Entries from April 2008 ↓

Hey Apple..get a move on with the 3G iPhone.

Well if you’ve been reading this site you know I hold no bars back on websites and I like to tell it like it is. Well after spending a few hours with Rushmore Drive I have to say that the site is very sucky. The site seems #1 to skew to a older audience and also just doesn’t appeal to those who would want to not search with Google. I mean really…who’s not searching with Google these days.

Rushmore Drive has the challenge of marketing to the black audience and then trying to change their online habits. Without partnerships out of the gate to provide search for just about every “black site” from Allhiphop.com to BET it just doesn’t fly. Using Rushmore Drive makes me feel like I’m at a site for my grandfather and that I should quickly jump back into my Google reader to keep track with what’s going on.

So here is what we thought about the site.

Sign up - A

The sign up process was pretty easy and took us less then 2 minutes to get up and running. There where no personalization features other then setting up Greek, Professional, and Faith affiliations. Zzzzzzz…but I’m all about an easy sign up process so this wins in my book.

Search - D

So at the core of this site is search. So I took the search bar for a spin and compared it to Google, just to see if it was really mo’ black.
So I typed in as my first search: Janet Jackson. It gave me this list back as the top 5 results:

1. Janet Jackson.com
2. IMDB
3. Essence
4. Sandrarose
5. Sixshot exclusive pics of Lil’ Kim Exposed???

A search on Google gave me:

1. A news story about Jermaine Dupri, Janet’s Boyfriend and his new record label
2. Janet Jackson.com with news about her GLAAD Media Award
3. Janet Jackson’s Wikipedia entry
4. Janet Jackson’s MySpace page
5. IMDB

So in a comparison on this list, Google wins hands down. The Rushmore Drive list while bringing up sites that where mo’ black (i.e. Sandrarose, Essence, and Sixshot) none of the content was relevant to what I was exactly searching for. Lil’ Kim and Janet Jackson have no relevance at all. The link to Essence magazine should take me right to a story about Janet Jackson. The Rushmore Drive site has a news box but its below the fold and news content needs to be mixed in with the search results.

Content - C

The additional content via the Rushmore Drive Detour is ok but it’s not great. Some of it reads a little but rushed and I’m not 100% sure why it’s there. I go to a search engine to research something and find content that is useful to me. The Detour content seems out of place. I would rather for the site to pull in the best stories from around the web or post the best stuff from the blogosphere. I was hoping I could port my news into a widget but I don’t seem to see that option at all.

Banner Ads - F

Why is there is a big Coke/Buick add all over my search? Sorry but those banners ads and search just don’t seem to mix for me. How about improving the search results experience before trying to monetize the hell out of the site.

Overall - D

Rushmore Drive, seems like the wrong turn. I can’t believe this is what they came up with via talking to African-Americans about what they want on the web. This is extreme snoozeville. Stick with Google.

Community Connect has been reportedly sold for a low low price of $38 mil. I thought it was going to go for about $80-100 but I guess traffic across Blackplanet, MiGente, Glee, and AsianAve isn’t that much to shake a stick all. Radio One will leverage their radio penetration (do people still listen to the radio? I don’t) to get more users onto the sites.

If Radio One is reading this I have a great idea on how to fully leverage convergence between your radio brands and on your newly acquired social networks.

In a story posted today on Reuters, Rushmore Drive reveals it self to be “a web search site geared to black audience in the US.” OH BROTHER! I really hope that is a misprint. Rushmore Drive will aim to compete with Google, Ask.com, and about a hundred thousand other search engines. The site launches tomorrow and we will give it a full review. Now they say that have done their homework and came to the conclusion that “If you can provide me with everything I’m currently getting in the
mainstream search engines like Google, plus a blend of black
information, you will be my starting point and destination.”

The sites technology is built using the Teoma technology which powers IAC’s Ask.com. Will this site be as bad as SearchWithKanye.com?
When will companies learn that they can’t really beat Google.com no matter how much they really want to. Most companies NEED Google to point their visitors to their site. And this site will also have advertising as Coca-Cola and General Motos will be advertising. People don’t really want anymore advertising.

I think RushMore Drive will be facing an up hill battle as changing online behaviors is extremely hard to do. And trying to provide search technology to BET, and other urban sites really limits your potential as a business.

Snoop Dogg and online video site JibJab have teamed up for a fun way for fans to get into the Sensual Seduction video. Users can upload their photo of their face, and friends, and put themselves right into the video. “Our audience has made over 10 million ‘Starring You!’ movies since we
launched last year,” said JibJab co-founder Grevan Spiridellis.
“Working with an incredible talent like Snoop Dogg brings the
experience to a whole new level.” Visit JibJab.com to create your own video today.

According to the Alleyinsider.com, popular social network Blackplanet is up for sell. With the recent $850 buy out by AOL for Bebo.com, Blackplanet is next in line to get brought up. Many of us from the old school internet days hate Blackplanet. It’s become pretty much an urban dating spot.

So who do you think should buy up Blackplanet? I would pick Viacom/BET. BET is in desperate need of a bigger online web presence and Blackplanet would be a good fit. They would be able to merge the music content with the audience already visiting Blackplanet now and they could make something to rival MySpace. They would need to develop out a lot more of the customization features but it could be done.

Social networking site, Buzznet.com has acquired ownership of popular music blog, Sterrogum.com. The site has been extremely popular on the net for fans of alternative rock music and artist. There was no word on how much Buzznet.com paid out to the blogs. But this goes in line with many power players now snatching up blogs and the audiences that read them daily to blow out their product offering even more.

“We have great respect for the ways in which Buzznet is revolutionizing
the online music experience and we knew we had to be a part of this
pioneering media company,” said Stereogum founder Scott Lapatine.
“Buzznet has a world class social platform and we have already taken
advantage of their vast resources to build a great new look for the
blog, as well as launch an entirely new community. Moving forward,
Buzznet will be instrumental in creating new features and functionality
that will take Stereogum to a whole new level while allowing us to
maintain our unique voice and independence.”

And it looks like a few of the popular urban/hip-hop blogs are up next to be acquired. We have some exclusive info but we can’t spill it yet.

There are still tons of questions to be answered but make no mistake, MySpace is getting until the music download business. iTunes will need to worry at this point. Amazon Mp3 has rocked to the #2 music download service and MySpace could easily knock them down to #3. And they could even take iTunes out of the #1 spot. With over 200 mil users and 30 mil unique visitors a month MySpace and a music service is a match made in heaven. There is no word on the pricing, if it’s DRM free, and all of kind of stuff. But you will see the service launch sometime in the summer and it will be a force for iTunes to watch out for.

The web is continuing to give valuations numbers to popular site. GreasyGuide.com just release it’s controversial list of the Top Urban bloggers. But today we want to shift focus to a guy named Craig and his popular site Craigslist. The company has been valued at a whopping $5 bil. And we totally believe it’s true. The utility of Craigslist to me is 100% priceless.

So here are some metrics:

2007 Est. Revenue: $55 million
2008 Est Revenue: $81 million
Monthly Pageviews: 9 billion
Monthly Job Listings: 2 million
Monthly Ad Listings: 30 million
Employees: 25

With low overhead and high traffic and a good amount of money coming in Craigslist is one of the hottest properties on the net hands down.

I was excited to  see that Kanye West was getting into the online space and building out a travel site. That was until I actually saw what the site looked like. Here is our review of the site and if it is even worth you spending time on.

1. Design = F

This has to be one of the WORST designs of a travel site ever. I mean DAMN dude you couldn’t hire your 13 year old nephew to design the page and a descent eye catching layout. This is not very fashion forward or innovative and it’s very much stuck in web 1.0.

2. Travel Deals = A

So here is the test: I want to go from New York to Las Vegas. And I want a good deal…who does it better Kanyetravel.com or Orbitz.com? So we entered the dates of 4/4/2008-4/6/2008, 1 adult, leaving anytime.

So KanyeTravel.com returned 2 deals, for that is cheap and the other luxury. So I went with the cheap-o deal, and with with flight and hotel you get about $430.53 round trip. Now I usually stay at the Luxor when I go to Vegas and it quoted me a price of $185 per night, which seems very high. So after I selected my hotel, I picked a flight but noticed that my total had when up to $800.53. Flights leaving out of Neward stated to have not addition fee. Flights leave from LaGuardia which is 20 minutes from my house cost $100 and up additional. So I picked an LaGuardia Flight which added $107.00 more to my bill. So now we are up to $907.53. Then some magical discount happened to my account and brought my trip down to $720.96, thanks magical discount.

So now to book on Orbitz. And what do you know KanyeTravel is cheaper with Orbitz coming in at $879 for the same trip.

3. Activities = C

So now I wanted to see what I could do in Las Vegas. I clicked on Tickets and Attractions. I was hoping that I would get more information and content about shows and deals that might appeal to me as the Hip-Hop traveler. However, you got the basic Cirque Du Soueil-Crap that you always get pushed when you go to Vegas. I would have liked to have seen more reach go into clubs that play Hip-hop, or shows that might be of interest to me.

4. Travel Research = F

There is barely any information about the hotels, shows, and specials. Travelers like me want to research and want info esp. if we are going to spend money. The site could benefit from user reviews.

5. Overall score = D

Nice try Kanye but without more content, a better design, and more to do on your site it’s nothing more then a slightly cheaper travel site. Cheaper is good but in order to get the usage you might want and users away from Orbitz and other sites like it you should really put more effort into the content surrounding the travel. People need to be able to research where they are going and what they are doing. But it kinda looks like Kanye just stuck his name on artwork on a travel site and left it at that.