Can AOL Black Voices Become the ish?
If you ever read Crain’s New York Business, you’d come away with the feeling that there’s some sort of love for Tariq Muhammad, the new director of AOL Black Voices. On 11/14, in “AOL director eyes niche,” and subsequently on 11/18 in AOL Black Voices pumping up volume,” in reference to the 20 million African-American Internet users in the United States, Amanda Fung wrote: AOL Black Voices attracts only a fraction of those nationwide users. Nevertheless, the site, which had just 2.5 million unique visitors in September, is edging out its major rivals. BlackPlanet.com, a social networking site for African-Americans, had 2.2 million, and BET.com, the entertainment and news Web site operated by Viacom’s BET Network, had 2.3 million, according to comScore Media Metrix. And how Mr. Muhammad plans to do this is by becoming the Black CNN (hey, I thought that was rap). Mr. Muhammad hopes to beef up Black Voices’ content, making it an even better source of online news and information for Africa
