Alright, alright, put your light sabers down. Yoda, Jabba, have a seat. The force that I am talking about is the ever-growing blogsphere. My reference to “dark” describes the increasing amount of blacks that are getting on the blogsphere.

I can remember back in the day when the Internet was just catching on, I was immediately captivated by what could be considered as the pre-blogsphere: Newsgroups. The fact that I could have an almost instant conversation with someone half-way around the world was just overwhelming to me. At the time, I was living in South Jersey, but I worked as an engineer in North Jersey (my commute was about 50-54 miles one way). A buddy of mine in the software group in the company I was with at the time “hooked a brotha up” by configuring my Sun Workstation to get on the Internet. The web at that time was not fully developed, but the Newsgroup world was alive and kicking. Now that I am no longer employed with that company, I think it is now safe for me to admit that I would spend hours of my free time on the job conversing with people of various backgrounds and ideologies. At one point, I even took a Saturday (my day off) to drive the 50+ miles to my job just to access these newsgroups (pretty pathetic, huh?).

But on second though, maybe I wasn’t that crazy (okay, maybe a little). What I realized at that time was that the Internet was going to be revolutionary–and I wanted to be a part of it. I see the blogsphere almost in the same fashion.

Blogs have already proven themselves to be an invaluable tool in the world of political thought. Arguably, it was the blogsphere that played a crucial role in the outcome of this recent election. For the first time in many years, the voice of the people (not big media) was once again making the difference in the future direction of this country. This is why the blogsphere holds such great potential for the black community.

The New Black Press?

When I started this blog (www.blackinformant.com) back in August of last year, I was very hard-pressed to find many black blogs. Today, I am beginning to see the landscape begin to look more like the ‘hood in a good way. Now don’t get me wrong, we are still the minority (even here in cyberspace), but to see this kind of growth in such a short period of time is quite impressive as far as I am concerned.

Just as the blogsphere in general has rocked big news organizations like CBS, Reuters, etc., I truly believe that we will begin to see the same thing happening to many black publications. No, I am not just talking about some witch-hunt on what black newscaster is “coloring” the news that he/she is reporting. Instead, what I have noticed is that unlike many online black news publications, the blogsphere in general is updated daily where black news sites like blackpressusa.com appear to have a longer lag-time refreshing their content.

Blackpressusa.com serves as the sole web portal to the vast majority of black-owned newspapers that are still in existence today. Due to reasons such as staffing, finances, and other much needed resources, most of our nation’s black-owned newspapers are only able to function as a weekly or monthly (unfortunately, to compete in today’s rapid pace of the information superhighway, information need to be dispensed at a much faster rate if you are to survive in the newspaper sector). For more current and up to date news, many black Americans have turned to their local daily news sources such as radio, tv, newspapers, and most importantly, the Internet. This is where the usefulness of blogs comes in.

As you know, in the blogsphere you will find sites that will provide news and commentary on a daily basis. In addition, on many blogs the readers are able to interact with the source of the posted material as well as with other readers. No longer will black Americans who want to stay up-to-date on current events from a black perspective have to wait a week or so to hear the thoughts and opinions from others in our community. As you can imagine, this capability alone places great pressure on the current black newspaper industry.

So do you believe that black newspapers will become obsolete?

Without becoming a daily operation, I just cannot see how black newspapers can gain any additional ground in the media industry (and as you know, in the world of media, if you are not gaining ground, you are loosing it). Perhaps a wise move would be to consolidate resources so that the best possible product is made available to their readers.

The reason why I specifically call out newspapers is because typically magazines have built their readership on a monthly basis. So magazines like Ebony, Jet, Savoy, Black Enterprise, Source, Vibe, etc. although not immune to the ever-changing current of the Internet, I believe have established themselves as permanent fixtures on the black media landscape. I will add, however, that black-oriented magazines need to continue to develop their web presence. It is simply not enough to have a website. Based on my observations, these publications are definitely on the right track with this point.

Blogs: More than just news

Up to this point, I have pretty much been talking about blogs as it relates to current event news. More and more, I believe that we are going to see blogs that have very little to do with politics and more about everyday lifestyles. Even now, you can find blogs that deal with travel, hobbies, sports, technology, personal growth and support, religion, music, and so much more. This “diversity” in the blogsphere is already beginning to happen amongst black-oriented blogs (Black history: Black History Quiz, Technology: Blackhacker, Travel: ugogurl.com, Sports: CoachSpeak, News: BookerRising, Literature: African-American Literature. Also check out the Black Bloggers Association for a much larger snapshot of the growing black blogsphere )

The road ahead for the black blogsphere

I personally believe that as this growth continues amongst blacks making the decision to establish “residence” in the blogsphere, we will begin to see more of us begin to experiment with such innovative trends such as podcasting (podcasting simply refers to the ability to record audio content and make it available for users to download this same content into their portable mp3 players).

So think about this for a moment, you as the end-user now have the ability to download audio content such as interviews, news and sports updates, commentary, sermons, etc. to your personal mp3 player. Combine that data with your own unique style of music and you have just about eliminated the need for that radio station you normally listen to on your drive to work. With the right software (prices falling everyday) you as the owner of your blog now have the ability to compose 5, 10, 20, 60+ minute audio programming for your readers. This is a way that the blogsphere is making itself “mobile” for its readers. Could you imagine being able to go to websites like Vibe.com, Blackenterprise.com, Ebony.com, etc. and downloading their audio content (be it interviews, short stories, commentaries, etc.)? Again, why would you need radio. Think of it as radio-on-demand that you customize. The only thing that would be missing would be traffic updates, but the technology is already in place for cell phone owners to get real-time GPS information right at the palm of their hands.

So as you can see, the road ahead for the black blogsphere look very promising and exciting. Who would have ever thought that the vision of Frederick Douglass to keep black folks informed with his newspaper The North Star would evolve into something like this?

It was his newspaper along with all the other black periodicals that followed that laid the groundwork for black-oriented information to be distributed on a wide scale. Now it is up to us to take their dreams to keep blacks informed to the next level.

Welcome to the black blogsphere!!!