Troy

@NubianFellow, funny you should mention a Black Search engine. I forgot to mention that I ran one for several years called Huria Search. I had to discontinue it for a lack of use. But I felt one was needed because there was quality content out there was just was not ranking high enough to be discovered in search. Actually Huria Search took advantage of a fee based service offered by Google, which allowed me to restrict search result to a curated list of a few hundred websites. If you run a Huria Search and run the same search on Google the results will be dramatically different and I'd argue better. The fee based service allowed me to strip out all advertising. I didn't even include my own site in the search results because i wanted others to use it and I did not want to risk it being considered a promotional tool for AALBC.com, my only goal was to uplift indie black websites. What is left of huria was moved from it's own domain to here: https://aalbc.com/huria/ I still use it periodically when I want to really see what my people are writing about a particular topic. I no longer use the fee based service, so ads are present now and I no longer curate the sites included in the search results. And the stupid Essence article speaks for itself. Besides the abstract of the actual study did not suggest that the study concluded that "Black people who are nixed look better" that is something Essence made up to attract visitors. @Pioneer1, sure people should hire qualified employees. But we could stand from a little bit nepotism our selves. White folks do it. I've seen it all my life. Look at 45.

Sounds deep Brother!

Spike Lee teaches (or used to) at NYU, but not a lot of Black people can go to that school. I finally saw Detroit on Sunday. The film was fine. I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars. I thought the scene in the Algiers dragged on way too long, and that trail was not given enough attention. But it was a decent film definitely not a great one, and I'd be surprised if it is nominated for any oscars, but it is Bigelow, so you never know. The acting was solid; actually I can see that main white racist character getting an academy award nomination, but it is the era of 45 so I doubt that'll happen. The dramatics angle was very interesting. Though someone commented on the review's page page that the Dramatics recorded for Stax not Motown, as the film apparently indicated (I did not recall that).

Yes I FBA has been around for at least a decade. Some vendors complain about the payment terms and that it decreases profits from each sale. Amazon has become so dominant that increasingly vendors feel they have to give Amazon their cut just to be able the sell products online. Amazon has already taken control of Black books. I can't cite a stat back by data, but I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of Black books that are sold online are sold through Amazon Whether it is FBA, Marketplace, createspace, kindle, whatever...

LOL Definitely what are you waiting for Mel please share! I've met plenty of women who own their run their websites, but I have not personally encountered any that speak the way Nubian Fellow or Chris Hayden does about them. Nor have I ever been able to connect with any on any level over a sustained period of time. But my niche is books, and I'm completely aware that I'm far more technically oriented than others in my niche. They have the content (books) covered but the website management does not interest them. How are you getting the ranking for the website. If you are using Alexa (because you said worldwide and US) I don't cite them any more because their data is not very good I actually expected it to improve after Amazon took over, but it seems to have gotten worse. I'm using a site called https://www.semrush.com/ nowadays their data is qute useful and foots to the data I have much more closely unlike Alexa.

Even better you know i'd rather go to her website I only saw on "verified purchase" review and it was very negative. The woman would have returned the product, but she was afraid she would not have been able to get a replacement as it is a limited addition product... She imposed a take it or leave it condition on herself! All indications are that Amazon sold the product directly. I doubt the other reviewers actually purchased the book.. When I first posted the book I was gonna link to Beyonce's site, but when I saw it on Amazon, linked to them instead for potential commissions I could earn. Bey's site did not offer commissions for referrals.

Mel would you share the link to the Facebook post (assuming it is public). I feel you on the clutter thing... but that is the life of a bookseller or avid reader... books just accumulate. I would like to actually see the product thought. May youngest is a fan, but she was not aware of the book until I shared this link with her, and she is tied into social media, so I guess this product is really just for her most dedicated fans, who they can probably reach directly. Since they have a direct line to their customers, I wonder why they made the product available to Amazon, who aren't even bothering to discount it.

Man the line, about the white owned black planet posting an article that companies that are not Black owned and without mentioning themselves is deep! Sometime ago I compiled a list of the most popular Black websites, many of these are white owned I'm in process of updating this information. I asked the question about the most important media outlet that we own today, because I was thinking maybe we could figure out a way to rally support for the platform--particularly if they have already demonstrated the ability do do something substantive in this harsh environment or clearly have potential but just needs more support... I dunno just a thought. @NubianFellow are you aware of any other websites owners that have your sensibility, particularly as it related to technology? I don't know many, but the is a Brother @CDBurns, who posts here from time to time. There is another Brother Derrick Young over at https://www.mahoganybooks.com/ who tried a few different things with and Ron Kavanaugh at https://mosaicmagazine.org/ Interestingly I never encountered any sisters on the tech side. Most technically oriented sisters I've encountered are completely dedicated to amping up their social media presence.

@NubianFellow thank you. Pplease share information about AALBC.com in any way that makes sense to you--I'm all for that. Any other readers out there you don't need permission to share information about AALBC.com anywhere--please share! Nubianfellow, I post a links on Facebook myself, almost every day. I will also respond to or acknowledge people who have commented to something I've posted. I'm just not going to post articles or anything that is more involved than what is needed to describe the link. I also do not think we should, or even can, use Facebook, Twitter or any corporate owned social media platform to uplift and empower Black people; their business models runs counter to those activities. Besides that fact they exert complete control, and that we do not, is sufficient reason by itself. NF, you also mentioned controlling out media, man we need to establish our own media. That said, what would you say is the most important media outlet that we own today?

Now I'm all for boycotts, but boycotting the NFL to get one player a job, that does not make sense to me. If a team wanted to take on the distraction that is Colin Kaepernick they would have done so already. Plus I don't think any team should be forced to hire any given player. That is a nonsensical demand. Teams are trying to win. A distraction like Colin is probably perceived as decreasing the odds of winning. Nowt if he was a great quarterback, teams may be willing to take a chance and make the tradeoff. I doubt many fans will support it, folks are too tied up in fantasy leagues and gambling to make the sacrifice--even if they believed in the goal.

@NubianFellow, to be clear I did not mean that giving 10% to the community would be trivial in terms of it's impact to the I meant it would be trivial in the ease of doing it. The more money I make, for example, the more Black writers I can pay. Most of my revenue goes back into the community. You know I just shared information about Beyonce's new book. There are many issues with the product one of them, that I just considered, is that other than Beyonce herself, it is not clear to me how many Black people in the Black book ecosystem will benefit, financially, from the product....

I read about this book in the Tampa Bay Times on Friday. I had not previously heard about the book, How to Make Lemonade. I know, I know, I I'm out the loop because I don't consumer social media. Still I was surprised I had not heard about this before reading about it in the newspaper. You'd think Black book sellers would be the first to know about these books, but sadly I learn about they along with everyone else... The book retails for $300. That is, objectively, a lot of money. I wish I knew how many were produced and how many will sell. The economics of this just bewilder me. Know I've seem some BAB in my day. I remember how happy I was to get a copy of Africana but that was 2,100 pages but that book cost 60 bucks. Yeah, I know this comes boxed set comes with a double LP (are there that many people with using record players?) and some digital content, but the production cost don't come anywhere near the price being shared. I mean the mark up is not as bad as a pair of Jordans or an NFL Jersey, but still. In a world where folks balk at a $30 book a $300 book just seems wild Now I know I'm not the demographic, I don't by her music, I dislike overpriced branded merchandize, and I simply can't afford the book. So maybe that is why I was not send one. But if they anticipate get $30 a pop I would not send any freebies to any book sellers either. Well I shared information about the book on social and added it to Bey's page here for archival purposes but I'd be surprised it I sell any. Has anyone heard about this book? If so, how did you learn about it?

Well I can tell you it is encouraging to discover other Brothers with informed opinions on this subject. OK I have had ten of thousands of people on this site over a period of days--I thought you meant at the same instant. During those periods all of that traffic did come primarily from social media. But these surges are fleeting, impossible to control, and in my case still make up a small percentage of my overall traffic Facebook does drive more traffic to this site than all other social media combined. I have had a couple posts go viral on Twitter; once my kid, who works in marketing, texted me that she saw one of my posts trending on Twitter. The problem was that this viral activity remained on Twitter, a very small fraction of that Twitter activity resulted in traffic back to the site. The same post on Facebook, with much less engagement, resulted in a far higher number of visitors to the website. Twitter users are simply less likely to leave Twitter to visit this website--probably for the same reason people read 45's tweets rather than reading a newsletter article describing and assessing the impact of his actual behavior and policy. Below is a graph I created a few years ago breaking down the nature of my traffic, the only change is that Facebook has become more dominant relative to the other social media sites. But Facebook is a big portion of a small slice of the pie that makes up this site's traffic: You may also find the article I wrote, "The Results of a Decade on Social Media" interesting.

@NubianFellow, thanks again for adding your voice to the mix. I agree 100% with your last post, But if a Black owned business is in the community then putting 10 to 20% back into the community would be trivial. The real problem in doing this is that there are not enough Black owned business to patronize. The other problem is getting people to patronize Black businesses. I currently sell books any way they can be sold; I can sell them directly, direct readers to an author's site, publisher's site, and any large retailer including B&N and Amazon. I'll give you one guess where 99.9% of the people choose to buy their books. @Pioneer1, agreed not everyone is cut out to start and run a business, but Black owned business get FAR more grief and other business for poor service, when I'd argue that we chose get a bit more leeway other Black people. I'm not saying we should tolerate bad service from a Black owned business, but I think we are held to a higher standard than even corporate businesses who benefit investor funding while we have to rely solely on revenue.

Well there it is, the "multi billion dollar weave industry." As long as there is a financial incentive for getting women to change the state of the natural hair, there will be market pressures to get them to do it. Obviously those of us that change their hair from it's natural state will find ways to justify doing it. I'm not convinced this is as much of an issue of Black self hate, as much as it is one of marketing. People can easily justify spending spending money to watch men engage in human cock fighting. Justifying buying a straight-haired-blonde weave is does not seem to be such a heavy lift in comparison. Black women are not the only ones buying straight blonde hair, white women do it too. White women go to the beauty salon get the texture of the hair changed, get the color of their hair changed, but don't have to contend with the same level of grief our Sisters have to. But white women don't have to contend with a lot of things Black women have to... Clever marketers have exploited a weakness in our psyches and created an environment such that many women feel they can be made more attractive by changing the natural state of their hair. This is not a function of "race," it is a function of commerce. Of course the Brothers buy into this and go after the sisters with the long straight hair and white boys flock to the girlies with the long blonde hair. Very few of us, raised in this culture, are immune to this. I like to think that I am, but I know I'm not, not really. That said, I think many Black women spend an inordinate amount of time and money on their hair. I know sisters that spend hundreds of dollars each month doing something to their hair that has nothing to do with the health or well being of their hair. In fact what they are doing may actually be detrimental to their hair in the long term. But it is a waste of time trying to convince a woman that going to the "beauty" parlor for 2 or 3 hours a week is unnecessary, because you are competing against the full weight of brilliant corporate marketers who have convinced women otherwise. Of course there is no shortage of products targeted to make men feel inadequate if they don't have a head full thick hair. I'm glad I'm not one their marks. The stigma of Black men being bald has largely waned. I buy about 50 bucks worth a razor blades a year and shave my head once or twice a week, which takes about 10 minutes. The results present well, are easy on the pocket, and take very little time. Too bad more Black women don't feel they have that luxury.

We should probably compare notes at some point. I've already did the" actively engage on Facebook" thing. What I learned was that the time and energy I devoted to Facebook paid better dividends when directed to my website. Of course the other reasons you mentioned like, "handing over our power to white supremacy," should not be glossed over. This is reason enough alone to leave Facebook alone. No, I'll do without the traffic. How do you monetize your website? I use Google ads they perform fairly well for me, providing a consistent revenue stream for my unsold inventory. I do have three ads the are fixed a text ad that I just introduced last week. It is ugly, but it paid off immediately. I also run a rectangle ad in a fixed position above the fold and a large vertical banner I used many other ad networks some of whom performed fairly well. None of them performed as well as Google has over the long term. But here is the kicker, most of my revenue from Google comes from that rectangle banner above the fold. Do you know I can not directly sell that same space for what Google pays me!! I know maybe I need an effective sales person, because clearly the spot are more valuable that what Google is paying me--because they are making money off the spots, but again If I trying charge a fraction of what Google pays for that spot per month, say $500, no one would pay if, so Google gets it and they are obviously charging more. Funny you should mention "Black Twitter" when I first heard about it is was presented as such a powerful force. I asked myself how could I not be aware of this site. I went around looking for a damn, Black Twitter website, only to learn it was just use using Twitter... I was very disappointed because of how we'd embrace Black Twitter as if it was our own. Black Twitter id just Black folks using "white Twitter." Now I know a few Sista's have garner a great deal of success on Black Twitter, but so what. That pales in comparison with the number people that would benefit if there were actually a Black owned BlackTwitter.com. Your site differently gets a lot more traffic than this one. Are nubianplanet and blackhostingsolutions both your sites? I have never had tens of thousands of people on my site at one time. With that much traffic I'm surprised you are not making a mint with Google ads.

unrelated side bar: @NubianFellow I like the way you link to related content on your website. This is how the web is "supposed" to work. People come here discover your site, go there and discover another site. and so on. Image if more of us did this.... Instead we are rapidly approaching a point where the Facebook is becoming the WWW.

@NubianFellow, I agree with your assessment almost completely. The most powerful point you made is that; "we are using the internet in the wrong way." I can go on for hours about how we are using the Internet in the wrong way and why Black oriented websites owned by Black people choke on the dust of the white owned Black oriented sites. It is frustrating to constantly read how Black people over index on our use of Twitter and other social media, without sharing in all the revenue that is generated as a result of our activity. The fact that these corporations hire so few Black people is not a revelation to anyone either. Where are opinions diverge is on the 'benefits" of Facebook. Here too is a subject I can go on and on about, but at the end of the day people love Facebook. I do what I can to use Facebook to my benefit, but I refuse to publish content on the platform or actively engage there, as this activity cannibalizes Black websites' ability to generate revenue. Since so few of us make any real attempt to earn a living from websites, I completely understand why most people don't get it or care. Trying to appeal to Black people based upon what has been lost as far as Black content on the web, or how existing websites (like AALBC.com) are weakened, and the great Black websites that will never launch, because of our slavish devotion to sites like Facebook, fail to resonate with folks, because again we love Facebook so much. Facebook has done a brilliant job addicting and manipulating us to use their platform. Facebook pages out rank many authors own website's in Google searches--deservedly so, because authors spend more time and energy publishing information on Facebook than they do their own websites. Of course they'll argue that no one will visit their website and they are so happy to have Facebook to help them connect with others But these are people, who never knew a world, before Facebook. They also don't know that Facebook is FAR more aggressive than Google has ever been at controlling which posts are seen as to maximize the time people spend on Facebook. At least Google says if you create a great website we'll send people to it. If you want to get people to your website using Facebook you better be ready to send some money. At some point we have to invest in our own if we are going to have anything of value...

@Del, the fake woman in the video is the draw. At least it is what kept my attention for a couple of minutes. I never did go back and watch the full video. My feelings the video mirror @NubianFellow's for the most part, but I probably don't feel as strongly about it as he does. Basically if women themselves don't agree with that assessment, it will be a very difficult battle to wage, as evidenced with the Viola debate. Even if your intent is to protect Black women, you get accused of "mansplaining," overstepping your bounds, or something else just as counterproductive. Now I think the MInaj video is far worse for Black women than the Viola Davis photo, but again that is just me. While I view the video as the very definition of the objectification of women, some women view it as a demonstration of exerting their power and no man is qualified to even speak on the matter... and so it goes.

...at least for now. The graph below shows AALBC.com's bounce rate (the percentage of people who come to the website and only view one page) versus page views (the number of pages viewed by the site's visitors. A site's bounce rate (shown in dark blue and shaded) is a good indicator of how engaged a site's visitors are with the ste. The lower the percentage the better. Page views (shown in light blue) is also also a great indicator of how engaged visitors are with a website. Obviously, the more pages a visitor views the more engaged they are; the higher the number the better. There are other important indicators like how frequently a visitor comes back to a site and how long they stay when they visit. There have been three dramatic and significant swings in AALBC.com's bounce rate this year; early April, mid May, and late June. Whenever you see a dramatic and abrupt change in a major data point like bounce rate, that is usually an indication of a Google algorithm change (the formula Google uses to rank sites in search engine results). Now Google does not announce when they are making algorithm changes and what the changes will be, but any webmaster worth their salt will notice. The mid May change (about May 17th, indicated by the red B) was picked up by other webmasters, as I've seen conversations on various message boards. AALBC.com's site was adversely impacted by this change. There is usually a direct correlation between a site's bounce rate and the number of page views (assuming there isn't also a substantial change n the number of visitors). In other words, as the bounce rate goes up the pages views go down. In AALBC.com's case, from about May 17 until June 21, there was a significant drop in the number of pages views on our site. Now of course everything is relative, because the site's pages views for June 2017 is the higher than it has ever been for the same period in any previous year. Still it was cause for concern. Google's axe cuts both ways. As you can see at point A the opposite happened, Google flipped their algorithm switch and AALBC saw an increase in traffic, similarly, around June 21st point C, Google completely reversed the change it made a month earlier, and AALBC.com has enjoyed the lowest bounce rates it has every seen--single digit bounce rates! Now it has been two full months since Google has impacted AALBC.com with a major algorithm change, and the the last change was more than corrected for the adverse change in May. Now all I've done so far is describe what happened. An obvious question is; what can I do about it? The only answer, while Google dominates search, is to adhere to Google's rules for search engine optimization. The top rule is to create a site that visitors will find valuable. All you can really do after that is cross your fingers and hope for the best. Seriously, I've spent the better part of the last two years greatly improving the website, not just for visitors, but to also satisfy, Google's fickle search engine algorithm. I've also tried to help people understand that if they do find the site valuable they must actively support it. One way to do this is by sharing any content they find valuable with others. I also recently created a bestselling book seal to help authors, more easily share their bestseller status while and the same time supporting the website. The fact is, AALBC.com survives at the whim of Google's search engine, and this is not a good position to be in, which is why I'm appealing directly to people. Today Google is doing a better job with search. They are sending more people to AALBC.com that are finding our content valuable, as evidenced by record low bounce rates over a sustained period of time. This is how a great search engine works. But Google is not perfect; they frequently make changes and later reverse those changes materially hurting business in the interim. Google is still front running search results to book sites with their own products. October 2017 will mark 20 years since I started creating AALBC.com. This was even before Google's search engine launched. Let hope 20 years from now, there are still indie websites able to reach an audience.

I really wish I could make it. The fair bills itself as the "largest independent book festival in the country." It would be a really good opportunity to meet you and others. I've been to ATL twice this summer, but if I had the money I would make it three times. Please share photos or video. I'll add it to your AALBC.com newly created profile page: https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=B.L.+Brown

A film can be "dark" and "pessimistic" and still be great. The reviews on Rotten Tomatoes work quite good https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/detroit_2017 Jam said the film was very good in his review linked at the top of this thread. Dr Jazzy's opinion appears to be an outlier which is why I asked for elaboration.

Interesting. I'm hearing rumblings of actual boycotts of the NFL which I like, but not to get Kaepernick on a team; that is short sighted. Here may be an opportunity to make more fundamental changes to the game which will benefit not just one player but all players and fans alike. Then again with all the press about traumatic brain injury so many player suffer from it seems like the long term prospect for the NFL are constrained. I guess they can do like cigarette manufacturers and market the sport abroad.

@Mel Hopkins I did not need to probe, because as I wrote, "I got it." Maybe because I've known her all my life, maybe because we share genetic code. Maybe we are just two black people of the same culture. In any event, it is not a cop out; indeed we were connecting. The specifics of how she happen to come to the sentiment are incidental to understanding it understanding it. Now it is possible I got it completely wrong, but I doubt it. Don't you find that you can communicate with some people on some subjects more easily that with others. Sometimes my wife or mother can give me a look and I know exactly what they are "saying." Of course this is much easier to do in real life that it is is on these forums. No I don't think you can change someone, but as you said you can provide a catalyst. I just don't think engaging legal battles to remove statues is the best use of our collective resources. The image Cynique shared about the statue, in my neighborhood was very powerful (isn't art great for raising consciousness). I do plan on looking up the information and now next time I walk past it with someone I'll explain what it means. Now if someone responsible for it decide to tear it down--fine. But I'd rather spend the time sharing information about what that Dr. did than using the energy to try to get it removed. Yesterday the statue mean nothing to me, which I suspect was what it mean to almost everyone else. Today the statue is a reminder how what horrifically white mean treated Black women. Perhaps it will come to mean the same thing to the white folks responsible of it being in place (you know they are white), as they too learn more about the "doctor's" evil experiments. Maybe they will decide to remove the statue on their own volition. Again I could care less one way or the other. Tearing it down will not turn a single racist.

This video, produced by The Tea, is really well done and captured the true spirit of the Black Pack Party. Please check out the video from the 2017 Black Pack Party.