Blackvoices.com is an American historical website. The entity appeared on the internet in 1995. According to Streetroachpics.com, Blackvoices.com first appeared as a link on the ''
Orlando Sentinel
The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is the primary newspaper of Orlando, Florida, and the Central Florida region. It was founded in 1876 and is currently owned by Tribune Publishing Company.
The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is owned by parent company, '' Tribune P ...
'' website. Barry Cooper was the founder.
History
Early on, website received a five million-dollar investment from
Tribune Company
Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...
, the parent company of the ''Orlando Sentinel''. From there, Blackvoices.com grew and eventually gained over a million registered users. Later, the site was sold to
AOL-Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
. Although the site had content targeted towards
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
culture, the site was no longer black-owned.
At its peak, Blackvoices.com was structured with news articles, a
messageboard
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
, and
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
s. Users had to be a member of
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017â ...
to join the site.
In October 2000,
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
announced a multimillion-dollar three-year deal to advertise on the site.
"General Motors Corp. and BlackVoices.com form 3-year strategic marketing alliance."
''Indianapolis Recorder''. October 13, 2000.
Some members were upset with the sale of Blackvoices.com from Tribune to AOL and then from AOL to ''The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
''. Although under AOL the messageboard stayed intact with some changes, ''The Huffington Post'' has removed the messageboard.
References
Additional sources
* Manor, Robert (February 13, 2004)
“AOL acquires Tribune Co.'s BlackVoices Internet site.”
''Chicago Tribune''.
* Lazaroff, Leon (December 20, 2003)
''Chicago Tribune''.
* Wilde, Candee (February 7, 2000). ttp://www.informationweek.com/772/recruit2.htm “Recruiters Discover Diverse Value In Web Sites".''Information Week Magazine'', pp. 2–3.
July 11, 2005, ''The Washington Post''.
* Hawkins Jr., Lee (October 13, 1997).[http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=MWSB&p_theme=mwsb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB82AFA279F4A52&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM “Black Voices heard on the Web: Lack of competition helps fuel growth of service for African-Americans.”] ''Journal Sentinel''.
“BET and Partners to Launch Black-oriented Portal with a $35 Million Investment, BET.com Aims to Attract One of the Fastest -Growing Segments of Online Users.”
August 13, 1999. ''Philadelphia Inquirer''. {{Paywall
External links
Official website
Barry Cooper, founder of blackvoices
History websites of the United States