Submit the words “Blacks,” or “African Americans,” in combination with “Long Tail” to the Google or Yahoo search engine, and discover quickly how finding the most relevant topical information sometimes can be elusive even for the Internet savvy. One might reasonably conclude that although African Americans represent 12% of the U.S. population, or 38 million individuals, they are nevertheless often a long-tail play when it comes to online search. “Long tail” is a reference to a phrase coined by writer Chris Anderson in his October 2004 article of the same title in Wired Magazine. The hotly debated premise of Anderson's article is that the Internet has lowered the costs of distribution to the point that it now makes sense for merchants to address the pent up demand of niche groups for better tailored goods and services.



Supply and Demand or Heads and Tails?

Most would agree it is relatively easy to search by Black or African-American in general and find rich content. However, try searching “Black owned restaurants in Chicago” for example and you are likely to be largely disappointed or even worse misled. Given that there are 22 million African Americans online, it begs the question why topical search about them has not advanced past its present state? My Black Networks, LLC (MBN), a social media network company based in Austin, TX, believes there are three primary forces at play.

• First, although recent studies suggest the digital divide between black and white households has closed, MBN states the relatively late adoption by blacks may explain the historical neglect to create the kinds of centralized taxonomies characteristic of Web 1.0. “Incentive to distribute content will naturally be lower if a sufficiently large and accessible audience to receive it does not exist” states Elbert McQuiller, co-founder of MBN. However, MBN concedes that the convergence of the development of Web 2.0 applications such as blogging software, the commoditization of PC's, the wide spread availability Web-enabled cell phones, and the emergence of the first African American major party nominee for President have resulted in a recent and substantial narrowing of the digital divide.

• Secondly, MBN believes the lack of advertising targeting African Americans is also partially to blame. According to a Nielsen study published in January 2008, overall advertising spend targeting African Americans reached $2.3 billion during the 12 months between October 1, 2006 and September 30, 2007. This figure, however, represents less than 1% of total U.S. advertising dollars. MBN maintains that the relative allocation gap in online media is even greater. This places African American publishers and content at a competitive disadvantage. Mr. McQuiller states “The availability of content is partially dependent upon the ability of publishers to monetize their sites and advertising revenue continues to be part of the dominant business model.”

• Finally, search engines rely primarily on key words to interpret data. Although progress continues to be made in terms of more nuanced, semantics search, the algorithms driving search engines continue to give greater weight to word matching and literal or denotative meaning. Publishers who desire to target the African-American market must optimize their sites in ways that increase their likelihood of discovery. For example, the website of a “Black-owned restaurant” will probably need to include keywords or tags that identify it as such, if the goal is to be easily discovered by someone searching for those types of restaurants.

Vertical Branding Meets Vertical Search

MBN is launching its portal site www.myblacknetworks.com in an effort to address the fragmented state of the data that it believes is culturally salient to its target markets. MBN describes itself as an ecosystem of informational websites targeting unique segments of the African, African-American and Caribbean community or the African Diaspora. MBN begins its quest by launching The MyBlack™ Urban Vertical. The first phase of the launch includes unique websites for 20 cities with large African-American populations. Each site includes the MyBlack™ brand and offers relevant national and local news, a Black-owned business directory, small business resource center, a wealth-building section, an events section, as well as special interest areas for lifestyle, health and romance. Each city site is accessible from the portal and is also connected to a shared social networking platform. MBN eventually expects to expand to include over 200 major cities around the globe including major urban centers in the U.S., Africa, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe. The portal site will include links to such destinations as myblackchicago.com, myblacklagos.com, myblackriodejaneiro.com, myblacktoronto.com, myblackkingston.com, and myblackparis.com.

MBN's objective is to facilitate vertical search by its target markets by employing vertical branding of relevant content. In the near future MBN hopes to partner with a vertical search engine or create its own. MBN believes that the opportunity for social networking among the African Diaspora is ripe given the current and projected growth in internet-enabled mobile devices in its emerging online markets and believes that MyBlack™ can be a dominant player in the space. When asked what MBN intends to do after reorganizing the Web, Mr. McQuiller shrugs and replies “Watch the tail wag the dog.”