What Are Black People Searching For?<< Books Rule | Main | Not Only Does Money Not Buy Happiness, But Now We're Poorer Too >> David Schatsky | April 14, 2008, 03:52 PM RushmoreDrive, IAC's new site aimed at "the Black community" purports to know better than African-Americans make up just over 11 percent of the online population, according to our freshly updated US online population model, but a recent JupiterResearch report indicates that they exhibit some desirable behaviors online. (IAC will be going after other segments with other specialty sites, according to the WSJ.) I've seen a number of (mixed) assessments of the quality of RushmoreDrive's search results. And a few musings about whether this is good or bad for society. (Jeff Jarvis, for example, asks some questions about online racial segregation.) I haven't come across anything so far, though, on how the behavior of online African Americans might affect the economics of this venture. Jupiter's most recent analysis of the behavior and attitudes of online African-Americans suggests that they have some characteristics that should interest prospective RushmoreDrive advertisers. In a nutshell, African-Americans appear to be more responsive than Caucasians to online advertising and more credulous of online sources of information. Specifically, our consumer survey found that African-Americans were more likely than Caucasians to On the other hand, African-Americans are less likely than are Caucasians to Those who do research products for purchase, though, are more likely to trust content they find in online forums, blogs and advertisements. Jupiter's said for a while that with the growth of the online population slowing, marketers will need to embrace a variety of tactics to better target the customer segments they seek. RushmoreDrive is offering to help them do that. Way too early to tell what impact it will have, however. |
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