All of us here at United Black America hope everyone has experienced a smooth transition into 2012. This year promises to be productive for us with the implementation of some lessons learned, as well as with a growing ground force capable of experimenting with and implementing some of the tools and techniques we have discussed in the past (see this and this).
So today marks the first day that we return to business as usual. The first week of every New Year is spent analyzing the successes and failures of the previous year, and conceptualizing solutions to move forward. Here are the 4 key areas in need of improvement that we have identified with our online presence, and what we will do to make sure you get as much value as possible from this site:
1. Connect with Black businesses online, and connect them to each other to build commercial relationships.
Not only will we develop a platform that connects Black businesses online, we will create new ways of measuring how productive these systems actually are in dollars.
2. Redesign United Black America Online to improve readability, navigation, and multimedia support.
United Black America began as a blog, but has grown into a website. In response to our growth, we will upgrade our theme and layout to put everything you are looking for within two clicks’ reach. No more hunting through the archives for a particular site, or digging through long lists of book titles. We will make it easy to surf United Black America’s articles, start and contribute to conversations via interactive forums, upload videos and photos, and support Black entrepreneurs online!
3. Produce unique and professionally designed multimedia in-house whenever possible.
Thus far, we have been using audio, images and videos from third-party sites. We will begin transitioning away from using other peoples ish and start using our own whenever possible. H2 Communications has done a lot of great work for individuals and organizations alike (including the Muhammad Ali Center), and has joined our team – so if you need multimedia work, or an expanded presence online, check them out here.
4. Improve the infrastructure and performance of the site.
Problems like slow load times, down times, spam in the comments section and bad graphics pisses everyone off, so we have upgraded our server, installed some new spam filters, cleaned up stretched-out images, and hired two more virtual assistants to catch problems before you do. We are serious about what we do, both online and offline, and that commitment should show though our site.
United Black America Online has seen some record months in the last part of 2011, thanks to you! If you have any suggestions that we should add to our list above, please let us know in the comments section!
Also, if you are a Black business or service provider and can help us achieve any of these goals, we would love to work with you! Use the comment form below and let us know what you do, what you charge, and how we can get in touch!
As the webmaster for the site, I personally thank each and every visitor that comes to learn and share for the purpose of unifying the Pan African diaspora. We need MORE resources like this site online to spur the next generation of warriors into action!
Peace!
-Asad
P.S. I think we have given enough voice to those racist comments, so hence forth their comments will be moderated. If you want to find out whats on the mind of the typical white man or woman, check out their comments here.
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