BlackPlanet
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| Social networking company | |
| Founded | 1999 |
| Headquarters |
205 Hudson Street, 6th Floor New York, New York, USA |
| Owner | Radio One |
| Website | blackplanet.com |
BlackPlanet is an African-American social networking service for matchmaking and job postings; it also has forums for discussion on political and social issues.
BlackPlanet was launched on September 1, 2001 by Omar Wasow, an Internet analyst, who in 2001 was running "New York Online", a pre-web community he started in 1993 from his living room in Brooklyn. It was the brainchild of Wasow and Community Connect’s CEO Benjamin Sun. Launched in 1999, it was a relative latecomer to social media sites, with three already in existence targeting people of color. Benjamin Sun would also launch AsianAve and MiGente.com.
The website is run by Community Connect of New York City. Community Connect also runs AsianAvenue.com and MiGente.com In April 2008, Community Connect was purchased for $38MM by Radio One, a Lanham, MD-based media begun by Cathy Hughes. Along with BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com and AsianAvenue.com were also purchased. This move was taken by Radio One to diversify beyond radio to reach black audiences.
BlackPlanet’s broader mission is to strengthen the Black community.
The most popular forums were Current Events, Heritage & Identity, Relationships, Religion & Spirituality, and Women. Wasow says BlackPlanet’s home-grown software allows users to move between personal pages, to dating, chat, and message boards, focusing on connecting people, rather than feeding them content.
In January 2007, the membership log on BlackPlanet’s home-page boasted 15.8 million registered users since its inception in 1999. At time of purchase the site had around 20 million members and was the fourth most-visited U.S. social networking site.
Target Audience
“BlackPlanet creates branded profile pages to integrate advertisers into the social community, enabling members to engage as friends”; as well as personal profiles BlackPlanet also allows pages for brands, personalities, and products.
In 2009, BlackPlanet introduced new features to the website, including a Facebook-style status update, and a news bar that keeps users up-to-date with information shared on Interactive One and BlackPlanet. The chat function was also updated in 2009; the current chat is powered by a company called Chat Blazer and is Flash based.
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