BUSINESS WEEK — Sep 21 — COO Court Cunningham says Community Connect is the third largest social networking company in the U.S. in terms of revenue. Community Connect's sites (BlackPlanet, MiGente, AsianAvenue) function like MySpace; users can create profiles and search for people by gender, age, and interests, as well as ethnicity. There are also chats, message boards, job listings, personals, and of course advertisements. Together, Latinos, African-Americans, and Asian-Americans make up about 33% of the total U.S. population (2005 U.S. Census). According to Forrester, 86% of Asian-Americans are online, 56% of African-Americans are online, and Latinos, at 45%, are currently undergoing the fastest online migration. Community Connect will launch gay/lesbian Glee.com, by the end of 2006. Another Christian site is due January, 2007. Community Connect expects to earn $20+ million this year and has gone from 70 employees to 140 in the past year. 15% of revenues come from online personal subscriptions, 50% advertising, 35% from job postings.
Mark Brooks: The Community Connect team has worked for over a year to build a more scalable platform for launching new niche networks sites. It has proven itself with Black Planet and will loom over MySpace when it comes to profit rich targeted niche communities. Users will end up using three multiple sites; a generic site such as MySpace/Friendster, additional niche focused sites such as Fropper or MyChurch or BlackPlanet, and the latest 'in-thing' social network with more progressive functionality.