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 . 1 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 . 1 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 . 1 benjamin sun would also launch asianave and migente.com . 2 contents 1 company 2 website 2.1 statistics 2.2 recreational features 3 mobile applications 4 social networks 5 ethics 6 lawsuit 7 in the press 8 blackplanet rising 8.1 donations 8.2 events 8.3 volunteers 9 see also 10 references 11 external links company edit the website is run by community connect of new york city . community connect also runs asianavenue.com and migente.com 1 in april 2008 community connect was purchased for 38mm by radio one a lanham md based media begun by cathy hughes . 3 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 . 4 blackplanet s broader mission is to strengthen the black community . 1 website edit the most popular forums were current events heritage & identity relationships religion & spirituality and women . 5 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 . 1 statistics edit in january 2007 the membership log on blackplanet s home page boasted 15.8 million registered users since its inception in 1999 . 5 at time of purchase the site had around 20 million members and was the fourth most visited u.s. social networking site . 6 target audience 7 male 34.4 % female 65.6 % median age 32 attended grad college 64.5 % composition black 88 % 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 . 7 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 . 8 in early 2010 blackplanet launched a new homepage that included an activity feed allowing users to see updates from everyone on blackplanet either friends or by location . 9 recreational features edit blackplanet has recently introduced two interactive games for users farmandia and fishdom . blackplanet describes farmandia as follows farmandia puts you in the farmer s seat . grow your produce care for your animals and build your barns . the more you play the more points you re rewarded so you can keep your farm in business . need a little help invite other blackplanet members to lend a hand . 10 blackplanet describes fishdom thusly ; when you re done spending time on the farm grab your virtual fishing rod and head to fishdom where you re responsible for feeding your exotic collection of underwater friends . you better earn your bucks because they get mighty hungry . you never know when you ll need to purchase more food accessorize your underwater kingdom or give your fish some new friends . 10 the similarities to facebook s farmville have not gone unnoticed by the blackplanet users who point out the need for improvement of the site s infrastructure and principal features such as chat prior to the introduction of games . 10 mobile applications edit blackplanet also introduced mobile apps in 2009 for mobile phones . the application blackplanetmobile was free when it was introduced but was not exclusive of mobile provider charges . 8 blackplanetmobile did not work on the blackberry gphone iphone or sidekick smartphones when introduced . 8 blackplanet text alerts are also available to alert users to updates and notifications . this is an opt in service . 8 social networks edit it has been stated that online social networks have come to define the modern internet experience . 11 blackplanet as a precursor to facebook and myspace has gone some way to influencing the internet as users recognise it . before today s popular networks allowed you to like posts poke crushes or retweet celebrities web savvy african americans were connecting on blackplanet . 11 wasow himself has stated 11 the guys who started myspace were quoted in business week magazine saying that they looked at blackplanet as a model for myspace and thought there was an opportunity to do a general market version of what blackplanet was . as of june 2007 blackplanet had 16.5 million members and 80 million page views . it was described as the largest online media entity for african americans and the granddaddy of social networking sites 12 blackplanet enjoyed more than 6 million unique visitors a month in april 2008 . in 2007 blackplanet found itself to be the fourth most popular social networking tool on the internet but with the vast increase in facebook twitter and myspace usage blackplanet fails to gain recognition in the top 15 social networks according to ebizmba in march 2011 leading critics to suggest that blackplanet has fallen to the wayside as other networks have taken the social network mantle . 11 list of social networking websites blackplanet utilises other social networking tools such as twitter and facebook in order to reach new and potential users . its twitter feed is updated on a near daily basis commenting and highlighting points of interest to the black community . recent tweets include 83 % of bp voters think non black rappers shouldn t use the nword ... what do you think about that 13 and weave secrets revealed . go from drab to fab in 5 minutes . 13 the blackplanet twitter feed is also used to post announcements and updates regarding the blackplanet site itself . wider political issues are also mentioned including what will you do ifgovernmentshutsdown 13 the blackplanet facebook page is used to encourage discussion of issues both directly and indirectly applicable to its community of african american users . the facebook status update feature is used to ask questions to the page followers and is well responded to in general . questions have included what do you think of the idea of black marriage day 14 what do you think of people using the term ghetto when describing something that s not desirable 14 and men do you ever pamper yourself with a gentleman s facial manicure or pedicure ladies what do you think of men who take care of their skin and nails 14 both social networking tools are used to advertise the member of the day feature drawing attention to the appearance of the chosen member . accompanying a link to the member s profile is a short comment such as she s beautiful she s single she s our member of the day . check her out 13 and still need proof that we have the prettiest members on the planet you re welcome . 13 ethics edit wasow says he occasionally gets questions about whether blackplanet is fostering racial separatism . voluntarily socializing with people who share your interests is what freedom is all about he says . anybody can join any of the sites . we found we were not segregating the web . 1 however niche community tools such as blackplanet do host users who wish to promote separatism such as gangs and this has not gone unnoticed . gangs have had a presence on the internet since its inception . this became noticeable during the 1990s when it became fashionable for gangs to use free webspace from internet service providers to put up their own gang webpage . finding gangs on geocities blackplanet and especially myspace along with other internet service providers isps provided the foundation of what today is known as gang internet investigation a specialized area of expertise in gang investigation . 14 gary dauphin an original employee of blackplanet argues that while the ethnicity of the site s owners is important to understanding the site owners of one ethnicity can sometimes serve an audience of another ethnicity . blackplanet where i got my start on the web was owned for most of its early life by a largely asian american group and i would venture that that period was the site s finest hour . the ownership wasn t african american but it did understand the underlying call to service implied in running an ethnic site and moreover they had high ambitions for their company as a web community platform provider that raised the bar for bp overall . 15 lawsuit edit in october 2011 an anonymous model filed a federal lawsuit against blackplanet.com regarding a 2007 incident in which she was drugged and raped by two men who met the woman through the website . the two men 40 year old lavont flanders jr. and 45 year old emerson callum were convicted by a federal jury in miami in december 2011 of multiple sex related and conspiracy charges and were sentenced to life in prison . 16 17 the woman alleges that blackplanet.com failed to warn women about the dangers of sexual predators . the site s parent company told the miami herald it vehemently denies the allegations . 18 19 in the press edit in 2007 blackplanet was featured in the press when the u.s. department of defense or the pentagon which banned it amongst other sites in order to free up bandwidth suggesting high usage levels . other banned sites included filecabi.com hi5 ifilm metacafe mtv.com myspace pandora radio photobucket stupidvideos and youtube . 20 the defense network contains more than 15 000 local and regional networks and more than five million computers in the grid . citation needed blackplanet gained considerable publicity when then senator barack obama began using the site on october 5 2007 during his presidential campaign bid . within 10 days he had gained nearly 200 000 friends . in an online poll conducted by the site over 2 3 of blackplanet s online community stated their intention to vote in the 2008 election . 4 the media perceived this participation in a niche social networking tool to be a smart move by the senator . citation needed on march 30 2011 president obama had 450 579 friends on blackplanet . the page continues to be updated with regular blog posts but does not feature recent status updates . citation needed blackplanet rising edit blackplanet rising is a blackplanet users community project set up by the website to encourage community support and services by its members . as part of their mission they aim to motivate and involve individuals to participate in civic engagement . 21 blackplanet rising hosts a blog which contains posts from blackplanet users . featured authors are highlighted along with their contributions to the site . citation needed donations edit blackplanet rising works with a charitable organization called donorschoose.org which connects users to offer donations of critical resources such as books supplies computers field trips and guest speakers to public schools . the choice of donations and projects to support is available through blackplanet rising and donorschoose.org . double your impact support programs involve blackplanet rising s matching user donations . blackplanet rising s giving page via donorschoose.org