Google’s CFO recently said the company now thinks mobile first when developing products. They see where the future is going & want to be there when it arrives. This isn’t something they needed one of their genius engineers to figure out, just a little vision.

As always, I look at trends like this and ask what about the Black space? Why aren’t Black media companies all over the mobile trend? The Black audience is, according to the latest Pew study. Yet not one media company that is dedicated to producing Black content or coverage of Black issues has a mobile application (as of this writing I haven’t thoroughly gone through Android & Nokia stores, so it may be possible).

I’ve seen apps from deejays & independents like WeHarlem, but what about the majors?

5:55 pm  •  25 March 2010

Many people are saying that hyper local is the next phase of online journalism. Legendary rags like The New York Times have already begun to invest in it, as well as tech/content companies like Aol with the recently acquired Patch.com.  Like most things online today, “Hyper local” isn’t really a brand new concept, rather a digital rebirth of the smaller papers that thrived before cities were defined by anything that put Globe, Times or Chronicle behind the city’s name.

But even in the old days, many Black communities felt their views weren’t being represented properly, if at all, and took it upon themselves to create titles like the Amsterdam News, Bay State Banner or the Chicago Defender, to name a few. And well, like most newspapers today, these titles are all feeling the print pinch. The game has changed, their audiences have moved on to the web and the advertising dollars have followed.  The remaining customers are either just in love with that feeling of reading a physical paper, or not tech savvy enough to get that news from a digital source (or to a much lesser extent, unable to afford a CPU or smart phone).  The latter is the real issue, as the tech savvy in these communities are the fastest growing segment, a new generation that’s not as much defined by old notions of what it means to be a Black in America as they are by the realities of their local environments.

But let’s face it, Black media hasn’t been the quickest to catch on to the opportunities created by the Internet. The oldest Black brands have barely made a move online, if at all. So it’s not likely that many will seize the opportunities presented by hyper local.  It’s also unlikely that many of the Black communities they serve will have much of a presence in the new digital representation of their ‘hood. Many of these places stand to be digital gentrified, completely recast to a worldwide audience through the eyes of transplanted hipsters and the like (no shots at my hipster brethren), if not totally forgotten. 

It may sound like another Black paranoid rant, but it is worth asking how areas are chosen for hyper-local focus (I’m sure HHI is an influencing factor). For instance, Patch.com’s Massachusetts segment will start with Needham (94% white) and Wellesley (84% white).  It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes my hometown of Mattapan (81% Black) to be added to their lineup. The site’s New York segment covers Bedford-Katonah (87%-93% white), Bellmore (95% white), Chappaqua-Mount Kisco (91%-77% white), Garden City (94% white), Glen Cove (60% white), Harrison (89% white), Huntington (89% white), Larchmont-Mamaroneck (92%-88% white), Merrick (95%), Port Washington (85% white), Rye (71% white), Scarsdale (84% white), Syosset (85% white), and Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow (77%-67% white).  Sachem and New York City are coming soon, but what about Brooklyn, Queens or Harlem? Hard to believe that any hyper local initiative that focused on NY could start without the historic borough of Brooklyn. But then again, it is 45% Black.  Queens is over 45% Latin. And while Harlem will be included in Manhattan, as the largest African American community of any city in the US it’s definitely worthy of its own hyper local presence. 

None of this is a swipe at Patch.com’s hyper local commitment. If you go through the site you’ll see a fair share of Black editors, despite the local percentage of Black residents in the areas they’ve chosen to cover.  This is my opinion of how Black media’s missing the mark and not exploiting an opportunity to grow their businesses and value to the communities they serve in ways that were impossible before the Internet.  The worst that could happen is that people complain and accuse Patch.com or The Times of being racist and not covering Black communities.  The best that could happen would be to channel that energy into working with the existing local papers and help bring them up to speed on the digital front so they can continue to serve these communities as they have for decades.

3:21 pm  •  15 March 2010

Today I started using Google Buzz. It’s not that bad at all, but there was a reason that I never used Gchat that much to begin with: not enough of my friends are on Gchat, or even have Gmail accounts to begin with. That doesn’t mean they’re losers for not being among Gmail’s 176 million, but more like they’re getting all they need from services like AIM, or just don’t find the need for much online chatter.

I seldom find reasons to use AIM like I used to. Years ago it was just as important as your email address, included on cards and in every info exchange. But when I look at it today, the AIM list is an abyss equal to a search box. If I don’t know your AIM name, how do I find you? Sure, it may scrape your email box upon signup, but if we’ve never exchanged an email or you’ve given the service a different email address from the one you and I correspond on, what’s it gonna find? Really, AIM should be indexed in Google like Facebook and Twitter names, but that’s probably not possible. How many people use their real names on AIM? AIM also lacks, to my knowledge, the dual layers that a Twitter has to allow people a front facing name along with a government name (the one that comes up in parens in searches) that’s linked to the account. I guess this is because AIM is such a first generation communication tool, from an era when our paranoia about the net had everyone using aliases (that and the fact that most were using the names to talk dirty in chat rooms, and scour porn sites on the late night).

But today, everyone is online, and they’re not trying to hide who they are. So if you know their name, you can google and find them - and not their name plus 007, date of birth or whatever else they had to do because someone else got it first — on a network that you’ve likely got an account on.  So how much does it really mean that AIM’s open to your FB contacts? A lot, I guess, if you still use AIM as your primary way to chat.  But with FBs numbers, I think more people have been introduced to that action of chatting through FB chat than AIM at this point. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always got my FB chat off. I’m old school and on there to browse, not chat, but I get many more pings from young family members and friends who I’ve recently begin to work with there than AIM. At the end of the day, Aol Instant Messenger was an extension of Aol email/paid accounts. And once those lost relevance, so did the service.

Hard to imagine that there was a point where Google and everyone else looking to get in the game was making cases for Aol to open AIM up and let THEM in. Imagine if there’d been an AIM connect before FB started steam rolling? Kind of makes them look like a radio station that just switched their format to allow hip hop music in 2010.

So does that put Google in the same position with Buzz? Is there really any more room for innovation after what’s been built on the back of experiences from Friendster, Black Planet, Myspace, Facebook and Twitter?  I don’t think it puts them in the same position, and I do think theirs plenty of room left to innovate, but just not sure if they’re going to be able to do it. Part of social networking, is social appeal. The network’s almost like that party that we all want the invite for. A place we’re proud to be. Google has never really shown an interest in going in that direction. They’ve always chosen the higher ground (gotta be something evil about being cool) and focused on the functionality. True, the mishmash of info coming in via social networks has become, as Google’s Todd Jackson says, “a Google-scale problem,” but do people see it that way? Not at all.

Will the 400+ millions of Facebook users realize that Buzz is giving them not only everything that Facebook & Twitter do, but also Foursquare and Gowalla in one application? Not at all, but it’s hardly about that to the consumer. It’s not about what any of those companies want the technology to be used for, but what you’re able to do with the technology they’ve created.

Google’s social networking endeavors are outrageously far ahead of the game. But then again, what do you expect when you focus on hiring people who’ve tested as geniuses. There’s a reason why folks have issues with standardized tests, and reasons why geeks are social pariahs.  Tests measure intelligence in a very myopic way, and geeks aren’t that social. What should happen likely won’t, in the social equation. Like good girls having the hots for bad boys. These things don’t make sense. But when we all catch up, Buzz will make a lot of sense. It will realize the value in your social circle, instead of stroking your ego with friend counts.

It won’t be sexy at all, but neither is the phone company — and that’s how central Google is becoming with Buzz. Rolling out mobile devices and residential broadband at levels that competing businesses built on archaic business models can’t dare, but creating some of the last opportunities for them to fill their coffers via search agreements (akin to getting to the first high they’ll never find again), etc. Google will set the bar so high that anyone who gets over it will be incredible. Nothing evil about that!

(if any of these numbers are off, it’s because I didn’t do any research beyond reading articles online. Sorry, but these are just public thoughts)

12:42 am  •  11 February 2010