BlackPlanet
Social networking service
title: "BlackPlanet" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["african-american-mass-media", "companies-based-in-new-york-city", "internet-properties-established-in-1999", "1999-establishments-in-new-york-city", "african-american-culture"] description: "Social networking service" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackPlanet" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Social networking service ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox company"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Blackplanet.com |
| logo | Black planet logo.jpg |
| owner | Urban One |
| type | Social networking company |
| foundation | 1999 |
| founder | Benjamin Sun |
| Omar Wasow | |
| location_city | 205 Hudson Street, 6th Floor |
| New York, New York | |
| location_country | USA |
| location | |
| locations | |
| homepage | |
| :: |
| name = Blackplanet.com | logo = Black planet logo.jpg | owner = Urban One | type = Social networking company | foundation = 1999 | founder = Benjamin Sun Omar Wasow | location_city = 205 Hudson Street, 6th Floor New York, New York | location_country = USA | location = | locations = | homepage =
BlackPlanet is an African-American social networking service for matchmaking and job postings. The company website also contains forums for discussion of political and social issues.
BlackPlanet was launched by internet analyst Omar Wasow on September 1, 1999. Wasow had previously created a pre-web community dubbed New York Online in 1993 with Community Connect's CEO, Benjamin Sun.
Company
The website is run by Community Connect of New York City, which also owns AsianAvenue.com and MiGente.com. In April 2008, Community Connect and its constituent websites were purchased for $38 million by Radio One, a Lanham-based media company.
BlackPlanet states its broader mission is to strengthen the Black community.
Website
The most popular forums on BlackPlanet were Current Events, Heritage & Identity, Relationships, Religion & Spirituality, and Women. According to Wasow, BlackPlanet's home-grown software encouraged social connection rather than passive content consumption, allowing users to move between personal pages and a variety of message boards. BlackPlanet hosted more than 6 million unique visitors per month in 2008.
Wasow went so far as to claim that ::quote The guys who started Myspace were quoted in Business Week magazine saying that they looked at BlackPlanet as a model for Myspace and thought there was an opportunity to do a general market version of what BlackPlanet was. ::
However, by 2011, usage had begun to fall off, and BlackPlanet was no longer among the top 15 social networks, according to eBizMBA. Observers began to suggest that the demise of the social network appeared imminent as "BlackPlanet [fell] to the wayside," replaced by other networks that started to "take up the social network mantle."
Mobile applications
BlackPlanet introduced a free mobile app in 2009 called BlackPlanetMobile. BlackPlanet Text Alerts also became available to alert users of updates and notifications.
BlackPlanet also developed two interactive games for users, Farmandia and Fishdom.
Farmandia's similarities to Facebook's Farmville did not go unnoticed by BlackPlanet users, who pointed out the need for improvement of the site's infrastructure and principal features such as user chat rather than the introduction of games.
Lawsuit
In October 2011, an anonymous model filed a federal lawsuit against BlackPlanet.com regarding a 2007 incident in which she was drugged and raped by two men who met the woman through the website. The two men (40-year-old Lavont Flanders, Jr. and 45-year-old Emerson Callum) were convicted by a federal jury in Miami in December 2011 of multiple sex-related and conspiracy charges and were sentenced to life in prison. The woman alleges that BlackPlanet.com "failed to warn women about the dangers of sexual predators". The site's parent company told the Miami Herald it "vehemently" denies the allegations.
In the press
In 2007, BlackPlanet was featured in the press when the Pentagon banned it, as well as other sites, on the U.S. Department of Defense network in order to free up bandwidth, suggesting high usage levels.
BlackPlanet Rising
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/BPRlogo.png"] ::
BlackPlanet Rising is a BlackPlanet users community project set up by the website to encourage community support and services by its members. As part of their mission they aim to motivate and involve individuals to participate in civic engagement.
BlackPlanet Rising's Giving page via DonorsChoose had reached $11,023 donated by 36 donors, reaching 5,190 students in April 2011.
Volunteers
BlackPlanet Rising's VolunteerMatch site matches user's locations with volunteer opportunities in their area. They quote Barack Obama's election as President as a call for users to "bring a new energy and agenda to our country".
Riser of the Month
The BlackPlanet Rising community campaign has identified a "Riser of the Month" since September 2010. These are often political and social advocates, and community activists who support the African-American community. The website contains a feature article on the individual chosen each month. Risers of the Month include:
- Janks Morton – March 2011
- Kevin Powell – February 2011
- Mike Oxlittle – January 2011
- Oni Joseph – November 2010
- Ryan Mack – October 2010
- George L. Cook III – September 2010
References
References
- "Blackplanet.com".
- Corcoran, Cate R.. (2004-04-01). "BlackPlanet's Universe". Stanford Magazine.
- "BlackPlanet". App Appeal.
- Byrne, D. N.. (2008). "Public Discourse, Community concerns and Civic Engagement: Exploring Black Social Networking Traditions on BlackPlanet.com". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.
- "BlackPlanet on Twitter".
- (2011-03-23). "BlackPlanet's founder talks MySpace, why he was sceptical of Twitter, and if Facebook may have peaked". Complex.
- (2009-03-19). "BlackPlanet gets an upgrade, Introduces Status Updates". Black Web 2.0.
- "2 convicted in Fla. Of filming rapes for porn | ajc.com".
- "2 get life for drugging, raping women in Miramar warehouse for porn". Palm Beach Post.
- (25 October 2011). "Model Files Suit Against BlackPlanet.com, Men Who Allegedly Drugged and Raped Her". Miami New Times.
- "Chicago - Chicago : News : Politics : Things To Do : Sports". Chicago Sun-Times.
- (9 August 2007). "Pentagon defends move to block websites".
- "BlackPlanet Rising - Mission".
- BlackPlanet Rising. "Donate".
- BlackPlanet Rising. "BlackPlanet Rising VolunteerMatch".
- BlackPlanet Rising. "Risers of the Month".
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