Black Web 2.0

Those of us who couldn’t make it to this years Essence Festival we’re in luck!  Essence will broadcast live over the next 3 days from their Music Festival in New Orleans.  Definitely a smart and good look for Essence.  The partnership is with iClips.net and will feature behind the scenes interviews as well as live streams of performances from the festival.  The broadcast schedule is: Read the rest of this entry »

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 Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday Global Grind cleaned up its interface making the content on the site easier to navigate.  They also stepped up their widget game a bit with the release of 2 additional widgets that can be found in a users profile.  The widgets allow a user to syndicate content that they have submitted on Global Grind or content they have favorited on the site, check ours here:

Submitted-

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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. Read the rest of this entry »

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: Read the rest of this entry »

Revver just brought new talent to its site, with the Pras Michel video blog. (See the announcement here.) Of course he isn’t the first urban celebrity to vlog, it’s just that most of them do it as a channel on YouTube, like Diddy. Then most of them don’t have their own site where they cross promote the video, except for a few exceptions like Gunit with its kyte deal.

But in this case, the former Fugees platinum rapper has partnered with Revver as part of a larger initiative, in which the video service simply serves as a distribution channel for his video blog. But he has a larger business model in mind, and it looks as if the video blog is just a teaser to bring people in and create brand awareness.
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There’s been big news for Glam Media lately:

1. It acquired Monetise Ltd, an online media sales company based in the UK.
2. It formed a partnership with Brightcove to boost video content for Glam’s network.
3. Expanded to include video distribution across its network of sites, in partnership with Sony BMG, E! Online, Lifetime Networks, and TV Guide Broadband.
4. And it’s extending its reach in the UK through a slew of super smart moves.

But one of the most unreported deals to happen for Glam as of late is one with urban/hip-hop content aggregator and sharing site Global Grind. A smattering of hip-hop and urban blogs reported about the network deal, and ClickZ turned it into Glam Aims to Dominate Social Hip Hop…Maybe. I think Global Grind aims to dominate social hip hop, and Glam is the distribution channel that will help them get there. It’s even likely that Glam is a partnership of many to come for the upstart. At least that’s if the folks at GG are smart.
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The recent attacks on SOHH and AHH are D Dos and cross script attacks so some of you may want to double check to make sure your databases are updated with the latest security patch. Earlier today Miss Theda also posted exactly how the security on these sites were broken.  Be sure to check with your web hosting provider and/or system admin to ensure your servers and databases are patched.

San Francisco, Seesmic Says ‘Why Not?’ To $6M More
Just four months after closing its Series A funding, video chat company Seesmic Inc. has raised $6 million in Series B financing from E-Bay Co Founders “Omidyar Network” and Wellington Partners.
http://www.seesmic.com

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