40A today rolled out Blackbird, a new web browser aimed at African Americans. It’s built atop Mozilla’s platform and the general controls and layout will feel familiar to anyone who has used Firefox. Where Google’s web browser, Chrome, was designed to display the absence of the shiny baubles and navigation aids from which it’s name is derived, Blackbird embraces a relatively busy array of buttons.
There is a news ticker that runs news pulled via RSS from black news sites, dedicated buttons that lead to e-mail and social media sites (though these are not pre-loaded) a dedicated video button with content from black video sharing sites and room to add custom links and a “Give Back” button that leads to charitable causes.
There is also the ability, once you log into Blackbird’s social network, to share content – though you don’t have to be logged in to see the top shared articles by category.
After checking out Blackbird the question that I had was simple: is a browser the best way to go after a niche audience? In other words, Can the way you get online really reflect and direct where you go once you are there? In some ways this is a look into what Google is trying to learn with Chrome – what is the chicken/egg relationship between browser and website?
After all, Google’s search engine is becoming more and more personalized to an extent that transcends boundaries of race. Over the next few years we expect it to continue to tailor search results to the individual’s interests to an increasingly fine-tuned degree. More to the point, there are many niche social media sites that are easily navigated to and bookmarked from any browser or search engine.
Blackbird seems to acknowledge this by integrating their own social media with the share buttons and by setting up a specific “Social Networks” navigation button. There’s also their integrated “Black Search” tool, which is a custom version of Google’s search. As you can see below though, the customized algorithm still leaves much to be desired in how it weights and sorts results for its perceived audience.
The most interesting part of Blackbird might be the advertising component built in to the browser. When users go to the Most Shared tab there is a bottom ‘sponsored by’ window that already runs small banners for Essence among others. There is also marketing value in the preloaded websites and RSS feeds which could be a boon to black online publishers and aggregators.
In total this is most reminiscent of AOL. If Blackbird is the browser for African Americans than AOL is the browser for older Americans, one of the few groups that seems to find their portal to be a useful navigational tool.
The underlying issue, and what has helped to hurt AOL, is that niche audiences don’t need a browser to show them where the content is. Their search engines do that already, and with greater control and precision. Add that to the fact that few people venture beyond whatever browser is preloaded with their computer. The number of African American’s that are likely to venture off the beaten path to download browser software becomes a niche within a niche.
With all that in mind Blackbird is an interesting experiment, but one that is likely to fail.
