VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES.African American African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. Websites are hooking people up in more ways than one OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS, THE Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time WEB HAS BECOME A powerful medium for bringing about a greater sense of community online and off. With the proliferation of such dotcoms as NetNoir, BlackVoices, and BlackPlanet, there are plenty of opportunities for African Americans to invest, shop, get jobs, network, and even find Mr. or Mrs. Right online. While African Americans still lag in terms of computer ownership, they are going online at a rate twice that of the general population. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Forrester Research Forrester Research is an independent technology and market research company that provides its clients with advice about technology's impact on business and consumers. Corporate facts
African Americans will represent 40% of the total U.S. Internet population by the end of this year, compared with 23% in 1999. According to Target Market News, a Chicago-based research firm that monitors consumer habits, African Americans spent $181 million for Internet access See how to access the Internet. in 1999, up from $89 million in 1989. It comes as no surprise, then, that there are dozens of community portals and destination sites trying to meet this growing demand and tap into a total African American population of 35 million. Community and strong online content have become central to motivating African Americans to get wired. "The African American population online is large and loyal in terms of supporting black sites," says Barry Cooper There are a number of notable people bearing the name Barry Cooper:
There's no question that the Internet has democratized information in a way that's unparalleled in human history. From investing to family planning family planning Use of measures designed to regulate the number and spacing of children within a family, largely to curb population growth and ensure each family’s access to limited resources. , you have a healthier number of Websites from which to choose. It is paramount that you harness all the information the Net has to offer from every possible avenue to improve your ability to make or save money, to advance your career, or improve your business in a meaningful way. BLACK ENTERPRISE did some soul-searching to compile a list of some of the best black-oriented (not necessarily black-owned) Websites spanning several categories. Note that this list does not include general, urban-oriented sites or those most recently featured in B.E., such as Afronet.com ("Net Alliance," Techwatch, July 2000) and Cushcity.com ("Are You Web Ready?" September 2000). While you may already be familiar with some of these sites, it's important that you visit them regularly. Many add new features frequently. Besides, most of them have some community elements that allow you to exchange information, provide feedback, and form relationships with others who share your interests. Whether you are Net savvy or wet behind the ears, the following sites are worth consideration as part of your African American-focused virtual destination list: Business/News/Finance Blackenterprise.com features six forums ranging in topic from news and views to technology and consumer affairs affecting the black community. The small business forum lets business owners share their hits and misses with other entrepreneurs. New and seasoned investors can learn from the experience and insights of others on topics ranging from estate planning Estate Planning The overall planning of a person's wealth, including the preparation of a will and the planning of taxes after the individual's death. Notes: Contrary to popular belief, estate planning involves much more than preparing a will, and it is not only for the to online investing. BlackEnterprise.com, the online arm of the BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine, provides a plethora of information on business, financial, social, and political issues. Its newest e-commerce addition, BEShopNet mall, lets small business owners create virtual store-fronts. Seminars and other business tools are provided in partnership with DigitalWork.com. The site features information on BE's Black Wealth Initiative, allowing users to pledge their commitment to the principles of DOFE DOFE Department of Energy (the Declaration of Financial Empowerment). Stock quotes and the status of the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq are a mouse click away. Community BlackVoices.com is the epitome of a virtual African American community. On a social note, the site houses 30,000 to 42,000 member photos, receiving 200 to 300 additional pictures each day. It operates several chat rooms focusing on diverse subjects. BlackVoices hosts at least one offline social event a month for members and visitors in and outside of the U.S. (e.g., Caribbean cruises). In addition to its extensive news and articles sections, the site has an extensive career center. There are more than 22,000 resumes posted, including listings that range from service industry jobs to high-tech. A win-win for both job seekers and employers, potential candidates can peruse pe·ruse tr.v. pe·rused, pe·rus·ing, pe·rus·es To read or examine, typically with great care. [Middle English perusen, to use up : Latin per-, per- the company profiles of potential employers while employers can search resumes and post job positions. Members may learn about happenings in cities from fellow members who live there through the site's "Chocolate Cities" section. BlackVoices' shopping center shopping center, a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marketplaces—in that the shops are usually amalgamated into offers wares ranging from black Greek merchandise to unique products provided by African American entrepreneurs from around the globe. NetNoir.com, one of the premier black-oriented sites, provides an arena for people to congregate and connect to black culture and lifestyle. The site's core visitors are between ages 25 and 45, but it has exciting and active sections catering to teens as well as to women. Using new technologies, NetNoir now provides streaming audio A one-way audio transmission over a data network. It is widely used on the Web as well as company networks to play audio clips and Internet radio. Computers in home networks stream audio (mostly music) to digital media hubs connected to home theaters. and media to further enhance its appeal. Its "Features" section posts such content as poetry, where visitors can actually hear prominent spoken-word poets or peruse works by lesser known poets and hobbyists. The site's e-commerce venue, www.blackshopping.com, includes a "Bazaar" where smaller businesses can sell their wares. With over 20 chat rooms and voice chat capabilities, NetNoir.com is a social hotbed hotbed, low, glass-covered frame structure for starting tender plants. It differs from a cold frame only in that the soil is heated—either artificially as by underground electric wiring or steampipes, or naturally with partially fermented stable manure, which . The site, which averages about 600,000 unique monthly visitors, recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. A six-part party was held across the country to mark the event. Co-founder and CEO David Ellington will continue to feverishly expand the NetNoir brand. BlackPlanet.com, a community Website that premiered last fall, has become one of the stickiest black-oriented sites. It has grown from 200,000 to close to 800,000 unique visitors A count of how many different people access a Web site. For example, if a user leaves and comes back to the site five times during the measurement period, that person is counted as one unique visitor, but would count as five "user sessions. a month, each of whom spend, on average, four minutes on the site chatting, searching, and reading. The site's fast growth is due mainly to BlackPlanet's emphasis on member interaction. It offers free personal pages, e-mail, games, forums, chats, news, instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or , and Internet telephony Another term for IP telephony and VoIP. In the late 1990s, some people made a distinction between Internet Telephony and VoIP: Internet telephony referred to voice over the public Internet, while VoIP referred to voice over private IP networks. . Add to all of this gifts, special promotions, and online events. "We don't want to push information on to our members. Instead, we want to focus on audience participation," stresses Omar Wasow Omar Wasow (1971- ) is an internet analyst who appears frequently on radio and television. Wasow tutored Oprah Winfrey in her first exploration of the Net in the 12-part series Oprah Goes Online. , BlackPlanet's executive director. BlackPlanet features online channels covering a wide range of topics, including health/spirituality, money, careers, news, politics, music, technology, beauty, sex, and love. Along with tantalizing tan·ta·lize tr.v. tan·ta·lized, tan·ta·liz·ing, tan·ta·liz·es To excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. forums, members can also read book reviews and share opinions through the "Black Expressions" book club. In the works are professional development tools, and seminars. Entertainment/News Bet.com has become one of the stickiest black Websites since its February debut. It wouldn't be BET without its mind numbingly complete music section, which allows visitors to listen to hip-hop, R&B and jazz selections from African America's favorite artists on BET radio. But the site offers more than entertainment, news, and sports. It has thousands of job postings at its career center in conjunction with Monster.com. If food is your flavor, the site also posts mouth-watering mouth·wa·ter·ing or mouth-wa·ter·ing adj. Appealing to the sense of taste; appetizing: the mouthwatering aroma of a baking pie. Adj. 1. recipes with step-by-step preparation tips. Its "Money" section is full of helpful and anecdotal tips on most matters from investing to managing credit and debt. It also provides sensible advice on making large-item purchases. "The Home Center" includes a calculator to help first-time buyers determine if they qualify for a mortgage. For those with a love jones, the "Loveline" section can quell some fires with everything from relationship advice to a personals section. Add all this to sections on professionals, urban life, women, and family, you have a site with a lot to offer. UBO UBO Ultimate Baseball Online UBO Université de Bretagne Occidentale (French University Britanny) UBO Urban Box Office UBO Ultimate Beneficial Owner UBO Unidentified Bright Object (radiology) .com (Urban Box Office) was created over a year ago to target the urban mind-set, which is a multicultural global group (ages 13 to 34) that shares common interests, music, lifestyle, and culture, according to Adam Kidron Adam Kidron is a British-born ex-music producer, serial entrepreneur, and the Chief Executive Officer of Urban Box Office (UBO), a reggaeton and urban Latino record label based in New York City. , who co-founded the site along with Fran Cooper and the late George Jackson George Jackson may refer to:
Hookt.com is among a growing number of sites that recognize that the hip-hop community is large and in charge. Launched this past December, Hookt.com is one of the premier online destinations for worldwide consumers of hip-hop music, news, reviews, personalized e-mail, fashion, and culture. Hookt uses the latest technologies for Webcasting concerts, downloading music, creating video programming, and hosting chats. Interactive tools include graffiti games and the "Beat Bomb"--which lets users create their own music beats. Hookt's up-to-the-minute news service is also syndicated on other sites, including Yahoo! As of press time, only 25% of the site was officially up and running. But if Hookt lives up to its potential, members will enjoy rich content and community elements. With plans under way to provide e-commerce, product offerings win include a collection of CDs, DVDs, vinyl, and video games See video game console. , and accessories for Playstation, Gameboy, Dreamcast, and the like. "The Hooktstore" currently offers the hottest in hip-hop clothing from such designer lines as Phat phat adj. phat·ter, phat·test Slang Excellent; first-rate: phat fashion; a phat rapper. [Earlier, sexy (said of a woman), Pharm and Mecca. Investing Blackstocks.com is a specialty financial site that not only offers content but a broad range of products and services that African Americans are not accustomed to finding elsewhere. Launched two years ago, Blackstocks provides information and education about saving, investing, and creating wealth. Aside from stock quotes and info on upcoming IPOs, Blackstocks hosts chat sessions on investing, sponsors an e-mail newsletter, and features online seminars and teleconferences. The site, which averages 400,000 unique visitors a month, encourages investment initiatives, including opening investment, savings, and checking accounts online. Its "Honey Report" gives the lowdown low·down n. Slang The whole truth: gave us the lowdown on what happened at the party. lowdown low (inf) n he gave me the lowdown on it → on publicly traded black companies. There are member communities of individual investors, financial advisors, students, churches, and small businesses. Blackstocks.com has formed strategic partnerships with major corporations and brokerage companies to provide online banking, financial information, products, and services. News/Culture Africana.com is a jewel of a site that every African American family can treasure. This aesthetically appealing site, co-founded by Harvard University Harvard University, mainly at Cambridge, Mass., including Harvard College, the oldest American college. Harvard College Harvard College, originally for men, was founded in 1636 with a grant from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. educator Henry Louis Gates, chronicles and provides content on the life, times, history, and future of people of African descent. "To some people we are the equivalent of a CNN International CNN International (CNNI) is an English language television network that carries news, current affairs and business programming world-wide. It is owned by Time Warner, and is affiliated and shares much content with CNN, which is limited to the United States and Canada. of the black world," says Darrol G. Roberts, Africana.com's president and CEO. Aside from its free e-mail See Internet e-mail service. and voice chat features, the site links users to about 85 different radio stations around the globe where people of African descent dwell, including Brazil, Morocco and the Dominican Republic Dominican Republic (dəmĭn`ĭkən), republic (2005 est. pop. 8,950,000), 18,700 sq mi (48,442 sq km), West Indies, on the eastern two thirds of the island of Hispaniola. The capital and largest city is Santo Domingo. . Africana.com keeps its finger on the pulse of black interests with an impressive stable of writers from around the globe, including the well-known physician Dr. Ben Carson and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. In addition to its news commentary, Africana.com features music, book, and movie reviews. BlackWorldToday.com is visually a no-frills site, but it is exploding with content relevant to those of African descent. Run by a collective of journalists, writers, communicators, entrepreneurs, and artists, the site covers disparate black-related topics from business to health to youth. Text and voice chat rooms offer platforms for visitors from around the globe to share ideas, but one of the site's unique offerings is its own branded Instant Messenger software available for a free download. Black WorldToday supplies hefty links to radio and video content around the world. Its "Special Reports" section delves into issues that the contributors feel warrant further coverage than straight news. The site's virtual mall has a wide selection of products, including kids' books, black art, DVDs, consumer electronics, and games. "The-BlackWorld Radio Network" offers a variety of music channels from hip-hop and jazz to gospel and reggae. Search Engines EverythingBlack.com helps Web surfers find content of specific interest to African Americans. While offering up a good volume of returns for many searches, one drawback is that other sites must register with it or their names will not pop up when Web-heads query the Net. This could eliminate noteworthy destinations. But EverythingBlack.com makes up for this with its "Metro" section, where visitors can view or enter details about happenings in their region, find a "Literature" area where self-published or published writers can hawk their wares, and surf through an interesting "History" section. The site also has an admirable and extensive "Music and Audio" section linking visitors to African American programming. Visiting here could also prove profitable. EverythingBlack.com intends to offer private stock to its members. EverythingBlack.com features more than links to "cool" and "new" sites. It offers free e-mail, free Websites, discussion boards, personals, and stock quotes. BlackWebPortal.com is a basic search engine that is on its way to becoming a portal for African American-related issues. The colorful pastel-colored site is pleasing to the eyes when calling up information, but input searches currently yield very little. Clicking on BlackWebPortal's categorical links, however, results in a more abundant list of avenues to pursue. One of the site's most appealing sections is its "BWP BWP In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Botswana Pula. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. Black Pages," a brick-and-mortar business search, where, for example, a request for lawyers pulled up about 200 practitioners. For the college bound it offers an extensive, yet incomplete list of black colleges with descriptions and contact information. There is some news content and a section that lists "Cool New Sites." Vying for its position as the black AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. , this site has over a dozen channels, including arts and humanities, business, computers, entertainment, health, references and history, and education. In addition, you can find e-zines, newspapers, and other media outlets catering to black news. BlackWebPortal also offers its own spin, with editorial commentary and top news of the day. |
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