Troy

OK @Del, I'm sure you've heard about the massive storm here in the United States that pummeled Houston with the greatest rainfall they have seen in recorded history. Do you believe the scientists who tell us that this very bad storm was made worse because of manmade climate change? You don't have to elaborate, unless you want to, a "yes" or "no" response will suffice. Thanks.

Hey @TSegal, is http://www.afromerica.com/ your site? I remember that site from back in the day! It looks interesting now. Where have all been? Is my missing y'all just a function of Google raising the profile of celebrity dysfunction over substance in search and the complete abdication of Black media to talk about positive websites? Or have y'all been keeping a low profile?

Mel i took Del's comment more generally. Sure I think many of these conversations are successful in the sense that I come away with new perspectives and insight. But as far as myself personally I still have some work to do; true be told, I'll probably never be satisfied with myself

Del I'm pulling back on the word "successful." Now I know success is purely subjective and relative. I just don't consider myself completely there yet, at least as far a AALBC.com is concerned. From a technical perspective the site is better than any site in it's niche that I've ever seen. I think that is an objectively true statement. But it is a struggle from a business perspective.

@Mel Hopkins, I'm going to have a conversation with someone this morning about the very point you mentioned in the very large font. I'll keep the "eye glazing over" in mind and let you know how it goes. But in the meantime, I will share this anecdote. There was another book site, now defunct, that I worked with closely. I had 3 orders of magnitude more traffic--it wasn't even in the same ball park in terms of traffic (side bar: At one point Alexa ranked that site ahead on mine, which is one reason I've moved on from them as a tool). Despite the substantial difference in traffic the other site was able to sell just as much advertising as I could--for years. Their site, at least the homepage, was more visually appealing than mine--which I suspect was the reason. The person that ran the site understood completely your point about data. We spoke about this subject frequently. I would point out information that would benefit their site and they simply did not care. People are much more likely to make their decisions emotionally, not based upon data, or fact and figures. The most successful salespeople know this. Indeed they take advantage of people using this flaw in our decision making process. NY Publishing and individual advertisers are simply were not sophisticated enough to look at stats. I offer the ability for advertisers to login to my site to monitor their campaigns and no one does it--no one! Google provides a remarkable service called tag manager, and I don't know anyone in my niche that even uses it. So trust me I KNOW the average person, in fact MOST people do get this. But I do, and this is why I know I can attract more people to my site posting on wikipedia than I can with a Facebook advertisement. This is also how I know I can benefit my site more through search engine optimization than through social media marketing. This is how I know ads on my site out perform ads on social media--bank for buck. Again I know the way I came to this knowledge is not the way I can bring other people to understand it. This is also why Google, can algorithmically sell advertising on my site and get more money that I can. This is why I can benefit from a sales person, translating this into a language which resonates with the typical person is not in my strong point, but I'm working at it. I also need to free up more time to do it SEMRush and Google analytics are not easy tools for the average person to use. Google tag manager is not intuitive at all. I had to watch 3rd party video to understand how to even implement it. Again, I know few indie sites will use it--despite the tremendous benefits. So no, SEMrush does not make it easy. @Pioneer1, so you think Jared or Melania are qualified? @Delano, most of what you wrote is true, but running this site without a full time wage has been a struggle. If I were not work for the first half of this site's life it would not be around today.

Hmmmm.... I missed (or forgot) about that bit about "2 Black Races" from our previous conversation. The is a confounding and befuddling statement. It is not supported by science and is actually something I never hear, even in colloquial use (until now). So there are 2 Black races which are distinguished by the straightness of their hair...wow. Why not three or four black races, We can put the light skinned one in one bucket, the straight haired ones in another, the thin lipped narrow nose ones in another, the flat butt ones in one, and the light eyes one in yet another bucket. Of course there will be some overlap; since some Black people have thin lips, narrow noses, light eyes, straight hair, flat butts, light skin, humm maybe they are yet another race of Black people... or maybe they are just white? I wish we could dispense with the word "race," or at least our current concept its meaning, as it makes no freaking sense and only serves as a tool used by the rich and powerful to divide the rest of us against each other.

What better segue is there to: New Hair-do is a “Natural” by Connie Bradley (circa the 70s)

Yeah all of the links to "the study" were broken. Whenever I see a article referenced in a blog, or a site like Essence I usually skip the article (they are usually very thin anyway) and I go straight to the study. I usually find people draw conclusions that were not stated in the study.

@Mel Hopkins, sites in the top 500 with tons of traffic Alexa is probably as good as any of them, but for less popular websites, like mine and many of the others I'm interested in tracking SEMRush is far superior, besides the sites I'm most interested in are not traffic by Nielsen and ConScore. Check it out if you have not already done so. Yeah I know a lot of people use Alexa, but as you probably know by now I don't do a lot of things that other people do ;-) Alexa used to collect a lot of their data from people who used their tool bar, which was a browser extension. It would collect the data of browsing data of the people who used the extension to compile their website ranking. In an ideal scenario this skewed to people who used the browser extension which biased the data (i.e. Black women, my demographic, don't usually install extensions to their browsers). Of course, because of Alexa's popularity, many people began gaming their Alexa ranking, in much the way people buy followers or likes on social media, which further corrupted their ranking. I don't know what Amazon has done to address these issues, but since SEMRush provides far richer information I don't really care. Semrush collect large volumes of query results from google searches, which make their information quite good. Still if your site in not ranking on search results SEMRush won't have very good data. If you are a site that gets most of their traffic from social media, SEMRush may not have much on your site (at least as far as I understand it), but if you are getting most of you site from organic reach on social I think you site's traffic is at a far greater risk than a site dependent upon organic search.

This actually sounds like an interesting read @MAFOOMBAY. Was the author able to find any photos of the Frederick? I noticed you did not hyperlink to the review on your website, please feel free to do so. I noticed in your book review you did not mention the author's name or link to a bookseller to buy The Back Russian. Even if you were not interested in the commissions you can earn selling the book, it would just make it convenient for your readers if they are interested in buying the book. Thanks for sharing your review here!

The NY Times reported today in reaction to the above statement, "Google Critic [quoted above] Ousted From Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant" @Mel Hopkins, I tough you might appreciate this article because it addresses my concern about America's ability to reign in these emerging monopolies. As discussed in your post about the EU's fining of Google. Meanwhile Google's dominance continues to grow. This affects ALL Black owned businesses doing anything online. These monopolies cripple existing companies, large and small, and prevent new business from starting. This is effecting more Black jobs than I can even quantify. But we are willing to invest all our time and energy into trying to get one wealth ex-football player a job, while countless jobs are being lost or failing to be created in the internet economy. While I, as a bookseller, can see this and have been railing about it for years, we really need Black media to pick up the ball and help people understand why this stuff 'matter to them... oh I forgot monopolies have all but obliterated Black media, and replaced it with social media driven news about one man who can get hired by the NFL. Even if we "win" that battle for Colin's job we lose the freaking war, a war we don't even know that has been waged against us...

Pioneer, come on Brother, how many Black women do you see dyeing their hair blonde and bleaching the skin so that they can look like a phenotypical white woman (other than Michael Jackson ). Women of all so called races change their hair from it's natural state for a myriad of reasons. I think you may be overstating the self-hate cause particularly in the case of Black women. When I was in Kenya I visited a Maasai community the women shaved their heads and the male warriors did all kinds of ornate things to their hair. I think those people loved themselves and their culture despite changing their hair from it's natural state. Rachel Dozal is a completely different matter, but you know you would have accepted as a Black Light skinned Black woman (of the high yella, red-bone variety) just like everyone else. Some Black women have naturally straight hair (you know that "good hair"). I bet you'd assume they are trying to be a reverse Rachel Dozal huh? It is interesting to ponder if Colin K came from a poor, background and was darked skinned would the reaction to that Brother have been the same? We can't know, but it is interesting to ponder. Somehow I think that brother's shenanigans would have been nipped in the bud.

@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.