Yes, it’s true. It’s called Blackbird (powered by Mozilla) and it was designed by African Americans for African Americans (kind of like FUBU). The free browser was developed with these Pew Internet 2004 findings in mind: “(1) there are 20 million African Americans online who need tools to build and foster community now more than ever, (2) 85% of African Americans prefer online news and information from the Black perspective, and (3) African Americans are twice as likely to be among the first to discover new trends and use advanced technology compared to the general population.”
Blackbird’s goal is to make it easier for black people to find African American news and relevant content online, interact with members of the African American community, share stories and comments, and watch videos through the browser. The video section features content from online TV sites like DigitalSoulTV, NSNewsTV, UptownLiveTV and ComedyBanksTV. To me, the best part of the browser idea is the ‘Give Back’ program, which gives donations to several nonprofit organizations. Blackbird also plans to give ten percent of its 2009 revenues to their nonprofit partners, which seems pretty generous.
This browser opens up an interesting conversation around “what is black content?” Is the content provider black? Or is it content written with black people in mind? And by the way, who is considered black? Will content by and for people of multi-ethnic and bi-racial backgrounds be included? Hmmm..
In addition to the questions surrounding a “black browser,” I’m not entirely convinced black people needed a “separate” black browser. (Maybe I just love my Firefox one.)Â Who knows? It might be just what my life was missing.
Tags: african american, black, Blackbird, browser, ComedyBanksTV, content, DigitalSoulTV, firefox, giving back, Mozilla, NSNewsTV, Pew Internet, UptownLiveTV
I truly don’t understand the need for a Black Browser. Are they trying to develop a social networking site to compete with sites like BlackPlanet and BlackVoices? I see they are trying to take advantage of a perceived niche but you can’t just lump all black folk into a bucket and call it a niche. Just because you tag something as “Black” doesn’t mean black people will flock to it.
has the browser been entirely programmed by black people? because if there’s a single white person on the staff then it’s bogus.
honestly, i don’t understand the need to segregate ourselves from the rest of society because of the color of our skin. isn’t that what our ancestors fought against?