final paper rev5.doc

Walter Mosley BlackPlanet.com Nathan Parham

I. INTRODUCTION

Black Planet and Offline Social Groupings

In addition to the varying interests or hobbies of those within the black community,

offline social issues also affect Black Planet members. Within the black race, as within

any race, there is a wide range of diversity in thought, religion, political beliefs, and

social morality.

The history of oppression that blacks have experienced in America has contributed to a

fragmentation in the black community based most prominently on class and gender,

among other things, that have created a constellation of social groupings in the offline

black community. For example, after the civil rights movement and subsequent

integration, there has been a trend to move out of predominately black urban

neighborhoods to predominately white suburban neighborhoods leading to a tension

between the relatively new integrated black middle class and the poor urban lower class

(Alkalimat & Williams, 2000). The result of the fragmentation in the black community is

what West (1999) describes as nihilism or a lack of sense of self. Black Planet provides

an opportunity for people with access to the Internet in these fragmented social groups to

negotiate their offline black identity in America in the online environment with other

black people. As one member commented, “how else can you just start randomly talking

with someone.”


Black Planet as a Third Place

The fact that Black Planet attracts people on the basis that they can have informal

interactions with others appears to mean that offline society does not fully satisfy

members’ human need for social interaction. For years, black churches and barbershops

have served as social institutions in which people could meet as equals and build informal

relationships with each other (Harris-Lacewell, 2001). However, although it is not clear

whether there has been a decline in church attendance in black communities, Putnam

(2000) presents evidence that nationwide church attendance has been on the decline for

decades. Regardless, the problem could be that the church or barbershop are not truly

sufficient for social interaction to begin with and too focused on carrying out a task

(cutting hair or worshipping) instead of purely relaxing.

Oldenburg (1989) speaks to the lack of informal public gathering places where people

can gather to dialogue and experience positive social interactions free of their roles at

home and at work. Third places, as Oldenburg describes them in his book The Great

Good Place, are an essential part of a triumverate of personal life institutions that also

includes home and work. Although many European countries still emphasize the

importance of the third place, Americans have become so fascinated with their own

personal lives that they no longer value the third place. The result is a society that uses

the highest percentage of mental health medicines in the world (Oldenburg, 1989).

Nevertheless, the human desire for informal social interaction still drives people to look

for third places and in their absence, Americans have replaced the third place with a

stronger desire for privacy and material possessions. Our argument is that Black Planet


may be a new type of online third place that allows people to meet, dialogue, and build

important social bonds that have become lost in American society.

Oldenburg characterizes the third place as having many key aspects related to the role it

plays in the community, the roles people play within its boundaries, and the activities that

people within the third place pursue. First of all, the third place provides a neutral ground

where people can comfortably come and go as they please and not be subject to rules or

social roles. Consequently, a third place is also a leveler or a place where there is no set

criteria for inclusion and people have the power to choose their associates based common

interests instead of just physical proximity as in work or at home.

Third, enjoyable and relaxing conversation is the main activity on the third place. Fourth,

a third place must be accommodating to the people that patronize it, in that there are not

scheduled meeting times for conversation and people can come at times that are

convenient for them. Fifth, regulars drive the activity in the third place and give the place

its character. Sixth the mood of the third place is playful, setting a social norm of

inclusion and entertainment, even at the expense of others. Lastly, and perhaps most

importantly, the third place is a home away from home in which people can come, relax,

and feel as though they are among friends. Black Planet fits Oldenburg’s characterization

and thus the third place is a good framework within which to understand Black Planet,

although the online nature of Black Planet slightly separates it from the traditional third

place.


The Online Bar Scene

Just as Oldenburg used English pubs, German bier gartens and classic small town

American bars to illustrate the character of the third place, we believe that Black Planet is

also much like a bar scene, but an online bar scene. The main difference between the

online bar of Black Planet and an offline bar, such as that depicted on the popular TV

show “Cheers”, is the lack of physical presence online. Oldenburg (1989) says regulars

give the atmosphere character by coming in and initiating lively conversations. However,

on Black Planet, we will show that regulars not only have a lesser role in starting

conversation, but also aren’t even identified as regulars by the other members of the

community as a whole. As a result, each person can set their own “tempo” while

interacting with the community.

The lack of awareness of an individual’s participation by the community also leads to an

environment where members are able to interact with each other but still maintain a level

of privacy that is not possible in physical interactions, if they choose. Oldenburg (1989)

explains that as a result of the lack of third places in society, Americans have retreated to

their private places and place an increasingly exaggerated value on their privacy.

Therefore, we will show that Black Planet provides a third place environment where

people can interact on a very deep level yet maintain their privacy. We also believe that

unlike other online communities where people may manufacture identities to play with,

Black Planet members are more interested in meeting people based upon their real world

personalities and interests although other fringe aspects of their identity may change.

People also bring their online social norms of interaction with them, although they do


have to learn how to find their niche on Black Planet prior to exercising social

interaction.

Almost every member uses Black Planet as a source of social entertainment where they

can meet people based on common interests and compatible personality traits outside of

the restrictions of the physical world. In the hectic pace of the real world, two people

might not immediately realize that the person walking by them is reading the same book

and buying the same music without extensive conversation; an online medium such as

Black Planet not only facilitates the transfer of that knowledge, but makes it much easier

to make those connections. In a society in which black people sometimes feel isolated in

their social environments, Black Planet becomes the one space where black people can

interact with each other for fun not because they have to, but because they choose to

enjoy each other’s company.


II. BlackPlanet.com

Company Overviewi

Figure 1

In 1996, Community Connect Inc. (CCI) president and CEO Benjamin Sun, then a

Merrill Lynch investment banker with a focus on technology companies, became

intrigued with the idea of online communities. A second-generation Asian American,

Mr. Sun particularly understood the importance of community. Combining the strong

affinity that members of ethnic groups have with the connectivity of the Web seemed a

winning combination. Hence, the initial seeds for Community Connect Inc. were planted.

Collaborating with Mr. Sun to execute and fine-tune the vision were company co-

founders Grace Chang, Mike Montero, Peter Chen and Calvin Wong. The five-person

team began to architect and roll out what would be the company's first online ethnic

community: AsianAvenue.com. CCI's approach would be to provide its site members


with tools such as free, customizable personal home pages as well as relevant news and

content. Moreover, the company would build its own proprietary software.

Community Connect Inc.'s AsianAvenue.com launched on July 21,1997 to rave reviews

from the Asian American audience it targeted. Thousands of new members registered

with the site, primarily through word-of-mouth marketing. In just six months,

AsianAvenue.com boasted more than 30,000 members. CCI had to increase staff to

handle the new site traffic and overall administration.

With the popularity of AsianAvenue.com, Community Connect Inc. was ready to expand

its roster of online communities. They choose to target other US ethnic audiences. The

African American community, a group recognized for its tremendous purchasing power

and its exploding online presence was a logical next step for the company.

The vision for an African American online community site came to fruition with the

addition of Internet entrepreneur Omar Wasow. The company launched BlackPlanet.com

in September, 1999, with Mr. Wasow leading the charge as Executive Director.

BlackPlanet.com was built around its own dedicated site team consisting of accomplished

marketing professionals, journalists and content producers - all members of the African

American community being targeted. Only a few months into its launch,

BlackPlanet.com proceeded to take off even faster than AsianAvenue.com. In just eleven

weeks after its launch, BlackPlanet.com registered more than 60,000 members and


generated over one million daily page views. The site reached one million registered

members shortly after its first year of operation.

To further expand its network, CCI launched MiGente.com (pronounced mee-Hen-te) in

October, 2000. Targeted to the growing US Latino community, MiGente.com would

follow similar paths as AsianAvenue.com and BlackPlanet.com by building dedicated

site teams to deliver content and online community features of relevance to US Latinos.

MiGente.com is growing similarly to CCI's other sites, with thousands of new members

registering each month.

Today, Community Connect Inc. is an established developer of dedicated online

communities targeted to US ethnic audiences. The company's sites, leaders in their

respective categories, have received industry accolades and media recognition. The

proprietary technology gives members the tools that enable them to form and engage in

culturally-oriented communities. More than the content, however, the sites offer

members instant communication and networking opportunities, resulting in a highly

personalized and meaningful community experience. Each one of the sites has free

personal pages, email, forums, news, chat, instant messaging, games, promotions and

online events. Members claim that the site has become an integral part of their lives,

online and offline. The New York City-based company currently has more than 100

employees.


Mission1

For the Company: To build and grow highly desirable online destinations for the

exploding population of US ethnic groups

For the Members: To provide our members with a safe and dynamic online

destination where they can voice their opinions, interact and access a world of

information and services relevant to their specific needs.

Black Planet Overview

Figure 2

1 These are the mission statements as written by Community Connected Inc.


BlackPlanet.com is an online community for the African Diaspora. The purpose of Black

Planet is to make money for its parent company, CCI. Their strategy to do this is by

facilitating user-to-user interaction through information and communication technologies

(ICTs). Members of BlackPlanet.com enjoy free e-mail, games, forums, chat, news,

instant messaging and Internet telephony, in addition to gifts, special promotions and

online events.

With the African American community now going online at more than double the rate of

the general population, BlackPlanet.com has been able to capture a large part of this

market. The site currently has over 5 million registered users and about 30,000 members

logged in at any given time.2,3 The site gets 4 times the number of hits as the Wall Street

Journal4 and was listed as the Internet’s second most “stickiest” website, with an average

user spending 34.4 minutes on the site per visit.5

2 According to a Nielson NetRatings (2001) report there are over 8.2 million African American Internet Users. According to the same report, BlackPlanet.com has about 1 million unique users of which 83% are African America. The number of unique users has more than likely increased over the past 4 months because when we started observing BlackPlanet.com the site claimed to have just over 4 million users. Currently there are well over 5 million users.3 Nielsen//NetRatings: Internet ratings report for the month of August 2001 online: www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_010917.pdf. See Figure 34 American Express E-Magazine (10-24-00) online: http://www.talkcity.com/transcripts/AmericanExpresse-magine/10-24-2000.1-1.htmpl5 Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2000

http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_010917.pdf

http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_010917.pdf


Figure 3

Technologies, Features, and Identifiers

Black Planet makes use of a number of technologies to help their members interact with

each other and build important online bonds. These include multiple real-time private

and public chatting technologies, asynchronous communication technologies, static

communication technologies, in addition to user and system-designed forums for

communication. By giving people so many different options, members are certain to find

a mode of communication that they are comfortable with.

Individuals on Black Planet have a myriad of identifiers to choose. The only identifier

that is mandatory for every member is the screen name. Other identifiers for individuals


include: email address, a web page, pictures, dating profiles (both text and voice),

clubs/forum icons, chat tagline, friends list, and CCN number6. Groups also have

identifiers such as chat room names, club titles and forum titles. The identifiers fall into

three categories: 1) persistent; 2) modifiable; and 3) temporary. Throughout this

discussion of identifiers we will note the category of identifier falls in.

Screen NameThe screen name is one of two persistent identifiers in Black Planet. The user chooses

this universal identifier when registering. The screen name is also known as the

username on Black Planet. Screen names are single words that cannot contain spaces.

The screen name is left up to the imagination of the member, however it is limited to only

letters, numbers, dashes (-), and/or underscores. The name must include at least three

characters and cannot change. Screen names appended with an asterisk indicate that the

member is currently logged in.

Screen names may not include certain words that are considered offensive or derogatory.

Such words include, but are not limited to: racial slurs such as honkie, nigga, nigger, or

chinc; explicit language or cuss words. Additionally references to sexual organs both

medical terms and slang terms (examples would include penis or “dick”) are prohibited.

Although these words are restricted, the community has developed many “work-arounds”

by using alternative spellings, different letter representations, or spacing using the

underscore character. Examples might include: nigger → ni99er or penis → p_e_n_i_s.

6 The CCN number is a unique identifier that Black Planet will use in the future to track users and to enable anonymous gifts to that member


Webpage ProfileThe most important aspect of forming one’s identity on Black Planet is developing a

personal webpage, which every user is given the opportunity to create (See Figure 5).

The webpage is the member’s representation of self to the rest of the community. The

web page is modifiable. Web pages include a range of information completely controlled

by the user. There are five main parts to a web page profile: 1) text profile, 2) HTML

profile, 3) picture gallery, 4) friends list, and 5) favorite links. The web page profile is a

reification of the member’s identity or the personality they want to portray, both in

pictures and words.

The text profile (See Figure 4) includes: 1) time on Black Planet, 2) birth date, 3) home

town, 4) race, 5) marital or dating status, 6) occupation, 7) job industry, 8) college, 9)

graduation, 10) interests, 11) sexual orientation, 12) height, 13) weight, 14) nickname and

15) CCN. The text profile is right aligned.

The HTML profile (See Figure 4 ) allows the user to display pictures and text using

HTML. The HTML profile is the essence of the user’s page. Users can either use a

template provided by Black Planet to create their page or use HTML to create their own

unique page. The HTML profile looks like a traditional home page created in GEOcities.

Users can hyperlink to other web pages. Many brokers use this feature to send

participants to other sites.


The picture gallery (See Figure 6) allows the user to add as many pictures as they would

like to their webpage. Most users have pictures of themselves, their family, and friends.

The “friends” list (See Figure 5) is a set of hyperlinks to other Black Planet members’

web profiles. The “friends” list describes the user’s social network on Black Planet. This

feature provides immediate association between one member and another. Some java

scripts have been written to add friends to your list when you visit certain pages.7 Many

of the Black Planet members we interviewed found these Java Scripts very intrusive.

Most members constantly check their friend’s list to make sure that unwanted friends do

not appear.

7 The pages that have these JavaScripts tend to be of a sexual nature. Usually written by members advertising another site. However we have found more and more members are using this feature to gain more hits on their page.


Figure 4

Text Profile HTML Profile


Figure 5

Figure 6

Picture Gallery

Favorite Links

Friends List


Conversation as the Main Activity

As Oldenburg (1989) states, conversation is the main activity of the third place and Black

Planet certainly facilitates conversation with their wide range of communications

technologies. “Nothing more clearly indicates a third place than that the talk there is

good; that it is lively, scintillating, colorful, and engaging,” says Oldenburg. Oldenburg

goes on to explain the concept of pure sociability and the fact that the third place allows

all involved to speak their mind regardless of status and be heard equally.

However, what makes Black Planet a bit different from Oldenburg’s description of the

third place is that on Black Planet there are so many voices, that one individual’s voice

can very easily be lost in the clamor of everyone else’s. Therefore, Black Planet

supplements their wide array of “public” communications tools with personal and private

communications tools that allow people to interact with each other in one-on-one

relationships or small groups.

E-mail and NotesBlack Planet also provides users with personal email accounts in the “Blackplanet.com”

domain. As an identifier, email addresses further link Black Planet members’ identities

to the community. In addition, there is a “Notes” feature that allows members to send

electronic asynchronous notes (email) only to each other. Notes have the same look and

feel as e-mail messages but members cannot attach files to them. Notes separate internal

communication within this community from the external communication individuals that

have standard e-mail addresses.


ChatThe chat feature allows members to communicate with each other in real-time about

certain topics or themes. Chat rooms (See Figure 7) could have hundreds or thousands of

members logged in which means members will generally use chat rooms as a way to

meet new members. There are two categories of chat rooms: 1) main rooms and 2)

member created rooms. Once members identify another member in a chat room they

would like to communicate with they usually break off into private chat rooms. Members

can create chat rooms that are private (by invitation only) and public (open and viewable

to all Black Planet members). Chat rooms are normally dominated by one or two

conversations and topics do not necessarily stick to the theme of the room. Members can

view the most active or popular rooms as well as view the screen names of all the

members in the chat room.

Tagline

Taglines identify chat room users. Each member can decide to use a tagline or not. The

tagline is limited to 32 characters and gives users a name in addition to their screen name.

Figure 7

Tagline


PagerThe pager feature allows members to instant message other members that are logged on.

Again, it provides another level of interactivity and private aynchronous chatting that is

much easier than having thousands of people in a room. This technology has been

suspended from Black Planet as of April 16, 2002, due to member complaints about it

being too invasive.

ForumsThe forums (See Figure 8) are message boards provided to the users as a way to post

public messages asynchronously about a variety of topics. The initial message or

question for a thread of discussion is posted on the main forums page. Users can either

reply to individual posts or just comment on the topic of the forum. These forums are

generally used more as places to discuss current events or issues that affect members of

the community rather than just “bar scene” mechanisms. Forums usually take on a

“party-line”8 or a status quo regarding the forum topic. Members of the Black Planet

community are able to create their own forum topic.

8 party-line describes a particular vantage point on a topic that is considered the status quo or the norm for that particular forum.


Figure 8

FindThe “Find” feature (See Figure 9) is a convenient way for members to find one another.

Members are able to search members that are currently online that match the specified

criteria. The parameters of the search are gender, age, and location. The search retrieves

all the online members that meet the criteria and ranks them first by whether they have

set up their BP Dating voice mail box or not. All users that have set up their voice mail

box appear first (See Figure 9) and in random order. After those members who have set

up their voice mail box appears members who have not set up their voice mail box in

random order.

This find feature also allows members to see if their friends are currently logged in. By

clicking on the “FRIENDS” panel of the find window, members can view which of their

registered friends are logged into Black Planet.


In addition to the find feature, users can locate a member’s web page profile from the

Black Planet Home page if they know the member’s username. The Home page also

randomly selects a list of 10 - 15 members that are currently logged. This selection

allows members to find other members randomly.

Presence Awareness Mechanism

Members can determine whether or not another member is logged in by seeing if there is

an asterisk by their name. This asterisk is persistent throughout the site as long as the

user is logged in.9

Figure 9

Activities/Services

Black Planet makes further use of their array of communications tools by providing

members with the option to participate in a range of competitive activities and rewards

contests. Oldenburg (1989) states that activities can also be a major part of the practice

9 Wherever the user’s screen name appears whether it is in the forum, chat room, or on a friends list an asterisk will appear.

Members who have set up their voice mail box


of conversation by encouraging some forms of conversation. “To be more precise,” says

Oldenburg, “conversation is a game that mixes well with many other games according to

the manner in which they are played.” Examples of this in Black Planet are the “Say

What!”, “Bragging Rights” and “Battle Board” games in which members try to express

themselves in the context of a game to both get points and have the opportunity to make

further social connections. Black Planet facilitates the development of social networks

by placing the players’ names linked to their web profile next to anything they post. In

addition, on the Leaders Board, the names of the top and bottom players are linked to

their web profiles.

Communities can use these competitive activities to build excitement and anticipation,

highlight the skills of its members, and attract audiences to one central event (Kim,

2000). Yet the most important aspect of competitive activities is that they feature the

members of the community and encourage members to earn themselves a place in the

spotlight. In addition, Black Planet makes use of a number of rewards systems that are

unrelated to the “special talents” of members, but instead based upon other criteria such

as number of logins or clicking on advertisements. By providing rewards for basic

activities, Black Planet further encourages their members to be active participants in the

community.

Games10

10 The Games section is adapted from BlackPlanet.com. Comments on the games are that of the authors.

Walter J.T. Mosley, 01/03/-1,

Page #

wmosley, 01/03/-1,

Do rewards really motivate people to come back or is the main motivation still to meet others? Maybe we could see how many members actually play games as evidence of how important they are to the community.


A new season of games begins every month.11 Users accumulate points for every game

that they win. These points determine a member’s position on the Leaders' Board. If a

member gets their name at the top of the Leaders' Board by the end of the season, they

will win a prize for their skills. Ties will be broken with a random drawing. Game Points

are reset to "0" at the end of the season.

Say What Figure 10Twice a week, a new picture is posted (usually submitted by members). Members have a chance to post a caption that best describes the picture. Members will then vote for the best caption. Writers of the top three captions will receive game points. As Oldenburg quoted Laurence Wylie, in his account of a game played in a small café in a French village, “The wit, humor, sarcasm, the insults, the oaths, the logic, the experimental demonstration and the ability to dramatize a situation gave the game its essential interest.”12 Say What brings all of those concepts together thus creating a “full-fledged and spirited social…event” (Oldenburg, 1989).

11 This is information published by Black Planet. It has been our experience that the seasons last longer than a month and the points are not reset faithfully. The games section, in particular is the least managed portion of Black Planet.12 Laurence Wylie, Village in the Vauclause (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), Chapter 11. Taken from, Oldenburg, The Great Good Place, Chapter 2.


Figure 10

Trivia ChallengeEach week, Black Planet posts 15 trivia questions of a specific theme. The themes range from Black history to health to sports. The more questions that a member answers correctly, the more points they get. The difficulty of the questions vary from easy to hard. Members can only answer the trivia questions once a week.

Black JackThe Black Jack game (See Figure 11) has the same rules as the casino. Members can bet up to 100 points. The interface is pretty easy to use and you can watch the totals of other members playing at the same time.


Figure 11

Battle BoardBlack Planet members come and write poetry or post rhymes. Users are pitted against each other. The way members when points in this game are to win a “battle.” The winner is ultimately decided by the members. Members are voted on by other members based on who has the best rhyme or poetry.

Bragging RightsUsers come to this web board (See Figure 12) and continue in the African slave tradition of “signifying.” Members talk about the competition in the Battle Board and brag about the skills each other does or does not have. The competition is pretty fierce and members are not very cordial with each other.


Figure 12

Game Point System

Each Trivia Challenge question you answer correctly will earn you 30 points. The total

score you can receive playing Trivia Challenge each week is 450 points. When

competing in Say What, the top 3 submissions for the week will receive 450, 350, and

200 points respectively. Players are not awarded points for voting. In Black Jack, if you

win, you get the points you bet (max:100).

Users can check the status of the game competition by using the game ladder (See Figure

10). The ladder features both the best and the worst contestants.


Boondocks

The Boondocks cartoon strip (See Figure 13) is available daily. The comic strip is

advertised on the front page and seems to be a more popular attraction of the site.13

Boondocks is popular because it is a comic that illustrates the black experience in

America through the thoughts and actions of politically aware children. It is one of the

only black comic strips run nationwide and thus one of very few representations of the

black experience in America in the mainstream media. It is therefore very appropriate

that Boondocks should appear on Black Planet.

Figure 13

Events Calendar

Members can subscribe14 to post events (See Figure 14) to the events calendar. An event

is anything from a party to a hair show or a conference. There are also job posting on the

event calendar. The calendar is organized by both category and state.

13 The comic strip is supposed to be posted Monday thru Friday, but sometimes it is not available. On average the comic strip is posted 4 times a week.14 A subscription fee is charged to be able to post events to the Black Planet community calendar. Members and non-members can purchase a subscription.


Figure 14

Channels

Black Planet has a number of channels including books, BP Times (news about BP

members), education, careers, families & homes (Food, recipes, decorating and parenting

from a black point of view), heritage & culture, money & finance, movies & TV, news &

politics, music, religion, small business, sports, style & beauty (latest in fashion),

technology, and women.

Channels consist of articles, advertisements, polls, forum topics, and special features.

The news channel in particular has editorial columns by Clarence Page and Armstrong

Williams. This channel also includes a reprint of a TIME magazine article reflecting

Black history.ii The career channel has job postings and recommendations on how to

start your own business.


BP Dating

Black Planet Dating is a community tool designed for creating individual bonds between

community members in the context of both homosexual and heterosexual relationships.

It uses an automated matching system to connect people with others they would be

interested in based on a profile they enter in the “BP Dating” area of the website. Users

fill out a Dating Profile that will help identify the kind of people that a member would be

interested in. This profile includes the basic qualities considered important in a person of

the same or opposite sex, an essay, and a photo. This profile can also include a voice

mailbox which a member can tell someone about them in their own voice. BP Dating has

a 900 number for users to hear each other member’s voices.

Text and voice dating profiles are both modifiable. The text profile allows users to

identify the qualities they are looking for in someone. These qualities range from

finances, to height, to education, to geographic location, to sexual orientation, to age, etc.

The users can write essays that describe him or her as well as rate which qualities are

most and/or least important. A dating profile is a reification of how you feel about dating

and what you would like in a “mate”. In this way, the profile is a reification of flirting or

also a reification of the user’s perspective of dating and their desires in which they want

everyone else to understand.

i Adapted from www.communityconnectinc.com

ii Black Planet and TIME WARNER AOL have an agreement in which BlackPlanet is allowed to reprint selected articles on the website in exchange for advertisement and special promotions.

http://www.communityconnectinc.com/


Voice Dating allows users to call into a 900 hot line to listen and leave messages for

Black Planet members. Users can check their messages once every 24 hours, which is

free of charge. Checking voice dating more than once a day will cost the user the normal

900-hotline rate. This service also allows users to keep their anonymity and

communicate with their voice as a substitute to communication via chat rooms and email

through the Direct Connect feature. What this does is allow the user to leave a number

where another member can reach them at and talk live. The calling member will never

know the user’s actual number.

The Direct Connect feature will call the user’s phone and notify them that another

member wants to talk live. Direct Connect will play the 10-second greeting and the user

can either accept or refuse the call. If accepted, the caller will be connected. The caller

pays for the 900-hotline call.

There are three basic ways to find people in BP Dating:

Premium Search- find the members you're most interested in Basic Search - check out Profiles in any state Hot List - rate and save Profiles that catch your eye

Any users who have a dating profile can see a picture of the people they are being

matched up with. You can vote the person up or down based on their picture, however

these votes are only personal rankings that are used to organize one’s own “Hot List” of

other members’ dating profiles. In order to do more than look, you have to pay the

subscription cost (See Error: Reference source not found) to become a BP Dating


Subscriber with prices ranging from $19.95 per month to $99.95 per month. This will

allow you to contact your matches.

Dater of the Week

As an extra benefit to subscribing to BP Dating, members become eligible to be the

“Dater of the Week”. The Dater of the Week award does not have any particular criteria

except that the “winner” must subscribe to BP Dating. The reward is simple yet effective

– the Dater of the Week gets their picture posted on the BP Dating main page for a week.


The advantage of this reward system is that everybody who comes to the BP Dating area

of Black Planet will immediately see the winner’s picture and a short quote from their

bio. The incentive for subscribing and having a chance at being “Dater of the Week” is

that everybody can see your picture. This particular reward does not necessarily reward

the skill of members, but it creates incentive to subscribe to Black Planet. Additionally

the picture of another member on the BP main page adds a personal feeling to the area

and lets users know that there are other average people who also use the service.

Gift Center

The Gift Center lets you buy gifts while only exchanging member names. No real names

or addresses are ever seen. You can buy candy, flowers, teddy bears, sweets, and much

more. This allows members using BP Dating or just participating in the Black Planet

community to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pursuers. When a member’s

birthday is approaching, Black Planet will send a note to everyone who has that particular

member registered as a friend a reminder that the member’s birthday is approaching and

that the gift center is available to purchase gifts for that member. This further supports

the fact that Black Planet tries to make connections between one’s online BP experience

and their offline life – gifts are tangible items in the real world an online friend is able to

send you.


Member of the Week

Unlike “Dater of the Week” the “Member of the Week” is based on an ephemeral

reputation system. Members can win the award by receiving votes from other members.

Member’s voting power is determined by the number of member points they have at the

time they are attempting to vote. The result of the whole process is that members are

encouraged not only to login to the system frequently, but also to become active members

of the community.

Member points are accumulated by visiting sponsors, getting hits on your Personal Page,

making friends, and making referrals. This member points system is Black Planet’s

online loyalty system that was created to reward members for coming to the site and

participating in promotions and special offers. In addition, five member points can be

accumulated by referring other people to become members of Black Planet or by a

member being saved by another member as a friend on their site.

After accumulating points, members are allowed to vote for “Member of the Week”. The

Member of the Week has to be considered an active member of BlackPlanet.com and

contributor to the community. In addition, Black Planet looks for those who have a

unique message, describe interesting accomplishments, and are helpful to other members.

Each week the Black Planet staff picks the Member of the Week from the Top 25 vote-

getters. To be on the Top 25 list members must make sure the design of the web page is

well done, the banner ad at the top of the member page is not blocked or hidden, the


"Sign Guestbook" and/or "Forums" button at the top of the member’s page is not blocked

or hidden, the page obeys Black Planet’s Terms of Service., the member’s screen name is

offensive,15 and that the member’s page has not identified as fraudulent or containing

code that alters voting.

Each “Member of the Week” vote costs 25 member points. Therefore, each member is

allowed to vote as many times as they wish until they have less than 25 member points.

Since the winner can only vote once and the typical winner gets 1000-5000 votes, the

mechanism Black Planet has in place makes it very difficult for someone to rig the voting

process and cheat (unless they have multiple identities). Therefore, this “Member of the

Week” process is another way to encourage members to interact with each other so they

can gain the support of other community members.iii The key to winning is being judged

by the staff at Black Planet to be a community leader and participator.

The reward one receives for being “Member of the Week” is that the member’s picture is

on the Black Planet home page gaining the member more hits and more people

bookmarking their site as “friends”. In addition, by putting a quote next to their picture,

this feature allows members to “talk” to the entire group at one time. Therefore,

“Member of the Week” not only rewards the individual winner, but also the entire

community is introduced to someone else on the Black Planet network.

15 This criteria is judged by Black Planet staff.iii


Black Planet Rewards

Black Planet also allows members to redeem their member points for various prizes.

Therefore, even if a member accumulates a lot of points and chooses to never vote for

“Member of the Week” they can trade-in points for prizes ranging from CDs from the

Black Planet open-mic contest to Black Planet caps or briefcases. Those that redeem

member points for prizes with the Black Planet logo on them not only advertise Black

Planet in their daily face-to-face interactions, but the prizes are also a badge of group

identity that Black Planet members can show the world.

Contests

Black Planet also has competitions that are based on members’ offline skills such as

writing or musical talents. For example, the “Black Planet.com Heavy Rotation CD” is a

compilation of the Heavy Rotation Open Mic contest finalists with the winner getting

their picture and profile displayed on the website. Using members’ real world talents to

showcase them on the site further develops their identity within the community or at least

within certain sub-groups of the community (for example, only those interested in music

or poetry may know about the Open Mic contest). Contests are yet another example of

ways in which Black Planet encourages members to bring their offline identity into the

online community and make connections based on offline talents.

The contests on Black Planet are an excellent way for members to get involved in the

community by using existing talents. The contests integrate members’ existing talents


into the community and recognize them. This recognition further increases incentives to

get involved and gives people motivation to express themselves in the online community.

Conversation is essential to the construction of an effective third place because third

places may be the only venue in a society where people can freely express their opinions

on level ground without status necessarily affecting the validity of their opinions. Third

places are for some people the only place where they can experience pure sociability thus

making it unique and attractive for people to come to. “If conversation is not just the

main attraction, but the sine qua non of the third place it must be better there and indeed

it is,” says Oldenburg (1989).

With the combination of opportunities to interact one-on-one, in small groups, large

groups such as forums, or through the competitive context of a game, Black Planet does

offer modes of conversation with other black people that are not likely to be available

offline, especially for those in academia or the corporate world. Therefore, the chance to

interact with a wide range of black people, male or female, is part of what makes the

conversation on Black Planet unique from members’ first or second places.


III. Black Planet Community

Neutral Ground

As Oldenburg (1989) describes the informal public spaces as a necessary aspect of

human social interaction that has been absent from American society, the draw of Black

Planet is that it provides members with a neutral ground on which to come and interact

without the restrictions of the physical world. Although some people only look for

friends that are good looking, even those on Black Planet that are not seen as “beautiful”

by society’s standards can make friends on Black Planet based on interests. Therefore,

people are able to make friends and interact with others on their own terms in this neutral

space instead of by the terms of society that may restrict them, such as physical

appearance.

“First impressions in real life can doom a relationship, because people will often judge on looks first. BP gives you a chance to meet someone without seeing them, and prove to them there worth through intelligence.” (Personal correspondence, Apr. 18, 2002)

Black Planet creates neutral ground on which to interact by taking away the “dooming”

effect of face-to-face first impressions and giving people a certain chance based on

common interests. This makes for more informal online interactions that may be more

intimate than superficial interactions based upon physical appearance. For people who

have trouble making friends offline, Black Planet is a place they can be comfortable on

their own terms.


In order for the city and its neighborhoods to offer the rich and varied association that is their promise and their potential, there must be some neutral ground upon which people may gather. There must be places where individuals may come and go as they please, in which none are required to play host, and in which all feel at home and comfortable… Where neutral ground is available it makes possible far more informal, even intimate, relations among people than could be entertained in the home. (Oldenburg, 1989)

Another important aspect of the neutral ground on Black Planet that is important to the

formation of neutral ground is that members can interact very intimately with each other

based on interests, but also maintain space between themselves and their friends. The

approach of ElegantThoughts demonstrates this need for space and ability to negotiate

space. Tired of male members approaching her in ways that she felt were inappropriate,

she decided to change the way she interacts with the community by putting up more

barriers. That involved taking down her picture and providing less information about

herself. On her profile she states, “If you truly want to know more me about, send me a

note or sign my guestbook.” (elegantthoughts web profile, 2002) By providing this

protection from others that she doesn’t want to socialize with, she makes her experience

on Black Planet more comfortable. “One of the reasons I don’t elaborate about myself on

my web page is because I’m trying to weed out perverts and idiots who have in the past

sent me messages (that) I felt insult my intelligence,” she said. Elegantthoughts has

realized that the members who are really interested in her will attempt to learn more

about her by communicating with her instead of just making sexual advances at her. In

her opinion, this creates more intimate interactions based upon her interests instead of her

sexual value as determined by other members.


The power to negotiate one’s own experience on BP is what makes it an ideal neutral

ground on which people can interact on the level at which they are comfortable. Wenger

(1998) identifies the power to negotiate how on interacts with others as an essential part

to forming one’s identity online. Oldenburg also speaks to how the negotiability of

power to interact with other is essential to acquiring friends in the third place. “The

individual may have many friends, a rich variety among them, and opportunity to engage

many of them daily only if people do not get uncomfortably tangled in one another’s

lives.” (Oldenburg, 1989) Oldenburg continues by using a quote from sociologist

Richard Sennett. “People can be sociable only when they have some protection from each

other.” Elegantthoughts learned to set her level of protection by limiting the amount of

information she provides and thus socializing only with those she believes are quality

people.

The other half of identity formation as outlined by Wenger is the power of identification

of one’s relationship to others. Elegantthoughts has chosen to identify herself as a Black

Planet member who is no longer interested in dealing with the sexual overtones of the

community. “Identification is one half of (identity formation), providing experiences and

materials for building identities through an investment of the self in relations of

association and differentiation,” states Wenger (1998). Elegantthoughts is therefore

displaying the power of Black Planet members to build their image of self and invest an

appropriate amount of herself in order to associate with others and differentiate herself

from others.


The lack of third places in American society makes Black Planet an appealing substitute

because people have the power to negotiate their interactions with others by shaping their

profile in ways that attract those they really want to socialize with. As a result, members

are able to feel comfortable while having informal and intimate interactions with others

based on the aspects of their identity that they want to highlight.

A CONSTELLATION OF PRACTICES

BP does not simply provide a heterogeneous type of community in which all are the same

or all act the same. The size of the community and the diversity of offline social groups

translated into the online atmosphere results in a constellation of practices that are a

grouping of interconnected communities of practice. In this case, we will argue that the

communities of practice are based on offline social practices moreso than communities of

practice developed online. However, despite the presence of offline social values and

practices online we will also prove that there are still a number of behaviors, practices

and activities tat are developed as a result of the Black Planet experience.

Although there are multiple different groups that interact with each other, there are

elements of Wenger’s concepts of mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared

repertoire that hold the constellation of practices together (Wenger, 1998). Although

these elements of a community of practice manifest themselves more broadly on Black

Planet than as originally defined by Wenger, they still apply. Mutual engagement is the

activities that members engage in together that can be negotiated with one another. Joint

enterprise is loosely defined as the goals or jointly negotiated outcomes of members’


mutual engagement. Lastly, shared repertoire is the collection of resources developed

during the course of extended mutual engagement that allows the group to negotiate

meaning with each other. What follows is a description of exactly how Black Planet

reflects Wenger’s concepts of a community of practice.

Mutual Engagement

On Black Planet, mutual engagement is enabled as people place descriptions, or

reifications (Wenger, 1998), of their offline identity on their web profile to present to the

rest of the community. This allows people to interact with other and attract each other by

highlighting aspects of their personality that they believe might attract the people they

want. Profiles include a number of identifiers that provide as much or as little

information as an individual wants to provide. Many black planet members have

indicated through interviews and in forum postings that they enjoy just looking at pages

even if they do not actually contact other members. Once members do decide to contact

one another, they will usually use some aspect of their web profile as an ice-breaker or

conversation piece. Quiet-Riot says that she things the web profiles give people more to

talk about when they initially contact other members thus eliminating many of the bad

approaches that she experiences in the real world. Instead of a guy just complimenting a

woman on her physical appearance, they will compliment her on her choice of books or

favorite movie. Therefore, web profiles play a major role in enabling interaction between

members.


The other aspect of enabling mutual engagement is the technology people use to contact

each other. Black Planet provides a note sending system, email, chat rooms, forums, a

guestbook on the member profile page, and clubs as ways for members to get in touch

with those they would like to interact with. The interesting thing is that all of these one-

on-one interaction tools are asynchronous and Black Planet recently eliminated the only

synchronous one on one communication tool, the pager, citing complaints that it was too

invasive. The elimination of the pager system seems to point to a desire by members to

protect themselves from each other, which Oldenburg (1989) listed as an important factor

in developing a comfortable atmosphere in the third place.

The diversity of Black Planet members in terms of race, age, and location also contributes

to mutual engagement by giving people an opportunity to form complementary

connections, which is the process of acquiring knowledge about other groups that adds to

existing knowledge (Wenger, 1989). Each person’s different perspective becomes a

resource that adds to the quality of engagement in the community. Although people may

not exercise the power of voice on Black Planet specifically to educate others, by

expressing their opinions in a public space such as their profile, they are providing others

with the opportunity to learn. “I think it is for entertainment but also for education, there

are places on BP where you can learn a lot, even from members who decide to use their

page for purposes other than getting a date,” she said.

The outcome of mutual engagement is mutual relationships in which people interact on a

deeper level than just superficial physical features or social categories (Wenger, 1989).


On Black Planet, the relationships evolves from the practice of members searching for

other members’ profiles and contacting each other. In some cases, on Black Planet,

conflict within forums can attract members to one another. “Disagreement, challenges,

and competition can all be forms of participation,” says Wenger (1989). Black Planet

makes full use of this type of participation by making it easy to click on the profile of any

member who posts a message. However, members also participate in positive ways.

Quiet-Riot uses a poetry forum to post her poetry, have her writing critiqued, and critique

others’ poetry. If she sees a poem she likes, she might contact the author and that contact

as a result of the poetry forum might initiate a new relationship. In addition, even those

who do not post poetry are able to contact members whose poems they enjoy just by

visiting the forum. Quiet-Riot does not consider herself as a member of a poetry

community, but she does see Black Planet’s poetry area as another enabler with which to

meet others. Again, since the practice of the community is to socialize and meet one

another, Black Planet facilitates that practice by allowing people to easily express

opinions and allow others to respond to those, either individually or in a group forum.

Joint Enterprise

All of the members we spoke to agree on the joint enterprise of Black Planet: the goal is

to form relationships with others based on common goals, beliefs, or interests. In the

forum “Why the Heck Are We Here – On BP That Is?” the overwhelming majority of the

1,592 posts since 1999 stated that the desire to make friends or the knowledge that other

friends were already online motivated them to join. Since the entire community


understands that, whether they like it or not, they are able to negotiate their identity

within the community such that they only interact with those they want to interact with.

Elegantthoughts illustrates the knowledge of what the goal of the community is.

Although she was annoyed with the way guys were approaching her, she decided to

remain a part of the community instead of leaving because she understood that some

people may want to interact that way in order to make their relationships. “I believe

everyone has a right to be in touch with their sexual side, but I believe there is a time and

place for everything,” she said. Since she does not agree with the way those people

interact, she chooses not to interact with them instead of reporting them.

The indigenous enterprise of Black Planet, or greater social frameworks in which the

community exists, is that of the black experience in America. In America, blacks are in

the minority particularly in higher education and work environments, places that

Oldenburg (1989) describes as second places. Black Planet provides an environment for

black people to meet other black people that they may never come across in their daily

lives. In addition, Black Planet facilitates communication and negotiation of meaning of

the black experience in American society. The offline black social experience greatly

affects conversation and interaction on Black Planet. People respond to offline social

experiences or dilemmas in forums and chat rooms, whether it is formally mandated by

the community or not.


For example, the hottest topic in the education forum section is “Historically Black

Institution vs. Predominately White Institution”. The member who initially created the

forum explained her offline situation as the basis for her concern.

As a prospective May 2000 graduate from a predominately white institution(The University of Southern Mississippi) i am often frowned upon by some of my African American brothers and sisters for attending a "white school". Why is that?

By posting this forum on Black Planet, she was able to immediately gather the

opinions from people who agreed and disagreed with her and thus she had the

opportunity herself to negotiate a piece of her own identity. Although some

forums degenerate into places where people do nothing but attack each other for

fun, this forum is an example of where the founding member and others in her

situation were able to negotiate their own identity conflicts.

Shared Repertoire

Since many members will use offline behaviors on Black Planet, the shared repertoire of

Black Planet is related to routines, ways of doing things, and tools moreso than

specialized language or manners. For example, waltermosley had to learn that the “G-

Spot” is the guestbook on the member pages, which is a label for a tool of

communication. It is not uncommon to see members complain if people visit their page

and do not sign the guestbook. The guestbook has thus become part of the shared

repertoire of how to interact with each other. In addition, members have to learn that

different members like interacting in different ways. Before the disabling of the pager

feature, some members had specific preferences about usage of the pager and it was


understood that the pager was a communication tool that should be used only to contact

friends or people you know.

Once people use these tools, they tend to use their own slang based on their offline

vocabularies. As a result, there is not a shared repertoire of conversational language.

However, some white members try to display their ability to use that offline shared

repertoire on their profiles in order to gain acceptance in the community, which we will

address later.

For other white members, coming to Black Planet is acquiring the offline shared

repertoire of language since they do not commonly use that type of language offline.

Therefore, to someone who is not a member of the black community offline could

interpret the language used on Black Planet as its own shared repertoire. This duality of

the shared repertoire on Black Planet further illustrates the fact that it is a constellation of

offline social practices and one large community.

Another aspect of the shared repertoire is that members tend not to spend time reporting

others. waltermosley initially reported the profiles of members that he felt were

inappropriate. However, as he used the site more he was a bit more relaxed about

reporting negative profiles because as Quiet-Riot put it, “The violations add to the

entertainment.” Given that the goal of the community is to meet others with common

interests, it is essential that everybody be allowed to express themselves in whatever way

they deem best to attract other people.


Understanding of the shared repertoire can only be obtained through mutual engagement

with other members of the community. For example, had waltermosley not participated

frequently in the community, he may have never learned that the “G-Spot” means the

guestbook. Therefore, it is through mutual engagement that one learns the shared

repertoire.

BLACK PLANET AS A LEVELER

Oldenburg (1989) defines a leveler as a place that is inclusive and allows people

interact as equals.

A place that is a leveler is, by its nature, an inclusive place. It is accessible to the general public and does not set formal criteria of membership and exclusion…they serve to expand possibilities whereas formal associations tend to narrow and restrict them. (Oldenburg, 1989)

Black Planet does act as a leveler because although there is definitely an emphasis on

black issues on the website, anybody can interact as long as they have a common interest

with other people on the site. On Black Planet, as Oldenburg says about leveling places,

it’s the “charm and flavor of one’s personality…that counts.” Black Planet gives

members the opportunity to highlight their personality through their web pages and that is

the leveling influence of Black Planet.

BP allows members to interact based on their interests in ways that real world identifiers

may preclude them from doing. For example, satjj is interested in movies but too shy to

discuss the depth of their knowledge with others in person but she is able to emphasize

that part of their identity on Black Planet. Although she admits to being shy and did not


want to have a flashy page that would attract a lot of friends, she still used Black Planet

as a means by which to express her opinions.

By expressing her opinions on Black Planet when she may not have anywhere else, her

offline shyness is no longer impeding her and thus the shy aspect of her identity that

would be dominant offline is only secondary online. Therefore, BP acted as a leveler that

enabled satjj to have a forum in which to break down the barrier of shyness and express

herself to others although nothing about her fundamental personality offline changed.

Oldenburg states that a place that acts as a leveler allows people to know each other on a

different and fuller level. For satjj, Black Planet allows people to gain fuller access into

her thoughts and overcome her shyness.

Identity Formation on Black Planet

The process of identity formation and inter-group relations is especially interesting on

Black Planet because of the wide variety of offline social groupings that are translated

into members’ online identities.

The barriers to entry for actually creating an identity for oneself on Black Planet are

rather low, although actually engaging in the community may be a little more difficult.

MikeMose2000 wanted an identity that would impress women. His page was created

with a background of expensive things. His text profile was “embellished” in terms of

his income but most other information was accurate he says. The pictures he placed on


his web page profile indicated he owned a lot of material items and “things women would

get impressed with.” (See figure 16)

(Figure 16: User MikeMose2000 with 4 cell phones, Michael Jordan gym shoes, Prada Jeans, Armani Head Gear, diamond filled Cross, diamond Ring, gold chain)

The identity the user MikeMose2000 was trying to create was one of money and good

times. This identity helped him become successful in the Black Planet bar scene.

Identity was superficially created with the text profile item of income and staged pictures.

Identity Deception

Members may create false identities for a number of reasons, but the primary result

seems to be harm to some other individual for personal gain (Donath, 1996). Harm can

come in the form of discovering information that was not meant to be discovered or using

falsified online identifiers to build a relationship with someone who might not pay

attention to one given their offline identifiers. However, on Black Planet just as many of


the activities are deeply rooted in offline social activities, identity deception also appears

to complement offline social activities.

User MikeMose2000 also created false identities in the virtual world to help him in his

physical world. MikeMose2000 met his current girlfriend, AsianIsland on Black Planet.

Since they are from the same area they have a lot of friends in common. When

AsianIsland asked her friends and classmates about MikeMose2000, she found out that

he was a “player.” MikeMose2000 defined a “player” as a person that dates a lot of

different people at the same time. Also that person may or may not be truthful about their

dating situation.

To combat the reputation MikeMose2000 had in the physical world he created a female

Black Planet identity. MikeMose2000 found pictures on Black Planet of a very attractive

young lady. He stole those pictures and used them for creating a new identity. This user,

an attractive woman, contacted AsianIsland claiming that she knew MikeMose2000. She

how much she like MikeMose2000 but he was no longer giving her the time of day

because of his new girlfriend. AsianIsland and MikeMose2000’s made up female user

exchanged notes for about two weeks. AsianIsland was convinced of MikeMose2000’s

faithfulness to their relationship and was even turned on by the fact that such an attractive

women was interested in her boyfriend.


MikeMose2000 has also created identities on Black Planet to play practical jokes on his

friends. With the same female identity he tested how far one of his male friends would

go in a pursuit of a woman he met online. MikeMose2000 has successfully tricked 3 of

his friends on Black Planet. These practical jokes included having his friend drive 45

minutes up to MikeMose2000’s college only to figure out that MikeMose2000 was the

woman and wanted a ride back to his parent’s home.

Another example of using Black Planet to deceive an offline friend is that of a Spellman

College student, Christina, who created a false identity to ask about a friend’s sexual

orientation pseudo-anonymously. Knowing that her friend used Black Planet a lot,

Christina created the identity of a gay male, LudaLuva96, on Black Planet. Christina use

LudaLuva96 to make advances at her friend trying to prove that he was gay. The friend

ended up not only divulging to LudaLuva96 that he was not gay, but also that he held

feelings for her. Clearly, Christina could never have discovered any of this information

with her offline identity as a female friend and so afterwards she was quite happy that she

had discovered her friend’s secret (Personal correspondence, April 13, 2002).

One difficult aspect of this identity deception is regulating it because the cost of

determining whether a new member has created a false identity without doing a full

background check on each user are quite high for a community of millions. Ludaluva’s

profile even used a picture from another Black Planet member’s page, which one would


think is a dead give away. However, neither Black Planet nor Ludaluva’s friend ever

discovered that it was a false identity. The impracticality of checking for false identities

combined with the opportunity to overcome offline barriers to discussion are what make

the cost of creating false identities on Black Planet relatively low. Therefore Black

Planet is actually a perfect medium of deception. As one member put it, "How else can

just start randomly talking to someone (about a personal issue)?" (Personal

correspondence, April 13, 2002)

Race on Black Planet

Since the Civil Rights movement, there has always been a division within the black

community about how blacks should interact with society in order to achieve a common

goal of equality. During the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, NAACP, and

Nation of Islam all had different ideas of how to achieve equality and similar ideological

division within the Black Community exists today. Therefore, the large racial group of

“black people” contains many different subgroups of thought. Black Planet provides a

forum for all these subgroups to meet in one place and experience what we will call

“internal boundary connections” where the boundary lines drawn within the group are

crossed. The presence of white members also creates opportunities for boundary

connections across racial boundaries. These boundary connections are normally made in

forum threads.

An example of negotiating the identity of the larger racial group between racial

subgroups is in the forum titled: “How do you feel when you see a African American


man with a White woman? Do you feel as though that brother should be with a African

American woman? Let`s be real honest.” This forum topic, although having a very

specific focus, ended up bringing to the forefront many different perspectives on what it

means to be black and what the accepted norms of belonging to the group are. Many

subgroups of the larger black race came together in order to negotiate these norms and

add their perspectives and meaning of what it is to identify oneself as part of the group.

The subgroups in this case were in some cases racial (mixed race or non-americans of

African-descent) but in many cases the subgroups were just informal ideological

groupings that all held different perspectives on what they thought it meant to belong to

the greater group. In this forum the different groups could be loosely classified as those

who date all races, those who date exclusively inter-racially, those who don’t but are

sympathetic to those who do, and those who disagree with inter-racial dating entirely.

Though these are not formal groups that people would use to identify themselves with

most likely, they are ideological groupings that people sided with throughout the course

of this forum thread.

Inter-racial relations

For white members, the leveling process may be a bit more difficult, but that depends on

one’s attitude toward race. Most white members on Black Planet are there because they

also want to socialize with people interested in black culture or black people themselves.

However, what they encounter is people questioning their motives for being Black Planet

members.


An example of how white people interact with the community is best illustrated by

observing how they try to overcome the racial barriers of entry on their profile pages.

Some white members not only try to show an understanding of the shared repertoire in

the community, but go further by challenging those who might not accept them in the

community by challenging the identity of the group as a whole.

“For those of you who ask why white folks are on BlackPlanet, and claim that it is "your" site, you need to go back and read BP`s "Who We Are" statement. It reads, "Anyone with a respectful interest in African-American culture can join and enjoy BlackPlanet.com." ” (LuvMdark member profile, 1/18/02)

By showing an understanding of the mission statement and using the mission statement

of the community to challenge others’ notions of identity on Black Planet, LuvMdark has

made an argument for her existence in the community and self-identified herself as

someone “with a respectful interest in African-American culture”. The mission statement

provided this member of another racial group with common ground to try to get around

the racial barriers to entry. LuvMDark then used her understanding of the underlying

ideology to create an identity instead of using a picture.

However, InDEEPendent has a different attitude about those who challenge her

membership on Black Planet. She just discounts that as ignorance and instead of lashing

back, she asks those that challenge her why they’re members. On her page, she addresses

the way other white members interact in the community.

“I`ve seen so many white girls on BP that for some reason have to call attention to their "whiteness" through their screen name. Yes, I`m white, too, but I felt that my name should reflect WHO I am and not WHAT I


am. All too often in this society we define ourselves by our race, and I personally don`t understand it. If you don`t feel me on this one, that`s fine. I`m just expressing my opinion.” (InDEEPendent member profile, May 11, 2001)

Her attitude is that since she is also on Black Planet to socialize, she shouldn’t have to

prove herself to the community. Instead, she interacts with those who want to interact

with her and ignore those who ask her why she is a member of Black Planet. She uses a

picture and thinks that there is no point in hiding it because she knows she is white and if

people don’t accept that part of her identity, then she does not have to associate with

them. However, she also admits that she grew up in a black neighborhood and has

mostly black friends offline, so maybe a combination of her attitude and background

make it easier for her to ignore the barriers. Nevertheless, InDEEPendent claims that

she’s never received a negative note other than those asking why she’s on Black Planet,

which she does not even see as negative. Since she never uses the forums, she has not

seen any of the negative comments on the forums.

Despite some members questioning their presence on Black Planet, white members are

able to meet and make friends just as black members are. However, whether perceived as

negative or not, they still have to go through some kind of proving period in order to be

accepted. InDEEPendent proves herself just by being herself and stating that race should

not matter, whereas LuvMdark proves herself in a more defensive manner using the

mission statement to justify her existence. In addition, looking at LuvMdark’s identifier


shows that she is trying to express a love for black people whereas InDEEPendent

stresses her perceived independence from race.

However, what both members are doing is immediately addressing their race in some

manner on their web profile in order to justify their interaction on Black Planet, whether

the justification is based upon believing that it they are entitled to be or that the mission

statement “allows” it. The use of the web profile enabled them to overcome a racial

barrier, even if it did not fully disappear; that profile allows people to relate to them on a

level beyond race with those that are willing to do so. “They are accepted just for

themselves and on terms not subject to the vicissitudes of political or economic life,”

states Oldenburg (1989) about the leveling process in third places.

However, it is also important to note that members on Black Planet may not be accepted

by the entire community based on physical appearance, political beliefs, sexual

orientation, or religious affiliation. Race is just one identifier out of many that may cause

a barrier. “I don’t see any difference between my experience and that of a black

member,” said InDEEPendent who has black offline friends that use Black Planet.

“Honestly, I’ve never thought of it and because of the fact that I’ve never thought of it I

think it doesn’t differ.” Each member encounters barriers of some type and it may be that

members comfortable with interacting with black culture offline are comfortable doing so

online.


White members may also initially encounter personal barriers to entry on Black Planet

that are not a result of other people. One white member who recently joined said that at

first, she didn’t want to join Black Planet because she did not want to “interfere” with the

black community. However, after she joined and read some of the forums, she was able

to learn more about black culture and thus feel more comfortable with offline racial

issues. Although being a member of Black Planet did not change her personality or her

identification of being white, it did change her perspective on the world, which is a part

of her identity – she can now be considered a white person comfortable with black

people. (Personal correspondance, Apr. 15, 2002) Although her barrier was more an

internal personal barrier than external barrier put up by the community, it was one that

she learned to overcome as she used Black Planet more often and as a result her identity

changed.

Intra-Racial Relations

The black race does not consist of exclusive heterogeneous thought and thus black

members sometimes have to negotiate racial issues among themselves. An example of

negotiating the identity of the larger racial group between racial subgroups is in the forum

titled: “How do you feel when you see a African American man with a White woman?

Do you feel as though that brother should be with a African American woman? Let`s be

real honest.” This forum topic, although having a very specific focus, ended up bringing

to the forefront many different perspectives on what it means to be black and what the

accepted norms of belonging to the group are. Many subgroups of the larger black race


came together in order to negotiate these norms and add their perspectives and meaning

of what it is to identify oneself as part of the group.

The subgroups in this case were in some cases racial (mixed race or non-americans of

African-descent) but in many cases the subgroups were just informal ideological

groupings that all held different perspectives on what they thought it meant to belong to

the greater group. In this forum the different groups could be loosely classified as those

who date all races, those who date exclusively inter-racially, those who don’t but are

sympathetic to those who do, and those who disagree with inter-racial dating entirely.

Though these are not formal groups that people would use to identify themselves with

most likely, they are ideological groupings that people sided with throughout the course

of this forum thread.

Occasionally when one person presented an opinion it offended another of the ideological

groups and triggered a response from one member of the offended “group”.

“And if u don`t look black?? I am so tired of this being an issue. I am half white and half black does that make me anyless black then the next person? And I do look white but I date only black males? From looking at me one does not think oh shes black they think look at that white chick with our men. I have been harrassed by black women who have no clue about my heritage. You can`t judge a book by its cover and frankly I date black men because I feel they share my views and opinions better than the other races and I personally feel they are stronger men due their trials and tirbulations.” (BP forum posting, April 14, 2002)

This process of reifying different perspectives on racial identity through forum postings

allows all of these subgroups to understand each other and change the concept of identity


within the larger group through mutual engagement. Race on Black Planet is sometimes a

discussion between people in the same group discussing their own social practices and

attitudes -- insiders negotiating with other insiders. This inter-sub-group relation is a

boundary relation even though all members are a part of a larger group because these two

groups are working together to address conflicts, reconcile differing perspectives, and

find resolutions in order to achieve a common goal of unity among their own race

(Wenger, 2000).

Black Planet enables people to have these intra-racial conversations that may not occur

between a group of strangers in real life who are afraid of either offending each other or

being judged by others. A black male walking down the street with a white woman may

be judged before being able to express his opinion. Black Planet is an environment in

which that same black male who chooses a white woman as his mate can express his

opinions and explain the deeper reason for why he chooses to date a white person. “This

unique occasion…allows them to be more fully themselves, for it is salutary in such

situations that all…reveal more of what lies beneath or beyond them,” states Oldenburg

(1989). The process of leveling both allows members of other races to express their

opinions and members of the same race to negotiate their meaning of the black

experience through conversation with others.

Other Offline Groups

It is also important to note that there are other offline social groupings that are

represented in Black Planet such as geographical location, age, and religion and any other


things that people consider a part of their identity. For example, the most popular

category of club is the “Music” category that has 1380 messages, which is almost double

the number of the next most popular category. It could be said that the popularity of the

music category is a reflection of the importance of music in the culture of African

descendants. However, racial and gender stereotypes, especially in America, affect

people much more deeply on a daily basis because it is one of the first physical identifiers

people notice in face-to-face interactions. Religion and spiritual beliefs are so important

on Black Planet that it is hard not to notice them.

Age is also a factor on Black Planet in that people of different age groups won’t “date”

most likely. Therefore it is likely that a number of people lie about their age, but it is not

a topic of discussion or conflict that comes frequently in forums or in chat/club topics.

People of all ages are able to interact in forums and clubs freely and age is not something

that is immediately evident from one’s forum postings, unless there is some indicator

within their screen name. Age is certainly important in how people act, however it may

not be as dominant as race, gender, or religion on Black Planet.

ACCOMMODATION

Another aspect of Oldenburg’s third places that is exhibited on Black Planet is the

concept of accommodation. However, accommodation happens on two levels:

accessibility and malleability. Oldenburg (1989) points to the fact that English pubs that

acted as third place were open all hours of the night so that they were accessible to people

coming home from work and needing a third place. For members of Black Planet, the


website is up 24 hours a day and thus always accessible, assuming one has access to a

computer.

However, it is important to note that due to the Digital Divide, not all black people who

might benefit from Black Planet have access to computers. The fact that not all

minorities are able to access an online community, Black Planet is not the ideal third

place, however Oldenburg would most likely argue that the Digital Divide is just another

reason why we still need offline third places instead of online substitutes. Not to mention

that sitting alone in one’s home to access online third place to socialize with others seems

to be paradoxical.

Digital inequities aside, malleability or the ability for the third place to flexible and

accommodating for the people that visit it, is also very important and a core aspect of

Black Planet. “The activity that goes on in the third place is largely unplanned,

unscheduled, unorganized, and unstructured. Here, however, is the charm,” states

Oldenburg (1989). The individuals that participate in Black Planet’s activities govern

them almost entirely. In addition, maximum strength is given to voicing one’s opinion on

Black Planet in order to regulate the community. Black Planet makes changes based

upon the membership’s demand or technological improvements, not on a whim. The

content and activities on Black Planet are member driven so that members are able to

create a meaningful experience for themselves.


By allowing people to express dissatisfaction and not actively enforcing minor

infractions, Black Planet provides the unstructured and unorganized charming third place

that Oldenburg describes. Hirschman (1970) outlines two ways in which members of a

group can express themselves and thus regulate the actions of a community: voice and

exit.

A Different Kind of Community

Hirschman (1970) presents a compelling case for the concepts of exit, voice, and loyalty

within offline organizations. However, on a social website where people are using the

website as a means to meet friends, voice is very important but exit and loyalty become a

bit less clear. People come to Black Planet to meet friends and supplement offline

interactions. Therefore, the most important activity on Black Planet for most members

are the series of one-on-one boundary encounters and seeking out those boundary

encounters instead of interacting with the community as a whole (Wenger, 1998). Black

Planet thus becomes a social environment where each person can form their own niche

within the community and be happy doing a multitude of things. In that sense, Black

Planet is very similar to an offline club atmosphere. One Black Planet member described

the different levels of participation at an offline club in a forum about why people come

to clubs.

“On my birthday I went clubbing with friends. I love to dance and danced all night long, but one of my friends never dances. However, he had a great time just watching others, soaking in the atmosphere and seeing his friends being happy. We had a huge grin on our faces each of us, all doing different things.” (BP Forums, Nov 7, 2001)


The different levels of participation possible in an offline club are very similar to that in

Black Planet. Some may have more fun just being in the atmosphere listening to music,

some may want to find people to date, and some may just want to discuss political issues.

Therefore, exit and loyalty are not as important because people come to Black Planet to

meet the people and voice opinions, not to engage in a practice determined by the

community at large because just as in an offline club, one can participate however one

wants to.

“Why I use BP... Well, at first some long distance friends and I decided to start using BP as a way to stay in touch without the phone bills, and its a lot more creative than AOL…I love reading the forums! Some of them are full of really good advice. And some of the posts are just down right hilarious! I have met some cool people on here…it`s nice to log on and have notes from your online buddies! People automatically assume that because you post a picture and have a profile that you are putting yourself on the BP market, but I just like seeing who it is I am talking to!…Keep enjoying BP...whatever your reasons for being here are!” (BP Forum, Jan 31, 2002)

As this member implied, even when the community has expectations of how one should

behave, members still have the option of participating in any way they want to maximize

the benefit of participating on Black Planet for them. However, as a result of maintaining

one method of participation, members will encounter resistance from other members who

dislike that method. For example, people that approach elegantthoughts with sexual

advances will encounter resistance, even though her response may have no effect on that

person’s future interactions.


Due to the social nature of Black Planet, Wenger’s (1998) concept of participation and

non-participation is probably a more accurate framework within to analyze Black Planet.

However, even within Wenger’s framework, there is an element of participation or non-

participation defining one’s identity. For example, the member who signs up for Black

Planet and creates a web profile, only to laugh at the forums still considers herself a

participant. It doesn’t change her trajectory or shorten it. That’s just as far as she wants

to go on Black Planet and other members do not consider her less of a member because

that is all she does since her activities on Black Planet are her own in many ways. People

still send her notes, yet she chooses to respond to them in her own way, not the way

people expected her to.

Despite the fact that Black Planet may not fit into either Wenger or Hirschman’s concepts

of communities, Black Planet still has elements of what they wrote about, but they are

just not exactly the same as the original authors described. Voice however is a concept

that is utilized on Black Planet so that members are able to shape their experience

however they want to and enforce the rules they would like to see enforced.

Voice

Hirschman (1970) states that voice is one way for people to express dissatisfaction about

their environment. Black Planet certainly allows members to voice their opinions in

order to shape their community. For example, the reason for cancelling the internal

“pager” feature was that so many people complained about it being invasive that they

decided to eliminate it. “In response to feedback we've received about PAGER, and in


efforts to improve overall site performance, we are removing PAGER as a feature from

the site,” says the Black Planet website. This also speaks to the American need for

privacy and the human need for protection from others that Oldenburg (1989) speaks to.

Another example of giving members the power of voice to govern themselves is that

members are able to report the rules violations of other members. However, this gives

members the opportunity to make a statement both by withholding their voice or by

exercising it.

By withholding one’s voice, they are saying that they do not mind the rules violations just

as they are saying they do mind by reporting other members. This is certainly a learned

behavior on Black Planet. Members have to learn through participation that some

members violate the rules. Waltermosley originally went around reporting every

violation he saw before he decided to let people interact how they want to. Quiet-Riot

never reported people because she always perceived the violations as entertainment.

However, both members had to participate in the site before they made up their minds

that these type of violations are ok.

Voice is also used on members’ pages in order to attempt to govern who interacts with

them. Just as elegantthoughts chose not to reveal any information about herself to keep

people away, it is also common to see web profiles where women state what kind of

people they do not want to contact them or how they would like to be contact. For

example, InDEEPendent states clearly on her page that she would like people to sign her


guestbook and that it bothers her when people don’t. She didn’t even respond to one

person’s note based upon the fact that he didn’t sign her guestbook. “It makes me feel

special, I guess,” she said in response to her attitude about the guestbook. Her ability to

use voice on her web profile to dictate how people interact with her is another important

way that people on Black Planet regulate their personal experience.

Exit

Exit is another means by which members of a community can express dissatisfaction with

the community, however the power of exit is limited on Black Planet (Hirschman, 1970).

Exit occurs on Black Planet, however other members may not realize when a member has

exited because their profile may still exist thus making them present. For example, satjj

signed up for Black Planet and then for almost a year, did not use it at all for various

reasons. Essentially, she had exited, albeit temporarily. However, during that time

members had sent her notes and signed her guestbook thinking that she was still in the

community because she had a presence via her profile. Had satjj not signed on for two

years, people still may have sent her notes from time to time assuming she was there.

Another form of exit on Black Planet is when a member decides to no longer use Black

Planet and simply places a link to the new community they’ve joined. They are still

participating in the Black Planet community and Black Planet members are still able to

interact with them – other members can just click on the link. So again, although this

member has exited there is still an opportunity for mutual engagement with the

community.


In addition, the cost of exiting completely is extremely high and there is no reason to.

Once a member has taken down their website entirely, there is no way to interact with the

community, keep in touch with the friends one has made (if they don’t have email), or

make new friends. Exiting Black Planet entirely is almost pointless. If you don’t want

people to contact you, you don’t have to give them your external email account or you

can take down your photos and information yet still have a presence so people can

contact you.

When members such as satjj got tired of Black Planet, she just did not log on for a while until she decided that it would be a good way to practice her HTML skills and get critiques from people. Yet her period of non-participation did not define how she felt about herself as a Black Planet member as Wenger (2000) suggests non-participation defines identity. Nor did she express her dissatisfaction by exiting the community entirely. Instead of exiting, satjj just changed her participation patterns based on what was best for her at a given time in her life. “Yeah, I’m still on (Black Planet) but I just started using it again to practice my HTML.” (Personal correspondence, Feb. 1, 2002) This type of behavior on Black Planet means that exit is rendered an ineffective means of expressing dissatisfaction although voice is very effective.

Smaller Communities as Better Examples of Exit or Participation?

Due to its size, Black Planet is best described as a constellation of practices as described

by Wenger (1998). Therefore, there are a number of mini-communities within Black

Planet that do experience exit and participation. However, clubs on Black Planet are not

a major part of the community but just another avenue to achieve members’ greater goal

of meeting people with similar interests. For example, Quiet-Riot uses one club and a

few forums to post her poetry and read other people’s poetry. However, she doesn’t feel

connected to the other people in that club – she just uses that club as a place to get


critiques on her poetry. For her it is another way to meet people with common interests

in the larger scheme of Black Planet. “If I’m bored, I get to look at people’s pages and

maybe chat with them. I mostly use Black Planet to look at people’s pages. It’s

entertainment.” (Personal correspondence, April 15, 2002)

Therefore, these clubs are interest groups so that people can further advance their quest to

meet others with similar interests and interact with people who have similar goals,

interests, and values. However, the club itself does not form it’s own set of values and if

it does, it is not something that forms a member’s identity. “Posting poetry is not a major

part of my experience on Black Planet, it’s just an extra,” said Quiet-Riot. What Quiet-

Riot does in the poetry clubs does not define her existence, it is just another form of

entertainment on the site. Members are free to exit clubs when they want and if they do,

it does not change the quality of their experience on Black Planet because the primary

goal is to just to meet people. Meeting people occurs with or without the clubs, because

people still post poetry or other interests on their personal web profiles.

People can exit forums and create new forums after one gets out of hand. However, this

form of exit does not force the old forum to consider changing. This form of exit just

allows people with diverse thought to stick to their own and if you do not like the forum,

you can leave the forum. Because the members that participate in the forum shape the

forum’s content, they never threaten exiting; normally people just start a new forum and

exit quietly bringing like-minded members with them and allowing the other people to

continue their discussion. They may even go back and forth between the new forum and


the old forum contributing to both. Therefore, there is a failure of exit to produce change

on Black Planet. However, it is not uncommon to see people go back and forth between

forums without bringing information between the two forums. Since many members

participate in the community for fun, they do not necessarily broker information between

the two forums, some just engage in both forums as a way to express two different sides

of their opinion. However, members do occasionally bring information from other

forums or talk to members that they saw in other forums.

Regulars

Another important aspect of the third place according to Oldenburg (1989), is the

presence of regulars that make the place come alive. The difference between Black

Planet and a traditional offline bar is that regularity is defined not by physical presence

but instead by one’s level of participation. Those that actively participate in changing

their pages and contacting other members are the members that make Black Planet come

alive. “It is regulars whose mood and manner provide the infectious and contagious style

of interaction and whose acceptance of new faces is crucial,” states Oldenburg (1989).

On Black Planet, those who participate regularly are not necessarily infectious in that

others see them in react as Oldenburg describes the typical offline bar scene. By

contacting members who don’t participate normally or using fancy HTML techniques on

their profiles, regulars inspire others to participate more. Both InDEEPendent and satjj

cited looking at others’ web pages and learning HTML as an art form was their incentive

to return to the site again. Most members enjoy looking at the profiles of others just to


see the creativity of Black Planet members. Therefore, the presence of regular

participants who invest a large portion of themselves into Black Planet, makes the

experience more enjoyable for others and provides incentive for them to continue coming

to the website.

Therefore, Wenger’s (1998) analysis of participation and non-participation definitely

applies to Black Planet. Satjj could be defined as a periphery participant because

although she has a web profile, she does not actively engage in the main practice of

socializing by choice. However, as Wenger (1998) differentiates between a periphery

participant and a marginal one by the fact that periphery participants are on an inbound

trajectory, Black Planet’s periphery participants are also on inbound trajectories. If satjj

ever decides that she does want to socialize more actively, she will then begin to learn

how to interact and shape her identity the way she wants to on Black Planet. A member

perusing around Black Planet has no way of identifying satjj, a member of 2 years, as

only a periphery participant. There are no signs of inactivity on a web profile. Therefore,

she always remains on an inbound trajectory until she decides to become an active

regular participant.

Likewise, the rest of the community has no way of identifying regulars. Since nobody can

immediately recognize you as a regular based upon presence, regulars do not drive the

community as they might in a traditional physical bar. They give the community life by

actively participating. However, even someone who posts one forum and never posts

another can have a large impact on the community by sparking a two year discussion.


In addition, members who become friends may have multiple ways of interacting with

each other after meeting on Black Planet. They may email, instant message, call, or see

each other and thus no longer rely on the Black Planet medium to interact. For example,

waltermosley was able to meet another member from Virginia, talk to her over the phone,

and then visit her. Although the met on Black Planet, they did not need Black Planet to

maintain that relationship. Therefore, Black Planet is a third place as a medium to meet

new people more so than one to maintain existing relationships, although it is used for

both.

Since Black Planet member roles are defined by one’s level of participation, the roles are

not constraining either. One can change their place in the Black Planet community just

by changing their participation patterns. All it takes to meet a friend is to start sending

other people notes. Even if the young lady that waltermosley met on Black Planet was a

periphery participant, the fact that she responded to waltermosley’s note and befriended

him would indicate that her level of participation prior to responding to waltermosley was

irrelevant. If you do not participate for two years and suddenly decide to start, you are

not pigeon holed into the role of a non-participant which again speaks to the accessibility

of Black Planet: it’s there when you need it to be there for you.


IV. RECOMMENDATIONS

Make no mistake: Black Planet is a member driven community. Members create the

content for others to see and without other members that one could rely on to interact

with in the community, Black Planet would lose the majority of its worth in allowing

people to meet others. Given the premise that Black Planet is a member driven

community, there are a few recommendations that may be able to help members in their

quest to socialize with others.

1. Favorite Places: Since people are interested in viewing other people’s pages,

participating in chat rooms, and voicing their opinions on forums, it seems logical

that Black Planet should have a feature in which people can save their favorite

places. Members are able to return easily to forums that they’ve posted messages

on. However, in order to return to a forum that one has not posted a message on,

a member has to search through anywhere from 100-1,500 forums to find the one

they wanted, not to mention that there is not a search function to find forums

based on keywords. The inability to easily return to places where the

conversation is to one’s liking inhibits the members’ ability to consistently

observe conversations that they are interested in.

2. Lessen dating emphasis: Upon registering, one member asked why she had to

indicate her sexual preference as part of her vital information. The reason is

clear: Black Planet is an online “meat market” in which dating is an important

activity to the community. Members such as elegantthoughts were not entirely

turned off by the dating atmosphere and most members claim that it adds to the


fun of the community. Regardless, there is no need to emphasize sexual

orientation when one is simply registering for the community to perhaps meet

friends, engage in conversation, or look at other people’s HTML profiles.

3. Keep clubs: The clubs feature is in the beta-testing phase and thus there is no

guarantee that it will remain a part of the Black Planet community. However, in

such a large community, the smaller sub-groups allow members to have more

focused and intimate interactions (Kim, 2001). Therefore, clubs would be a nice

feature to keep as a method of meeting other members with similar interests and

engaging in thoughtful conversations that one is interested in.

4. Black Planet Glossary: Given that people come from many different social

backgrounds and bring their own slang to the community, one feature that would

allow people to further express themselves and their experience in the community

would be a member driven glossary. With a glossary, members could post

interesting terms from their region that they think others might not know in order

to represent where they come from. While it might not be used in order to

establish greater communication from members, it would allow members to see

how the black experience differs in other regions of the nation.


V. CONCLUSION

In the introduction to his book the “Great Good Place”, Oldenburg (1989) briefly

describes how great civilizations throughout time have had informal public places as vital

parts of their culture. America is severely lacking these informal public places and

technological advancement is not helping to remedy the situation. “The only predictable

consequence of technological advancement is that (people) will grow ever more apart

from each other,” says Oldenburg. The ability to interact with people on equal footing

without the restrictions of the roles of work or home in daily life are what attract people

to third places and what make them so vital to the social health of a society. We argue

that Black Planet is one way in which people can interact in an “online bar” or “virtual

third place”, although it falls in the category of a technological advancement.

It is probably safe to say that his statement in 1989 about technology was not made with

the effects of the Internet on society in mind. However, it is also safe to say that

Oldenburg would believe that people’s Internet usage further decreasing people’s

willingness to go out into the world and interact with others instead of staying home.

Therefore, asserting that Black Planet is a third place appears to be an oxymoron – how

can a third place exist if people are using it from the privacy of their homes? Conversely,

in a society where people are retreating to suburban isolation, as Oldenburg implies, why

not bring the third places into the people’s home where they can use them in the private

home environment that they have grown to desire? Our findings about Black Planet seem

to hold the answers to bother of these questions.


Black Planet is not necessarily a third place in the sense that experiencing the atmosphere

is the reason for coming there, as with a bar, for example, where people come to engage

in the activities of that place. We argue that Black Planet is instead a medium through

which members can converse with other black people who have similar experiences in

America although they are not in the same physical location. By using this medium,

people are able to connect with people online that they may not have the opportunity to

connect with otherwise in their offline interactions. Although they may be sitting in their

home or in a school’s computer lab not speaking to anyone audibly, they are able to

potentially make social connections with more people than they ever could in the offline

third place. Furthermore, as Oldenburg (1989) states in his chapter titled “Shutting Out

Youth”, American adolescents have very few places to go to interact with other people

their age. Black Planet at least provides some way for black youth “trapped” in suburban

isolation to interact with other black people with similar experiences or those with

different perspective on the black experience that may allow one to negotiate their own

sense of identity. Black Planet further facilitates the connection process by providing

opportunities to contact each other by phone and by providing opportunities for members

to send gifts, for example.

Participation is therefore more essential to a member’s Black Planet experience than it is

to the offline third place experience. People cannot just walk into Black Planet as they

can a bar, be overcome by the atmosphere, and wait for others to approach them – people

must participate in the community in order to create their own personal atmosphere.

However, the participation process on Black Planet is not solely an individual activity.


Black Planet involves a cycle of members establishing an identity, participating with a

variety of activities and tools, and adjusting their identity based on their desired future

one-on-one interactions. It may seem to members engaged in the cycle that the process

of learning from others is non-existent and that the identity formation process is entirely

based on the individual’s offline identity. However, the practices of members seem to

imply that maximizing one’s experience on Black Planet is in fact a learning process.

Waltermosley learned to change his picture in order to attract more hits and conversely

elegantthoughts sought to discourage sexual advances from males by taking down her

picture and detailed profile description. Satjj learned that she could feel comfortable

expressing thoughts on her profile that she would not express in real life whereas Quiet-

Riot discovered that sharing her thoughts through poetry could improve her existing

offline writing skills. There are many different ways people learn on Black Planet, but

there is still one over-riding theme: every member has to learn what level of participation

in the community is appropriate for them in order to build the social network that creates

an environment of pure sociability, as described by Oldenburg (1989).

Identity on Black Planet further complicates the issue of how people find their niche of

participation. People do bring their offline social identities on Black Planet in order to

interact with others that they would want to socialize with offline. However, certain

aspects of one’s identity may be adjusted or changed entirely as one increases their

participation on Black Planet. White members may feel more comfortable interacting

with black people offline after gaining an understanding of black culture through their


Black Planet experience. Black members are able to negotiate personal meanings of what

it means to black in America in the context of a wide variety of topics ranging from inter-

racial relationships to attending historically black colleges. Of course not everybody will

change their mind on every issue they discuss on Black Planet, however both a white

person who feels more comfortable with black culture or a black person who decides it is

acceptable to date that white person have changed perspectives that make up a part of

their identity based on Black Planet interactions. Facilitating conversations in which any

member can easily voice their opinion, playfully or seriously, enables this process of

mutual engagement to happen that allows people to negotiate meaning.

Can Black Planet or a similar online third place ever become an adequate solution to the

lack of informal public social gathering places that Oldenburg described? It seems

impossible that sitting on one’s computer and surfing the web could ever make up for the

lack of third places given Oldenburg’s warning in the very beginning of his book that

technology would further separate people. Nevertheless, the more relevant question for

this discussion is: can Black Planet become an adequate third place for black people or

those interested in black culture to meet? Perhaps for those who attend historically black

colleges or live in environments with many other black people, Black Planet is not the

answer. Yet given the minority status of black people in American suburban areas,

professional life, and academic life, Black Planet may become an adequate supplement to

black people’s lives, if not an a satisfactory substitute for the traditional third place. It is

not uncommon to attend a university, such as the University of Michigan, that is only 8%


black only to land a job after college in which there is only one other black professional

in the entire office.

In the United States, young black adults all too often have to develop a social network

full of people whom they have to be around instead of people with whom they can enjoy

pure sociability, which Oldenburg describes as a fundamental need for people.

Therefore, online communities, such as Black Planet, may remain the most effective

means to make up for the distributed and fragmented nature of black society in America.

If they do not fit perfectly into the context of Oldenburg’s third place, perhaps a

framework for an online “fourth place” in society needs to be developed.


Table of Contents

I.Introduction............................................................................................................1Black Planet and Offline Social Groupings.........................................................................1

II.BlackPlanet.com...............................................................................................6Company Overview.............................................................................................................6

Mission............................................................................................................................9Black Planet Overview........................................................................................................9Technologies, Features, and Identifiers.............................................................................11

Screen Name..................................................................................................................12Webpage Profile............................................................................................................13Conversation as the Main Activity................................................................................17E-mail and Notes...........................................................................................................17Chat................................................................................................................................18Pager..............................................................................................................................19Forums...........................................................................................................................19Find................................................................................................................................20

Activities/Services.............................................................................................................21Games............................................................................................................................23Boondocks.....................................................................................................................27Events Calendar.............................................................................................................27Channels........................................................................................................................28BP Dating.......................................................................................................................29Dater of the Week..........................................................................................................31Gift Center.....................................................................................................................32Member of the Week.....................................................................................................33Black Planet Rewards....................................................................................................35Contests..........................................................................................................................35

III. Black Planet Community......................................................................37Neutral Ground..................................................................................................................37A CONSTELLATION OF PRACTICES..........................................................................40

Mutual Engagement.......................................................................................................41A Different Kind of Community...................................................................................62Voice..............................................................................................................................64Exit.................................................................................................................................66Smaller Communities as Better Examples of Exit or Participation?.............................67

IV. Recomendations..........................................................................................72

V. Conclusion.........................................................................................................74


REFERENCES

Alkalimat, A. & Williams, K. (2001). Social Capital and Cyberpower in the African American Community: A Case Study of a Community Technology Center in the Dual City. In L. Keeble & B. Loader (Eds.), Community Informatics: Community Development Through the Use of Information and Communications Technologies. London: Routledge, 2001.

BlackPlanet.com. (2002). Forums [online]. Available: http://www.blackplanet.com/members/forums (Last accessed: 4/14/02).

Burkhalter, Byron. (1998). Reading Race Online: Discovering Racial Identity in Usenet Discussions. In Smith, M.A., & Kollock, P., (Eds.), Communities in cyberspace. New York: Routledge.

Donath, J. (1996) Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. Prepared for: Kollock, P. and Smith M. (eds). Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge. Available: http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html.

Harris-Lacewell, Melissa V. (2001) “Barbershops, Bibles and BET: Everyday Talk and the Development of Black Political Thought.” Chapter Six: Black Talk in the Barbershop. Department of Political Science, University of Chicago. Available: http://social-sciences.uchicago.edu/ucrpc/Resources/working-papers.html

Kim, Amy Jo (2000). "Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities". Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.

Oldenberg, R. (1989) “The Great Good Place.” New York, NY: Paragon House.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

West, C. (1994). Race Matters. New York: Vintage Books.Wharton School of Business (2001). Winners and Losers in the E-Commerce Shakeout. Knowledge@Wharton. Retrieved October 24, 2001 from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articles.cfm?catid=14&articleid=273

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articles.cfm?catid=14&articleid=273

http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/csoc/cinc/

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