AsianAve or Asian Avenue was a

social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

that focused on

Asian Americans Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

. The platform was shut down and the URL now redirects to its sister site,

BlackPlanet BlackPlanet is an African-American social networking service for matchmaking and job postings; it also has forums for discussion on political and social issues. BlackPlanet was launched on September 1, 2001 by Omar Wasow, an Internet analyst, wh ...

History

Originally named AsianAvenue (or Asian Avenue), the site was launched on July 21, 1997 by co-founders Benjamin Sun, Peter Chen, Grace Chang, Michael Montero, and Calvin Wong. By 1998, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' described it as "unusually successful" despite being "run out of an apartment", having hit five million page views from 50,000 users. Members were politically active, protesting an

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

headline for the

1998 Winter Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 ( ja, 長野1998), was a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Japan, with some events taking place in the ...

reading "American beats out Kwan", referring to U.S. Olympic teammates

Tara Lipinski Tara Kristen Lipinski (born June 10, 1982) is an American former competitive figure skater, actress, sports commentator and documentary film producer. A former competitor in women's singles, she is the 1998 Olympic champion, the 1997 World ...

and

Michelle Kwan Michelle Wingshan Kwan (born July 7, 1980) is a retired competitive figure skater and diplomat serving as United States Ambassador to Belize. In figure skating Kwan is a two-time Olympic medalist (silver in 1998, bronze in 2002), a five-time W ...

. In 1999, members protested an ad for

SKYY vodka SKYY vodka is an American vodka spirit produced by the Campari America division of Campari Group of Milan, Italy, formerly SKYY Spirits LLC. SKYY Vodka is 40% ABV or 80 proof, except in Australia and New Zealand where it is 37.5% ABV / 75 Proo ...

showing a partly dressed white woman being served by a woman in a

Mandarin dress ''Cheongsam'' (, ), also known as the ''qipao'' () and sometimes referred to as the mandarin gown, is a Chinese dress worn by women which takes inspiration from the , the ethnic clothing of the Manchu people. The cheongsam is most often see ...

and

chopstick Chopsticks ( or ; Pinyin: ''kuaizi'' or ''zhu'') are shaped pairs of equal-length sticks of Chinese origin that have been used as kitchen and eating utensils in most of East and Southeast Asia for over three millennia. They are held in the ...

s in her hair, which the protesters said perpetuated racial stereotypes. After some 300 postings on Asian Avenue were forwarded to SKYY, the company agreed to stop using the ad. The site received over 70,000 unique visitor hits in August 2000. At its peak, there were over 2 million users with more than 5000 online at any time. Robert X. Cringely claimed in 2000 that Asian Avenue had more members than

, a Community Connect sister site.

Fine Line Features Fine Line Features (often spelled as FineLine Features) was the specialty films division of New Line Cinema. From 1991 to 2005, under founder and president Ira Deutchman, Fine Line acquired, distributed and marketed films of a more "indie" flavor ...

chose the site for an exclusive interview with Chinese

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

star

Yao Ming Yao Ming (; born September 12, 1980) is a Chinese basketball executive and former professional player. He played for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Associat ...

to promote its documentary '' The Year of the Yao''. One writer characterized it "mainly an Internet dating site" In 2003,

Darrell Hamamoto Darrell Y. Hamamoto is an American writer, academic, and specialist in U.S. media and ethnic studies. He was a scholar of Asian American media and professor for almost 23 years at the University of California, Davis before retiring in 2018. Educ ...

used an interview on the site to attract male talent for his adult film ''Skin to Skin'', using the "unheard of" pairing of an Asian-American male performer with Asian-American woman. At one point the site made various previously free features available only to premium users, which hurt the site's popularity. On October 31, 2005 the website relaunched the social network features. As of April 2007, there were 1.4 million registered users with fewer than 100 online at any given time. Partners include party promoters (Synergy), film festivals (

Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is a charitable cultural film festival organization located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that advocates Asian representations through media arts. Works include films and videos by East Asia, Southea ...

, Asian American International Film Festival), media (AngryAsianMan.com, AZN TV) and many more. Music artists, such as

Notorious MSG Notorious MSG is a performing trio of Asian American hip hop music, rappers founded in 2002 in Chinatown, Manhattan, Chinatown, Manhattan, New York City. Their songs are parodies of gangster rap mixed with Asian American culture, featuring lyri ...

, Far*East Movement, and Magnetic North have gained popularity from their exposure on AsianAve.com. In 2010,

Monster.com Monster.com is a global employment website owned and operated by Monster Worldwide, Inc. It was created in 1999 through the merger of The Monster Board (TMB) and Online Career Centre (OCC). It is a subsidiary of Randstad Holding, a Dutch mult ...

announced a co-branded partnership with Asian Avenue. Based on a small questionnaire members filled out when signing up for a membership, Monster generated a list of potential job openings and interests, which was displayed after users signed into AsianAvenue. In October 2007, U.S. presidential candidate

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

created profiles on AsianAve as well as sister sites

MiGente.com MiGente.com was an online social-networking site specifically targeting the Hispanic community. It was launched in 2000. Its former parent company, Community Connect Inc., claimed that MiGente.com was the fastest growing English language site fo ...

and

Glee.com GLEE.com was a social networking site geared toward the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. The site was launched in February 2007 by Community Connect Inc. Community Connect was acquired by RadioOne Inc (now Urban One) in 2008. ...

. AsianAvenue allowed users to see who visited their profiles, in contrast to

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

, where browsing is entirely private. Members can view a list of members that have looked at their site on their main profile page. The site was shut down and the URL is now redirected to its sister site,

References

External links

Official website
{{Online social networking Defunct social networking services Companies based in New York City Asian-American mass media 1997 establishments in New York City American companies established in 1997