Black owned online social media websites future, what is their future?

[richardmurray]

I still believe every single black person online should be a member of at  least one black owned website online. But what is their overall future. When you have so many black people who suggest such a grand business acumen or knowledge of playing the game, or suggest such great foresight plus intellect with their licenses and degrees from various places of education, why haven't said blacks been able to buy and produce great social media websites? 

 

[ProfD]

7 hours ago, richardmurray said:

When you have so many black people who suggest such a grand business acumen or knowledge of playing the game, or suggest such great foresight plus intellect with their licenses and degrees from various places of education, why haven't said blacks been able to buy and produce great social media websites? 

Producing a Black-owned social media website is relatively easy. Getting Black foks to use it is the bigger challenge.

[Pioneer1]

1 hour ago, ProfD said:

Producing a Black-owned social media website is relatively easy. Getting Black foks to use it is the bigger challenge.

I've said time and time again that one of the problems a lot of our people...especially a lot of women....have with this site is that there is too much personal freedom to post and say what you like with very little moderation.
Troy is very light handed when it comes to being a moderator.

Conventional wisdom would say that having the freedom to post your opinions freely is a good thing that would attract people by the thousands.
A true expression of freedom of speech and thought.

However because of the angry and vindictive nature of a lot of our people, this produces the opposite effect.

People like to be able to get you in trouble.
They like to get your posts deleted or even get you blocked/banned if you say something they don't like.
You see it all over social media where you come on a channel or show and you say something the crowd doesn't like or agree with....instead of ignoring you or tolerating you....they alert the moderators and tell them to block or ban you.
It's the culture now.
A culture of intolerance.

Those same people get mad as hell for being blocked for expressing THEIR opinion on a matter, but they'll then turn around and insist that it's fair and demand the same punishment for other of a differing opinion.
This is the very juvenile and extreme thinking of a lot of people.

So a site where they can't run and tattle tale to a mod or point the finger at somebody and make them vanish isn't very attractive to them.

Some of the things you and I have said on this site....we would have been banned our first WEEK on Lipstick Alley, lol.


Plus....let's keep it real.....

A lot of our people don't like sites where Black men are in charge.
Going back to our sistaz again.
Some of our sistaz don't like spaces where the ultimate authority is a Black man.
They'll accept it from a White man or even another Black woman, but the idea of a Black man holding power over what goes on or who goes and who stays....they don't like.

I've known some who didn't want to even WORK for a Black man.
Nearly all of them had daddy issues.
But the very idea that a Black man signed their pay check and told them what to do and could punish them, they didn't like at all.
They were so used to dissing Black men growing up and telling them to kiss their ass....for a brutha to have that type of authority didn't sit well with them.

I know what I'm saying may sound extra, but it's the real deal when it comes to why the traffic on this and other Black ran sites are often light.

[Troy]

There is a myriad of reason why Black social sites don't succeed. 

• No funding
• No media coverage
• The algorithms are against Black social sites -- other sites period
• Search marginalizes Black social sites
• In ability to garner a critical mass (people even Black people want to be where everyone else is)
• Governments allow monopolies to emerge

That said I'd argue any Black social site can be very successful - even this one if folks posed (versus lurking). 

[richardmurray]

@ProfD 

4 hours ago, ProfD said:

Producing a Black-owned social media website is relatively easy. Getting Black foks to use it is the bigger challenge.

really? 

monthly rent for hosting data, data transmisions, cost more than a dollar? if the site becomes popular you have to support that popularity with more expensive backend.

the likes of facebook and tiktok have huge silos or network systems all over the world to simulate instantaneous use, that is easy? the money to get that is easy? 

ok, i don't think it is easy at all. 

And, considering how many websites have failed

@Troy what percent of websites have succeeded that have been made since the 1990s in the internet? I say less than one hundreth of a percent.  I think that proves getting anyone to use a website is a challenge. Which makes sense to me. A website has to have a function. Tiktok does short videos. youtube does long videos. twitter does bylines. facebook is where whole clans are connected online. instagram does photos. google is a search engine. Each major website serves a strict function. yes, you have niche players, like a tumblr/aalbc/deviantart that all serve specific or more detailed functions. yahoo search is still active. but I think most websites are failures so I don't see why most black websites being failures is anamolistic? 

 

@Pioneer1

 

3 hours ago, Pioneer1 said:

I've said time and time again that one of the problems a lot of our people...especially a lot of women....have with this site is that there is too much personal freedom to post and say what you like with very little moderation.
Troy is very light handed when it comes to being a moderator.

Conventional wisdom would say that having the freedom to post your opinions freely is a good thing that would attract people by the thousands.
A true expression of freedom of speech and thought.

However because of the angry and vindictive nature of a lot of our people, this produces the opposite effect.

People like to be able to get you in trouble.
They like to get your posts deleted or even get you blocked/banned if you say something they don't like.
You see it all over social media where you come on a channel or show and you say something the crowd doesn't like or agree with....instead of ignoring you or tolerating you....they alert the moderators and tell them to block or ban you.
It's the culture now.
A culture of intolerance.

Those same people get mad as hell for being blocked for expressing THEIR opinion on a matter, but they'll then turn around and insist that it's fair and demand the same punishment for other of a differing opinion.
This is the very juvenile and extreme thinking of a lot of people.

So a site where they can't run and tattle tale to a mod or point the finger at somebody and make them vanish isn't very attractive to them.

Some of the things you and I have said on this site....we would have been banned our first WEEK on Lipstick Alley, lol.


Plus....let's keep it real.....

A lot of our people don't like sites where Black men are in charge.
Going back to our sistaz again.
Some of our sistaz don't like spaces where the ultimate authority is a Black man.
They'll accept it from a White man or even another Black woman, but the idea of a Black man holding power over what goes on or who goes and who stays....they don't like.

I've known some who didn't want to even WORK for a Black man.
Nearly all of them had daddy issues.
But the very idea that a Black man signed their pay check and told them what to do and could punish them, they didn't like at all.
They were so used to dissing Black men growing up and telling them to kiss their ass....for a brutha to have that type of authority didn't sit well with them.

I know what I'm saying may sound extra, but it's the real deal when it comes to why the traffic on this and other Black ran sites are often light.

 

I am paraphrasing the mariner from the film waterworld, "I have traveled farther than most online and I have never seen a websites failure based on anything but its effectiveness" 

In my travels, I have seen a number of chinese websites fail, japanese websites fail, french websites fail, brasilian websites fail. usa websites fail.  What they each have in common is not some demographic group hurting them, but each failed or has failures or has become niche because the function they served another website served better or more robustly. 

When I look at black owned websites online.

 

First and foremost I can't recall one black owned website that had a technological edge or focus. 

Youtube emphasized videos. Tiktok short videos. Google search. Neither was the first to do it. Other websites before youtube did videos but they didn't emphasize the technology, the investment was small, it was more toy than function. Tiktok the same. youtube literally did a short video service three years before tiktok, it failed and youtube shut it. Now youtube has shorts in response to tiktok, but what is the point. Tiktok invested in short video in a scale that gave it an edge or focus. Google wasn't the first search engine but again they focused on it, gave it an edge that others didn't. When I look at Yahoo for example, which started as a web directory. Yahoo's great flaw  in their financial history was that they gave up on web directories. they assumed falsely, that the growth of the internet would make a directory unfeasible but I think they were wrong. I argue the internet could use a great web directory. And then yahoo led in email but again, didn't implement email's better over time. 

Blackplanet never had a technological edge, its whole selling point was a place for black people but it didn't offer a technological edge. So most black people looking to make videos went to youtube. Wanting a search used google. Sharing photos on the phones used instagram. 

Chatgpt, right? it is the llm use. Technological edge first and foremost leads people to anywebsite and for all the black engineers who are lauded in media for graduating from MIT or working for Goldman Sachs , I don't see any of them with any websites ideas. 

And yes, tech cost money on the backend, but again, this isn't 1926, 2000 wasn't 1900, some black people were billionaires so....no excuse.

AALBC doesn't have a technological tool that isn't present anywhere else, if it did, that would help. 

 

Second, when I look at the internet and websites that are communally driven, most work because the culture of the particular peoples is out the sphere of anglo media. Meaning what? Overdrive was supposed to be France's answer to the social media, but most people in france went to facebook/instagram/twitter? why? is it because white people in france don't like themselves. No, it is , because the way they communicate wasn't different enough, their culture wasn't different enough than what was offered in anglo media.  Black owned websites offer the same reality. Black people's culture or communication fits well enough in the anglo websites to exist. But if you are japanese/chinese who tend to have cultural websites because they have cultures/communication that doesn't fit the anglo internet as well. India doesn't have one major website, and how many firms in the usa have indians all through them? why. because indians are usually anglophiles, who culturally fit well into anglo media. Indian or French websites aren't being hindered by the women in their community , their online populace simply fits well enough in anglo websites and it makes all of their websites niche, like aalbc. I have tried to find a black populace that needs an outlet, that would help aalbc to serve a particular black populace. 

 

Third, userbases, Cristiano ronaldo is the most followed person online, he gets paid by websites for his presence. And why do the websites pay, because his presence brings users, and the greater the userbase, the greater the ad revenue, the greater the userbase, the greater the views to posts in general. AALBC hosts black authors, who are barely in the forum. If Troy paid them they would be more, as in the big websites who pay millions to people like barrack obama to be active on their websites, which helps their userbase. Now, AALBC as a niche website doesn't have to do that. But that is the reality. Tiktok/Facebook/Instagram/Youtube/twitter/even schrumpfs truth social  all have big users who attract casual users. That is reality. It is uneven to ask AALBC or specifically Troy to pay people to engage. And you see this all over the internet. It isn't something rare.  So, the userbase of AALBC absent attractors has limits of growth.If Beyonce+ Oprah+Neymar + Paul Kagame were on AALBC, I think this website would have a huge increase in usage. 

 

So, I don't see any blame in black women for AALBC's usage or lack thereof. I commend Troy for maintaining this large rent. As most people who own a restaurant will tell you, I am not doing this for the money, I am doing this cause I love it. 

But if AALBC could find a technological edge. If aalbc could reach a particular black populace whose culture was away from the anglophone, and needed particular attention. if AALBC could afford to pay for big attractors. That would change the volume, not necessarily quality, of activity on the website in a positive way. 

 

@Troy 

Interesting, how pervasive is lurking online? I see in discord many talk of lurkers. how many lurk online?

 

[ProfD]

7 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

really? 

monthly rent for hosting data, data transmisions, cost more than a dollar? if the site becomes popular you have to support that popularity with more expensive backend.

the likes of facebook and tiktok have huge silos or network systems all over the world to simulate instantaneous use, that is easy? the money to get that is easy? 

ok, i don't think it is easy at all. 

F*cebook was started by a teenager in a college dormitory.

 

M*crosoft was started by a college dropout.

 

Apple was started by a marketing wizard & his friend who was a wiz with electronics.

 

Y*hoo & G**gle were started by nerds in silicon valley.

 

Sure, these companies have grown into sprawling behemoths but they came from the proverbial mustard seed.

 

IMO, Black folks have the aptitude to invent things. Too few lack the entrepreneurial spirit. Seems easier to trade labor for wages.

[Pioneer1]

richardmurray

Lol....man, what do you do for a living?
What is your profession?

[Troy]

15 hours ago, richardmurray said:

 

Interesting, how pervasive is lurking online? I see in discord many talk of lurkers. how many lurk online?

 

90% of social media visitors are lurkers.  It is probably higher than that on some platforms.  How many of you actually created TicTok or YouTube video for the public but have used the platform.  The number of lurkers here is probably higher than 90% because of some very popular posts generate a lot of traffic. 

 

[Pioneer1]

I'd be interested to know the demographics of the lurkers.....lol.

[Troy]

40% bot
40% Male

19.9% Female

0.1% Non-binary

 

 

 

 

[richardmurray]

@ProfD 

16 hours ago, ProfD said:

F*cebook was started by a teenager in a college dormitory.

 

M*crosoft was started by a college dropout.

 

Apple was started by a marketing wizard & his friend who was a wiz with electronics.

 

Y*hoo & G**gle were started by nerds in silicon valley.

 

Sure, these companies have grown into sprawling behemoths but they came from the proverbial mustard seed.

 

IMO, Black folks have the aptitude to invent things. Too few lack the entrepreneurial spirit. Seems easier to trade labor for wages.

Filo + Musk who started yahoo are the only ones from truly financially humble beginnings. And, to be even, they got lucky. Again, less than 1% of all websites failed. So, the entrepreneurial spirit you are talking about failed many non blacks. so.. your argument on the whole is unfounded but... I continue

 

Zuckerburgs father offered his son a mcdonald's franchise , how many black parents can do that or euqivalent for their children? please don't say it is common for black parents to offer the next generation wealth. 

Gates parents have always been on the boards of big companies, how many black parents are on the boards of large companies while their children are in high school? please don't say it is common. And don't insult black history, again, black people have been blockaded from financial wealth by whites in the usa from1 492 to 1980 nearest holistically. 

Jobs father is from a fiscally wealthy syrian family. wozniak's father was an engineer for lockheed. Please don't say that they are financially common. 

Page and BRin for Google had well connected and well off parents. working as engineers for nasa or colleges in the usa. How many black engineers have not been accepted at Nasa? that had every single thing a white engineer did. Nasa is a great job for an engineer. You are connecting with big financial channels. 

All of them through their relatives or communities, many are white jews or have white jewish background which has a financial aspect to it, some are simply nepo babies, that have money or access to money, like Musk, who is also from a financialy wealth white clan. 

You mention entrepreneurial spirit but don't mention lack of fiscally capable parents. 

I know few black people have fiscally aiding black parents. I know that. 

it is interesting to me how so many black people in the usa accept white power or white advantage but then in assessing black people, blame ourselves as if the white people who are wealthiest in the usa, aren't assisted by white power or white advantage but simply have the entrepreneurial spirit. It is very imbalanced, or uneven thinking. 

 

@Pioneer1

I give blood to a blood bank, five times a day. 

 

@Troy 

50 minutes ago, Troy said:

90% of social media visitors are lurkers.  It is probably higher than that on some platforms.  How many of you actually created TicTok or YouTube video for the public but have used the platform.  The number of lurkers here is probably higher than 90% because of some very popular posts generate a lot of traffic. 

 

I have created youtube or tiktok videos to share my art, but I am not the biggest user of either platform. There are a few youtubers I like because they are informative or interesting in the arts. 

I like Mayowa's world cause she is a black natural haired woman who has insightful positions on black identity, accented cinema cause he makes great posts on asian cinema. I like shadversity cause they develop weapons and test them and have helped me think on weapons in my own stories. So i admit as an artist youtube has some great educational folk. 

 

What are your thoughts on what to do about lurkers? any ideas. I comprehend that bots have always been used to augment perceived activity on websites, from the early 1990s.  Thinking on it for a minute, from bots to paid real members of websites to now the llm identities, the children of the bots, so much activity online is augmented... two questions come to mind.

 

1)Of the facebooks/twitter/youtubes/google searches/netflix or other, how many of them used bots to augment their activity to appear positive? In my mind I begin to wonder, how many websites failed cause they didn't invest in bots, didn't invest in ways to augment popularity? If you augment popularity even if you aren't making money, maybe you can keep the investments running, especially in the dot com craze days, the earlier eras of the internet when money flowed to these bleeding firms. 

2) what activity online has the least lurkers? I comprehend if one is online it invites de facto lurking, at least the possibility.  I guess email, but I imagine you know, if not through experience through conference with others. 

3) should black owned websites invested in lurking more ? I remember when beyonce or jay-z had some media thing and it was found out it had a bunch of bots, but it seemed so late in the internet, like an old style bot drive that white people used ten years earlier?

 

[ProfD]

 

33 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

Again, less than 1% of all websites failed. So, the entrepreneurial spirit you are talking about failed many non blacks. so.. your argument on the whole is unfounded but... I continue

Newsflash...most businesses fail. It's part of the game.

 

The successful keep getting back up & trying again. 

33 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

how many black parents can do that or euqivalent for their children? please don't say it is common for black parents to offer the next generation wealth. 

 

...how many black parents are on the boards of large companies while their children are in high school? please don't say it is common.

Again, you're looking through a very small window.

 

Black folks collectively have enough wealth to invest in businesses including  social media platforms.

 

The *problem* is that Black folks do not encourage entrepreneurship & investment. Not in the same way that religion demands tithes & offerings.

 

33 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

And don't insult black history, again,..

Do not continue trying to tell me how to communicate.

 

My patience isn't that long before I become the most rude & insulting mf'er you could ever read.

 

33 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

black people have been blockaded from financial wealth by whites in the usa from1 492 to 1980 nearest holistically. 

No more excuses. Billions of dollars go through Black folks hands every year.

 

The question is what are we doing with the money. 

 

33 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

How many black engineers have not been accepted at Nasa?

How many engineering firms have Black folks started? 

 

No reason to wait on NASA or any other white entity to give them a job.

 

33 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

You mention entrepreneurial spirit but don't mention lack of fiscally capable parents. 

The village collectively could invest in its own people. 

 

33 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

I know few black people have fiscally aiding black parents. I know that. 

I don't believe you realize outside of New York there are a high number of successful Black people. 

 

33 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

it is interesting to me how so many black people in the usa accept white power or white advantage but then in assessing black people, blame ourselves as if the white people who are wealthiest in the usa, aren't assisted by white power or white advantage but simply have the entrepreneurial spirit. It is very imbalanced, or uneven thinking. 

Successful Black people see things from a different perspective.  One of the biggest challenges is getting our people to believe they can do better.

 

Understand that because I'm a successful FBA/AfroAmerican man of average intelligence, I believe other Black folks can do it too. Just a matter of putting in the work.