fading.  Additionally, the study found that about 68% of Blacks are online and fall into 11 segments:

Black is Better
Black Onliners
Boomer Blacks
Connected Black Teens
Digital Networkers
Faith Fulfills
Family Struggles
New Middle Class
Sick and Stressed
Stretched Black Straddlers

Below is a nice concise overview of all of the segments: (more…)