openentrance – What's Really Going OnWhat's Really Going On

Things have changed from a few months ago between Russell Simmons and Barack Obama from when Simmons called Obama a Mouse. Obama has praised the pair as “great talents and great businessmen”, insisting he’s happy to have the support of the duo in the upcoming November election.
But Obama admits he still has reservations about the current state of music in the U.S., and hopes the industry will begin to take its cues from the business-minded music duo.
He says of his concerns of hip-hop culture:

“I am troubled sometimes by the misogyny and materialism of a lot of rap lyrics, but I think the genius of the art form has shifted the culture and helped to desegregate music. It would be nice if I could have my daughters listen to their music without me worrying that they were getting bad images of themselves.”

I know Obama is all about change, but our country has a lot bigger fish to fry than rap music. Plus I am sure this is causing Russell to use some not so nice words right now.

As a follow up to my previous post, Top 10 Best Blogs On The Web, there was some very good discussion among the people who commented that all of the blogs on the list dealt with celebrity entertainment gossip and that there was no inclusion of blogs on the topics of more substance like politics, race, relationships, etc. I would totally agree, but there are a couple of reasons that more blogs of opinionated topics were not included:

1) I put the list together based on blogs I am aware and since I do not know of all blogs that exist, my rankings are not all inclusive. It is a list that I expect to change and evolve over time, but as my blog has been about celebrity gossip, those are the the blogs that I am more familiar with, although I have become bored with topic.

2) My list was based on traffic stats and gossip blogs get much more traffic and are much more well known through word-of-mouth than blogs of more serious topics. This is true for both black blogs and non-black blogs. Perez Hilton gets a lot more traffic than the Huffington Post.

2) Any measure you use (traffic, technorati ranking, alexa ranking, search engine links, comments per post, whatever) celebrity blogs are still more popular simply because more people read those blogs on a regular basis than other topics.

I guess I am most surprised that it was not expected that primarily Gossip blogs would outrank blogs of more serious topics. The online world mirrors the offline world in most ways. The same reason that Flava of Love gets more viewers than the Presidential debates is the same reason that Gossip blogs are more popular than other blogs.

Electronic Village compiles a list of Top Black Blogs on his site which is more inclusive than my list, although his rankings are several months old, so mine will get their. His rankings are based on Technorati rankings which ranks blogs based on the number of links that blog has received from other blogs in the last 6 months. Several of the blogs in his Top 10 are also in my Top 10. Gossip Blogs are simply more popular and I think that represents two realities. First, that there is a lack of concern with major issues effecting our lives and existence and 2) that people firmly understand the issues that exist for them and their communities and they use their time for entertainment(watching TV, reading blogs, etc) to escape those harsh realities for a short period of time.

I am not saying that it is right that we as black people spend more time reading about Gossip than other issues, but I am not saying it is wrong either. It is what it is. There are also many other reasons why Gossip blogs are more well trafficked than other blogs:

1) Ease of Posting – It is far easier to produce content for a Gossip blog than it is for a political blog. If you are focused and half way decent at using blogging software, you can post at least 3-4 gossip posts in an hour. There is typically very little original thought necessary outside of writing a sentence or two and the content is readily abundant, just take it from another blog and hope your readers have not read it elsewhere first. On a good day a blog of more substance hopes to post 1-2 times while celebrity blogs post 10-15 posts per day. More of a reason for a visitor to come back more frequently. Additionally, comments on gossip blogs are more prone to turn into group discussions than other blogs. Thus increasing pageviews and traffic as the person that is at work and trying to hide their computer usage has to keep coming back to the site.

2) People simply don’t read - People don’t read long posts, or long books, or long magazine articles, etc. I know everyone reading this now is saying, “I read everything, I love reading” but the reality is that most people only read short articles if they read at all. Not sure if this quote that I heard the other day is totally accurate, but I tend to believe it is that “70% of college graduates never read another book in their life.” People who read a lot, read everything. Those that don’t read, simply don’t read.

3) More Opinionated, But Not Always Interesting – To go along with people not reading much, is the length of articles on sites of more substance tend to be much longer and filled with a person’s opinions. Gossip blogs are rumors that typically have some level of truth to them. I know some blogs make up stories totally, but in general the gossip sites are based on observation and in most cases are true. Opinion blogs are someones opinions which are based on facts, which quite honestly is not always very interesting. I cringe to say that because I know people are putting their heart and soul into their blogs and feel like every post that they make is “hot fire,” but the reality is that they are not all that good. I would equate it to that aspiring rapper that is constantly spitting a “hot 16″ and his closest friends are telling him the greatest, but no one else will even listen. I know a lot of people complained when I listed my blogs based on traffic, but is your blog really that good if no one is reading it?

4) Search Engines – Gossip blogs get more traffic in a lot of cases by search engines. Gossip blogs have both images and articles that can rank and draw traffic. If that is what people are searching for, that is what they are interested in. My blog for instance ranks on the first page of Google Images for Djimon Hounsou, Kimora Lee Simmons, and many other terms. This is an advantage that celebrity bloggers have over other blogs of more “substance” in ways of increasing traffic. And not to get too much into Search Engine Optimization, but Gossip blogs have a higher page rank in a lot of cases so as Gossip bloggers link together, just like blogs of other categories, they move up in rankings together. It is like the community moves as a whole. So if you network with a bunch of other blogger who get very little traffic and have low page rank, most likely you will all be in the same category.

5) Viral Content – Gossip blogs grow in traffic because their content is more viral. If you are not familiar viral content, it is the content that spread quickly via word of mouth without the need of a marketing effort. Readers are much more like to forward a post about Jay-Z’s alleged kid than they are about the problems with the global warming crisis. So as people forward around links to their friends, it exponentially increases traffic.

This list could go on and on, but the reality is that more people are interested in Gossip blogs. I read them both, but I realize most people don’t, which is fine. The good thing that has come out of my Top Ten post is that I am aware of several other blogs that I was not aware of and I will be working with Electronic Village going forward on his Top Ten List, so that we have one that is more inclusive. I doubt that the rankings will change much though.

Here is a list of some good blogs that I discovered since my last post:

Rashunda Tramble
MindSpill

Listen To Leon
Miss Mwabi
Soul Pitch HustleBlack
Repping Beantown
Black Girl Lost
The B-Life
Pull Joy
Theo Talks
Queen Esther
Urban Horror
Akiit
Straight From The A
Black And Married With Kids
Mind Warz
Rashid Muhammad
The Rich House
Electronic Village

Starting March 22nd in Miami, Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z will tour together in a 26 show tour across the U.S. All of the dates and location have not been announced, but here is a partial list:

          DATE           CITY                    VENUE
       March 22      Miami, FL             American Airlines Arena
       March 26      Baltimore, MD         1st Mariner Arena
       March 27      Uniondale, NY         Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
       March 28      East Rutherford, NJ   Izod Center
       March 30      Philadelphia, PA      Wachovia Center
       April 2       Toronto, ON           Air Canada Centre
       April 3       Boston, MA            TD Banknorth Garden
       April 5       Greensboro, NC        Greensboro Coliseum
       April 6       Washington, DC        Verizon Center
       April 16      Los Angeles, CA       Hollywood Bowl

I am sure tickets will sell out fast on this one, but I bet the price will be ridiculous. On Ticketmaster, the price of tickets for the New York show are between $76-$347. Those seats close up better come with a record deal!

TI help New York City’s Madison Square Garden hostage last night for 2007’s Screamfest tour and he didn’t come alone.

According to MTV, T.I., Jay-Z, Diddy, Swizz Beatz, Ciara, Kanye and 50 Cent were all on stage performing and partying together—at the same time.

50 who isn’t on the Screamfest bill popped up to perform with rumored girlfriend Ciara as well as “I Get Money” in which the G Unit took the stage to perform alongside their boss, Lloyd Banks, Mobb Deep, and Tony Yayo were all present.

As if that wasn’t enough a surprise to please the fans, during T.I.’s performance of “Watch What You Say.” After the first verse, a banner of Jay-Z hands throwing up the dynasty sign rolled down the back of the stage followed by the man himself appearing on stage to finish of his bars.

Jay then announced that the ROC was in the building prompting Kanye West to appear on stage where he began to perform _“Can’t Tell Me Nothing.” According to MTV, As Yey performed, Fif rushed the stage—but there were no incidents and no signs of rivalries — as Kanye rapped, 50 ran around the stage like he was doing a victory lap, stopping along the way to bump shoulders and say what’s up to Tip, ‘Ye and Jay.

Not missing a beat, Diddy also jumped on stage with the other heavyweights as Kanye continued to perform.

If homey aint the king then I don’t who is. Besides Jay who else could gather that type of star power on one stage at the same time? I love T.I. and I respect the hell out of his hustle and I’ll argue that there isn’t another rapper in the game hotter right now. MTV of course got it all wrong with Wayne being the hottest. Hip-hop unity. Gotta love it.

Word is that Jay-Z is leaving Island Def Jam and heading over to Columbia Records. The Jigga Man would take with him ownership of his own master recordings which has to make him an attractive hire to Columbia co-chair Rick Rubin, who produced Jigga’s hit ’99 Problems.’ Oh yeah, and if you didn’t already know, Columbia is the home of Beyonce also.

So why is Jay-Z leaving? Sandrarose.com reports that L.A. Reid has grown wary of HOV’s hands-off leadership approach, but some sources say it has to do with Jermaine Dupri’s arrival as president of the Island Urban music division in February.

If this all plays out as expected, you’ll have Jay-Z and Bey on Columbia and JD and Janet on Def Jam. Who do you think is the winner?

When I started writing this post it was going to be a post about Ray J and Lil’ Kim dating.  But then I thought…”WHO CARES?!”  I sure as hell don’t.  It did however make me think about celebrity relationships.  Are they really based on love or are they just publicity stunts?  I say that because most of them tend to get into a hot and heavy relationship when they’re close to releasing a new movie or album. 

Right off the top of my head Will and Jada (For some reason I’m not sold on Jay-Z and Beyonce) is the only celebrity couple I can think of who have been together over time.

Now I know there are countless others who are married to someone who is not in the spotlight and that’s wonderful.  I guess my problem is I think some of our celebrities are using “love” and “marriage” as a tool to make money and I think it needs to be addressed.  We’re in a time where there are so many broken homes and  families in our community, and when are kids turn on the idiot box they’re seeing our stars jumping from one person to the next.  One day this brother is dating sister girl, but the next day another sister is having that brothers baby.

Leave it to some folks and they’ll find a way to blame this on hip hop (if they haven’t already), but isn’t this phenomenon happening with our actors and actresses, musicians and athletes as well?  Has our true commitment, love and dedication to one another as black men and women died or has it just changed with the times? Am I way off here?  Let me know.