IAC plans ethnic website to cater for all U.S. blacks

Ethnic websites have been successful in bringing relevant and topical information to the U.S.’s 40 million African-American community for some time. IAC is planning a website which aims to cater to all black-skinned U.S. inhabitants.

by Helen Leggatt

According to IAC, there are 20 million black-skinned consumers in the U.S. that don’t fit in to the African-American ethnic group. They consist of blacks from the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa. Together, the total of black-skinned consumers totals around 60 million.

"There exists enormous opportunity in today's online landscape to provide blacks with an experience that engages their unique communities through a collective voice," said Johnny Taylor, the business's new chief executive.

Recent research shows that 80 percent of African-Americans are online, compared with 88 percent of all Americans. Additionally, African-Americans spend 72 percent more time online than the general U.S. population.

There are already websites which cater purely to African-American users, some of the largest and most visited being Blackamericanweb.com, BlackPlanet.com and AOL’s Black Voices.

IAC will use the new site, due to be launched in January, 2008, to leverage some of its existing outfits such as Match.com and Ticketmaster. "This is a rich area and a great opportunity," said IAC CEO Barry Diller (via WSJ.com). "Our brands cover a good part of the waterfront and can be adapted for this audience specifically."