Would you want to see COMCAST buy NBC News, MSNBC,  CNBC, the Spanish-language Telemundo network, and the USA and Bravo cable channels with one fat check?  Gee whiz! They just might do it soon.

Investing in the Online Newspaper

This article mentions  investors by name who are buying and building online newspaper businesses. You can read about current  projects and learn about non-profit companies that have been formed from the investments.  In one business plan,  $5 million in private money was put up for 120 journalism students to work with a radio station with 28 reporters to make an online newspaper.

Journalism Online  is another well capitalized effort. They are dead set on taking over the hosting of newspaper web sites so they can insure they’ll get paid when they get read.  On a their sites, a  consumer would  sign up  for annual or monthly subscriptions, day passes, and single articles from multiple publishers.  The publishers set the prices and viewing options.

The Black Press Boston Update

The Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall has a 200-320 capacity space.  It can be configured for a variety of events such as conference.  On September 30th it was reported that 200 people  met with the operators of the Boston Banner newspaper,  to conference with them about their plans for becoming a continued success story.  { http://tinyurl.com/yd9ht2p ]

There’s a http://www.blackpressusa.com directory of black newspapers all over the country.

What Will People End Up With?

For the past 60 days or so  this writer  turned off the TV set and switched off  Obama bashing radio talk shows.  They were all replaced by my FM/AM battery-operated radio that cost about $19.00 from Radio Shack.  I began paying more attention to my Facebook  newsfeed.  When I glanced at magazine covers or turned their pages at the store,  I rarely bought them.

During my media-blackout, I  would read the NYT, WSJ, the Globe the Herald, etc. but from a distance. I’d  scan them quickly, then put them right back on the shelf where I got them. I brought the Boston Banner, the JP Gazette,  and the Boston Phoenix papers home with me.  I’d stuff  litle LOLA and COLOR magazine into the brief then bring them home as well.

Information Overload

I think a less newsy world is not a bad thing really.

Newspapers in print rarely have been  arranged to give a person exactly what they are looking for.  The online editions aren’t much better. There is some customization but showcasing the ads often trumps the convenience of having a completely user-controlled experience when you view the material online. 

I think print or electronic information that provides an answer to what people are looking for is something people want and likely to pay for.   With 411, that happens.

Time after time, I have found information I needed faster by using the Yellow Pages directory, than I have using either Bing, Google or Yahaoo Search Engines.  The advertisers pay for both.

A person called  the other day seeking a “black” investor for his medical device product that would help solve the problem of sexually transmitted diseases.  He wanted a person’s name and contact info.  Frankly, I don’t think a “product” is going to solve that problem but it was an interesting question to pursue getting an answer for.

I had an hour to figure out where to go to obtain a duplicate  social security card the other day in Boston.  I was out and about so I decided to stop by  FEDEX/KINKOS to rent computer time to look it up.   At $0.25 a minute, time flies.   It cost me a bit more than $3  to pin down where Room 148  is in the Tip O’Neil Office Building.  When I got there, the office was closing at 4PM, although their web site said 5PM.   I had 8 minutes left to go but got the deal done.

“Time”  is manufactured by human beings in the UK

I don’t know how much time is left for newspapers to maintain an adequate revenue stream. Its hard to say really but I have seen a few trends that I’d like to remember.

[ here today, gone tomorrow ]

I’ve seen custom wordprocessing shops with people in them charging $1 a page to type pages for you get replaced by computer word processing software.  Seen music recording studios that charge by the hour get replaced by home pc variety ProTools/Logic and Audacity software working in concert with hi-quality portable electronic audio processors.  I’ve seen BYTE magazine, PC WORLD magazine and others like them who thrived on the Mail-Order advertising customer like the DELLs, Gateways and IBMs,  get replaced by online Internet catalog sales, ebay, craigslist and etc.

The last Craigslist Killer

Craigslist by most accounts, is an amazing success story, but on the other hand – they have a hard time controlling SPAM  Listings and its totally pissing off a lot of people.  With newspaper want ad listings THERE IS NO SPAM.  Spam may kill Craigslist.

2009

On Saturday, September 19th from 12pm-5pm, over 500 Black Boston-area undergraduate and graduate students will gather at MIT’s Johnson Athletic Center for the 7th annual HollaDay. HollaDay, hosted by the Boston Black Student Network, Inc. (BBSN).

The networking extravaganza  provides an arena for area Black college students to connect and realize the professional, community, and political opportunities in the Boston area.

produced by BBSN, Boston Black Student Network

BBSN is an entirely student-operated organization. It  has grown to include over 1500 members of the BBSN Facebook group,  over 2500 views of the monthly Newsletter, and over 500 students at its annual networking event, The HollaDay.

BBSN has been also able to partner with various student groups and Boston organizations to host informational workshops to benefit the Black student community throughout the year.

Additionally, the organization continues to serve as a source of support for greater issues affecting the Black community at large.

In 2007, due to the organization’s tremendous growth and existence of stable leadership, it finally branched off from the student groups who have supported its financial resources and became its own nonprofit organization.

For more information regarding HollaDay or to receive the BBSN monthly Newsletter, please contact:

Jarell Lee
Senior Co-Director
bbsnetwork.org@gmail.com
http://www.bbsn.org/

Just wanted to send a warm shout-out to the Foundation for a Green Future, Inc. and the co-sponsors for presenting the Boston Green Fest 2009 at City Hall Plaza.  Thanks!

Aug 20th – Boston’s Black Hipster Mr. Lif (Jeffrey Haynes) is the closing act for tomorrow’s Boston Green Fest Kickoff Concert on City Hall Plaza beginning at 5 p. m. Bands are  The Motion Sick, The Click 5, Samba Tremeterra, Tem Blessed and Mr. Lif on Thursday followed by two more days of music and festival.

At the three-day Boston Green Fest, neighborhoods will come together from across Greater Boston to work on solutions to make our city a healthy sustainable place to live.

Features:

ECO FASHION SHOW
EXHIBITS
FILM
FOOD & CRAFT VENDORS
GREEN BUSINESSES
KID’s AREA
MUSIC
and more….

www.bostongreenfest.org

Posted in Fresh Spots ]]> http://aboutblackboston.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/bostons-green-fest-2009-pump-pump/feed/ 0 aboutblackboston Boston Green Festival on City Hall PlazaAUG 20-22 http://aboutblackboston.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/notification-of-security-breach-at-umass-amherst/ http://aboutblackboston.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/notification-of-security-breach-at-umass-amherst/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:47:24 +0000 aboutblackboston http://aboutblackboston.wordpress.com/?p=383 ]]>

NOTIFICATION OF SECURITY BREACH
PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAWS CHAPTER 93H.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst (the “University”) hereby provides notice that a breach of security regarding personal information of students attending the University during the period of 1982-2002 and a few students prior to 1982 occurred from September 15, 2008 to October 27, 2008.

ok now, who got the data?

Under Massachusetts law, you have the right to obtain any police report filed in regard to this incident. If you  are the victim of identify theft, you also have the right to file a police report and obtain a copy of it.

Massachusetts law also allows you to place a security  freeze on your credit reports. A security freeze  prohibits a credit reporting agency from releasing any information from your credit report without written authorization.  Be aware that placing a security freeze on your credit report may delay, interfere with, or prevent the timely approval of any requests you make for new loads, credit mortgages, employment, housing or other services.

—>

if you have any questions about this matter
you may contact this web site www.umass.edu/computerintrusion
or a SPECIAL TELEPHONE HELP LINE can be called
at (413) 545-8376
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

You can also e-mail correspondence to computerintrusion@umass.edu

Posted in Fresh Spots Tagged: chapter 93H, credit bureau, legal notice, massachusetts general laws, notification of security breach, police report, reporting agency, stolen computer data, student personal information, umass amherst ]]> http://aboutblackboston.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/notification-of-security-breach-at-umass-amherst/feed/ 0 aboutblackboston 2u http://aboutblackboston.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/boston-banner-finds-funding-state-is-fixing-the-tunnel/ http://aboutblackboston.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/boston-banner-finds-funding-state-is-fixing-the-tunnel/#comments Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:37:29 +0000 aboutblackboston http://aboutblackboston.wordpress.com/?p=368 ]]>

Can Ya Dig It?
It was July 18th, Saturday morning when  we read that Boston’s invaluable  African-American owned newspaper had made news again with the headline    “Bay State Banner to accept city’s loan offer” in the Boston Globe’s business section.

It was a good day for the Banner and Boston’s Black community!

We don’t read the Globe everyday but we read it often enough and its   Saturday edition is often full of surprises. This Banner story was a good one.  Yeay!

Now on another unrelated note….

The paper’s legal notice page printed  an announcement that may appeal to minority-owned construction contractors.

It was about the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority invitation for bids on Contract #094-581 which is an order for work described as “Ted Williams Tunnel Ceilings Remediation and Anchor Testing” and the bid  is open to everyone who can do this kind of gig.

Remember,  this may include  part of the section where the  tunnel ceiling  fell, but I have no idea if it does.

Interested contractors may  contact the Office of Contract Administration at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority as soon as possible.

Bids are due August 5th, 2009 at 10:30 a.m.,
address: John T. Driscoll Building, 668 South Avenue, Weston,MA.

The Turnpike Bid offer  is valued at $1.8 mil.

poof!

a road well traveled

CompuServe enabled black online entrepreneurs  in Atlanta, Boston and Detroit to monetize their passionate interests in black community online social networking well before the Internet reached mass appeal and this is an accounting of how it  happened.

It was -14 degrees outside in Washington D.C when the female African American mayor was captured in a photograph by the Washington Post driving a snow plow through the streets.  We were inside warm offices negotiating.  Our collaboration  with nationwide Afronet BBS sysops,  Congressional Black Caucus members and attendees of a Department of Commerce  conference about  blacks on the new Information Superhighway,  had created an opportunity to join people who operated independent African American online properties with an established publisher who welcomed the chance to build something together. The new online project was named GO AFRO.

>>(Jul 8, 2009) – Network World magazine reports that the granddaddy of the online industry, CompuServe, has been closed down by its parent AOL as of July , 2009, after 30 years in operation… full story <<

###

(1995) The Museum of Afro-American history on Beacon Hill at 20 Joy Street had an online history moment “first” when its director, a Ms  Sylvia Mckinley approved content for use on  CompuServe’s Go Afro social networking forum.

Boston’s Kenny Granderson, the founder of Blackfacts.com, was actively working his magic  in Go Afro.  He also had bought the domain names roxbury.org, mattapan.org and dorchester.org and was publishing online while meeting with the City of Boston about possibilities to collaborate.   One project was in  association with banks installing  kiosk-driven screens  in their locations containing  digital Black Boston history. That story was  televised by Karen Holmes of Channel 5’s CityLine because the content was written in a book published by  historian Robert Hayden of Boston’s South End.  more details…

The Internet was bare of Black destinations for people who surfed online to go places and discover the world at the time.  We searched the CompuServe network for the word “Afro and African American” only to find references to Grolier’s encyclopedia at the time. CompuServe had over 2 million active members and  hundreds of connected social sections. We didn’t see any black operated ones. BostonMurrell co-produced the GO AFRO Compuserve venue  on behalf of American Visions magazine, a world-wide magazine  featuring  Afro-American culture and arts. American Visions was  the official magazine of the African American Museums Association when CompuServe partnered to launch its content online.

Clinton was the President of the United States as the project was  unfolding. A new President of Haiti was being elected. Musician Greg Osby was gigging at Wally’s Cafe and signed copies of CDs distributed to online members of Go Afro.  Boxer Joe Frazier, actress Pam Grier, and author Connie Briscoe’s (“Sisters and Lovers”) were forum interview guests.  George Curry published Emerge Magazine and appeared to chat online audience twice.   The  USA Today newspaper  publicized  Go Afro online events nationwide.

To get it going, BostonMurrell hired Boston’s Roxbury Media Institute founder to assist with writing copy for 18 GO AFRO online introductory areas. The approved material and the upload of 8 years of digitized material from the magazine  launched Go Afro’s online debut. It was one of the  first significant revenue generating online destination for anyone that appreciates Afro-American culture and the arts, and was in direct competition with AOL’s NetNoir online venue.  AOL had invested $500,000 to get NetNoir off the ground. CompuServe’s investment was the partnership agreement to join its system and their  international media marketing machine was thrown in.  Go Afro revenue came from connection fees and people had to pay to get there.

The competition for black online  mind share was an all-out war.  Analysts predicted  GO AFRO could generate a million dollars in gross revenue and it did.  Revenue splits were pushed out to the sponsor and CompuServe retained most of it. The rest  covered staff hours and funded offline networking meetings with members in different states.

This writer went to a member meeting in DC and 60 people were there from across the United States.  Participants  dropped  thousands of consumer dollars on the host city.  Staff were a mix of volunteers who were expert in their respective areas. Most resided in the US while one, the leader of the Music section,  lived in the United Kingdom.

CompuServe was charging for access and people didn’t mind paying.  GO AFRO had  registered 35,000 paying subscribers, managed 600,000 personal communications and  CompuServe distributed a Go Afro team produced “Museums without Walls” multimedia CD ROM to its three million subscribers nationwide in recognition of the importance of Black history, art and culture in America for free.

CompuServe was the home of GO AFRO – the world’s first online revenue producing crowd sourced destination for everyone  who appreciated African-American culture, worldwide.

This post is a tribute to CompuServe and a thank you to American Visions magazine ( I hope all of you are doing well).

Online content creators  seeking to monetize their time online have it harder now.  The game has changed.

CompuServe  put revenue in the hands of content creators and 15% of the proceeds was not unusual.  ISPs and Search Engines are still getting paid from people surfing the net.  The ISPs ( Comcast, Verizon, etc.) will share revenue with a few content producers but not many.  Google banks $21 billion a year from displaying ads during search activity while a tiny amount is shared with content creators.

poof!

savers have a briefcase full of dough

Got to wonder if an article  like this http://tinyurl.com/mvozfj (“As weekly paper closes, black community loses a voice: Bay State Banner falls victim to the downturn,”  Boston Globe, June 8 2009) will excite  the saver putting money in a savings account at-a-rate-like-no-other-time-in-history,   enough to pull out some to invest in the Boston Banner?

What will they want to know more to do it and is that explained adequately in the article? Probably not!

Tomorrow, the Banner will likely update BostonBanner.com with more relevant information about their financial situation.

Used to be that Boston banks who loan money to local businesses to cover receivables and such wanted to see $2 in current cash assets for every $1 of the credit line requested, but perhaps times have changed all that.

Media mongul Rupert Murdoch was quoted recently as saying “newspapers have to charge more for content.”  This is probably right, but then again, his Myspace interactive media property has had huge layoffs recently and the digerati on Techcrunch.com are saying their comeback against FaceBook is next to impossible, even though Myspace revenue from digital sales stretches towards $500 million a year gross.

So what could the average  Boston Banner reader say to help save the Banner?  They could say “no more free newspapers, charge us and we’ll pay.”  Could be a lesson to be learned considering….

If the Boston Banner closes (let’s hope it doesn’t) there will be a slew of minority-culture  indie  publications attempting to  its place.   I do mean “print”  like sheets of paper, not web sites.

Black media web sites in Boston aren’t  newspapers but a lot of people read them.  The Boston Black web cloud is free from the constraints of journalism theory, although they have learned a few tricks from journalists and reporters.

Predictions on possibilities:

Consider  Color Magazine -  they could take on an expansion to capture some of the print territory the Banner leaves behind if they can handle that financially.  The publication is distributed on the street now and in many locations their boxes sit  right beside the Banner’s.  To do so may encourge them to drop the word “magazine” from their title, print less glossy pages and scratch the word “[diversity] as in  hire-me-I’m colored” from their masthead.

Consider  Unity First, a newspaper/magazine that been going strong for at least 20 years. They have a good audience and had roots in Boston.

Can’t leave this post  without mentioning the Dorchester Reporter newspaper.  DR already covers topics  found in the Banner and its a great paper.

Then there is the unique Black Bostonian newspaper which has its own tribe  and voice… The El Planeta / Boston Latino   media orgs – any of these could become players, but will they?

Probably the best possible outcome for continuing operations at the Banner  is to influence a saver, not the VCs, to jump into the pop and help it break through. So saver, when you do it, take away that word “free” on the Banner’s header  and put a price on it.

Boston will pay for the Banner, I think.

Franklin Park entrance that once stood

The power of words.

Candelaria Silva Mourns the Banner in the article “Bay State Banner Suspends Publication – Say-it-ain’t so” read full story on her blog.

Excerpt: >>>  There is simply no one to replace what the Banner has done.<<

Ditto , that’s exactly how we feel.
Hurry back Banner.

The Color Purple musical  left Boston a few days ago and is on its way to another venue now.

Here’s what some people had to say who saw it.

“..it was amazing and Im glad that they are involved with the Black community. I know I got a notice that the YPN would be having a The Color Purple night and they would be going early and meeting that cast (something I would have loved to do), but all in all that show was AMAZING, and…My friend and I had a really enjoyable evening.“
#

“… it was such a wonderful show, my mom and I enjoyed it was such a great musical. I think it will do very well here in Boston there is a buzz already.”
#

“It was great. ..my daughter and her friend says the seats were great and the play was ‘FANTASTIC’”
#

from the Dorchester Reporter – DOTNEWS
http://www.dotnews.com/2009/arts-coalition-treats-hundreds-color-purple-citi-center

Arts coalition treats hundreds to “The Color Purple” at Citi center

“I would go back again, and again, and again if I could!” exclaims Cindy Reed, one of scores of Dorchester residents who received free tickets for the June 16th Community Night performance of “The Color Purple,” the hit “musical about love….”

Boston Bay State Banner
http://www.baystatebanner.com/arts41-2009-06-11
Boston Banner newspaper
#

White Rhino Report
http://whiterhinoreport.blogspot.com/2009/06/color-purple-limited-time-in-boston.html

Our visit to the theater last night was a triple treat. We saw a terrific performance of a fabulous show. I got to spend the entire Fathers’ Day with my first-born. And the piece de resistance: Ti and I sat next to a fascinating and accomplished actress, Miquel Brown, who is in town shooting a film.
#

Third-Decade
http://third_decade.typepad.com/killing_time/2009/06/the-color-purplerecommended.html

Despite the heavy storyline, the musical is full of life, light, and humor; I didn’t expect to laugh and be moved as much as I was. The entire cast was great and presented solid singing, dancing, and acting, although the woman who plays Sophie stole the show.
#

Soul Train’s Don Cornelius moment was a highlight, I think.  Later, as the Ojay’s stretched out, you could see the younger artists taking notes and learning some new things from watching them perform.

Imagine the pressure BET producers  must have been under to change plans so quickly and come back with a nice tribute to Michael Jackson’s legacy within two short days.   Add in the humanitarian segments and the Jacksons appearances and it was all good.

Jay-Z’s statement song about  auto-tune philosphy added an interesting twist.  That song  reminded me of what one of Michael Jackson’s producers had said during one of the many CNN / Larry King Live reports.  Michael had asked the producer “why can’t we make a new musical instrument and use that.”

Interesting thought!