Blackbird Web Browser: Because Firefox is Too Navajo for Black Web Surfers
Apparently, a couple of techs created a browser specifically for African Americans. The design is supposed to be all in black, and the bookmarks are sites that would be of interest as well.
As one who is probably whiter than white, I don’t know what to say myself, but I’d like to get some perspective from other Dopers, maybe. (Personally, it seems a little…odd?)
Yea, that’s really weird.
The above (from the browser website) shows where they’re coming from, but it’s still odd.
Even though I’m white, I guess I see the point of a culturally relevant browser. Although it does seem to be riding a pretty long tail to me - African Americans who are already online, but want a culturally-centric web experience.
However, if nothing else, this certainly demonstrates the empowering aspects of open source technology. Several years ago, pre-Mozilla, a project like this would have needed an army of engineers and QA testers and a couple years (requiring a huge potential customer base to provide any hope of ROI) and now it can be done by a tiny startup with no marketing budget.
That’s a pretty awesome thing to contemplate, and only underscores the need to get more people actively engaged on the internet to speed the pace of information aggregation and innovation.
Please, my AA people, don’t get pissed off, but as I was reading the OP, that “Roots” theme music played in my head. Funny as hell!
If this catches on (or maybe even if it doesn’t), I think we’ll see religious-oriented “culturally relevant browsers” prioritizing sites that focus on “Christian content” (or Jewish content, or atheist content, or…).
Ask and you shall recieve. . .
777 - ninety three eleven
Skald, the Black Rhymer
Yes, because black text on a brown background is so much easier to read.
When I first read about it, I had the Beatles (you know, “Blackbird”) going through mine.
Ha!
Some people are just hopelessly PC. This is obviously either a joke or an extremely chintzy marketing gimmick. No one is going to think you’re a racist for saying so. It looks worse trying to dance around it with unsure comments, IMO.
Not sure if you’re referring to my remarks or not - but as for me, I’m simply giving the benefit of the doubt to the developers, since they are African-American and I am not, and would better understand the need they’re trying to fill.
Given that African-Americans are in general underrepresented in the tech industry, it’s reasonable to assume that on the whole, the African-American community has had less input into web content, distribution, and delivery mechanisms. Of course, this vastly oversimplifies things (as most discussions dealing with race do), and the same could also be said for a few other minorities as well. But I can understand why someone might see the need to provide a tool to help in this regard.
Frankly, every African-American I know (and for all I know, most African Americans in general) probably wouldn’t bother with this browser - like I said earlier, it seems to be riding a pretty long tail to target people who already use the web and feel they need a culturally centric web browser. The idea makes me scratch my head, but then again, I’m white and in the tech industry, so I’m prehaps both too far and too close to the percieved problem. Let the idea rise or fall as the target market decides - who am I to begrudge someone trying to fill a niche and make a buck doing it?
Regardless, I still think it’s pretty damn cool that something like this can be put together by such a small firm, with such agility. To me it just demonstrates that we’re entering a phase in the history of technology that will be defined not by the “big idea” firms that appeal to broad targets and plot out the demographic appeal of products before even putting pen to paper, but by the smaller, agile firms who can respond to perceived cultural and market forces nearly on-demand. If they can get that sliver of market share they need to still turn a profit, great, but if not, at least somebody tried, and they didn’t hurt anybody doing so.
Just wanted to add: Who would have predicted 10 years ago, after Microsoft had crushed Netscape to become the uber-dominant browser, that someone would build something like Blackbird, targeting such a niche market - and on Netscape’s ashes at that?
I don’t think anyone is trying to avoid looking racist-more like being confused. Like, “Wha?”
Apparently “Blackgle” didn’t test well.
Personally, I am somewhat fearful of demographic-targeted features such as this. I prefer plain-vanilla Google because the engine doesn’t know me, doesn’t prejudge what things I want to buy, doesn’t have an agenda other than returning results. Even if demo-targeted search engines are the Wayva Future, I ain’t switching. They can have my plain unbiased search engine when they pry it from my cold, dead … uh, electrons.
Well, to be fair, it seems this is all built into the browser, using Google’s API - Google’s site itself stays as Googlish as ever, it’s just the browser-side “Black Search” function that’s displaying something different from the default Google.
Of course, this begs the question of whether the technology can anticipate the needs of its target demographic - my first guess is not by a long shot, but again, I say let the market decide.
Black Google displays different content than White Google. Separate but questionably equal. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry; the jokes practically write themselves.
Despair. (It’s more ignorant hippie than black American, though.)
Did you ever notice how Black Google searches like This, but White Google searches like THiS?