It seems not a month goes by without hearing about a social network that imitates MySpace. There’s MyPraize, Muslim Space, and even TruckerSpace. But it seems that a new social network, going by NiggaSpace has infuriated African Americans, who see the site as promoting a word they are trying to remove from society.
(New American Media) During a November interview on “The Playhouse,” a morning show on 104.5 WSNX, “Tyrone,” who would not reveal his race, said he was not anticipating the response the site has received.
“I honestly never thought it would [generate] that kind of attention,” Tyrone said. “You start up a website and you hope to get visitors [but I was not expecting this].”The creator said in the site’s mission statement that his goal was to give the word “nigga” a positive meaning. According to him, he wanted the word to personify images of brotherhood, fraternity and friendship.
The site already has over 10,000 members (not large by social network standards) and seems to already be attracting advertisers. Unfortunately however, this site may not last too long, as some sponsors (like American Express) have removed their ads from displaying on the site.
Although “Tyrone” probably was trying to find a unique way to make some extra cash online, this is probably the worst way of promoting yourself online, as one can tell by the fact that he refuses to give out his real ethnic race and name.
Currently the author is using Adbrite in order to “pay the bills” for hosting, although I would not be surprised if they pulled their ads from off his site. I wonder if they even know?
Whether this will be a footnote on how not to build a social network or how to attract attention, only time will tell. But as far as time goes, if this site is fully functioning (with ads) by March 2007, I’ll be very surprised.
Update: Corrected second sentence.
