Minority businesses bridging the digital divide

What digital divide?

Curtis Brown was on the phone enthusing about how social media have boosted his Verona-based mobile marketing business when suddenly the line seemed to go dead.

"Whoops, sorry," he said after a moment. "I just got distracted -- someone sent me a message on LinkedIn."

A typical Internet geek multitasking on a cell phone and laptop? Yes, but Mr. Brown defies the stereotype in one important way: he is African-American, part of a demographic that has lagged behind other groups in Internet adoption surveys.

Not only did Mr. Brown cross the digital divide years ago, he and other minority groups, nationally and in Pittsburgh, are increasingly using social media to promote their businesses and build community.

The "cutting edge" Internet user of 10 years ago -- mostly portrayed as a white man in his mid-thirties glued to a desktop in his home, frequently in his pajamas -- has been replaced by a new early adopter, someone who is black or Hispanic and young. Moreover, undaunted by the cost of personal computers, he or she uses handheld devices to access the Internet and its myriad applications: texting, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, e-mail.

The largest spike in mobile Internet users, in fact, is among African-Americans, according to a study released in April by the Internet and American Life Project of the Pew Research Center. More than half of all African-Americans, along with English-speaking Hispanics, use cell phones to go on the Web, compared with 28 percent of white Americans.

Mr. Brown and his wife and business partner, Cassandra, rave about LinkedIn as a conduit to potential customers for their business, Jireh Mobile (www.jirehmobile.com), which helps companies market their services to cell phone users, using text messaging and other technologies.

Their LinkedIn site with its 260 connections "has opened up a whole other world for us," Mr. Brown said. "I can find more professional, middle-class African-Americans like me, whether lower or upper management types, who, ordinarily, I wouldn't know were out there."

Vernard Alexander agrees. An educator by training who feels comfortable interacting with many different groups, Mr. Alexander, of Monroeville, had something of an epiphany after the Crawford Grill closed its doors at its Station Square location in 2006.

"So many people were so upset about the closing, posting comments in the New Pittsburgh Courier, that I thought I had to do something to try to help our minority businesses get to know each other," he said.

He founded a website, the Minority Networking Exchange (www.minnetexch.com), which aims to help minority businesses network and promote themselves. It's also on Facebook, listed as a group, with 1,362 members. Mr. Alexander also has 4,293 friends on his personal Facebook page.

By day, he manages a welfare-to-work program at the Reemployment Transition Center, Downtown. After work, the father of two is online, three hours a night, networking and organizing events -- including a monthly entrepreneurial breakfast at the Friendly Ground Café on the North Side and, yesterday afternoon, the "Healthy Lifestyle Weight Loss Project" at a Penn Hills restaurant, East Coast Crabs, which offered fitness trainers, stylists and nutritionists.

Sometimes his events have attracted one person, sometimes 50 to 60, Mr. Alexander said, noting that while he charges an entry fee to pay for the venue, he's not in it for the money.

"I just want people in our community to get to know each other," he said.

Still, the Web and its social media applications have yet to truly permeate the region's minority community. Few of Homewood's 26 churches -- primary centers for face-to-face networking -- are online. And at the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh last summer, a gathering of liberal bloggers, organizers remarked on the low numbers of local minorities attending.

"We're still behind the times," said Mr. Brown, noting that when he and his wife attended a technology fair at Duquesne University in October, many of the attendees "had no idea what mobile marketing was, or that you could dial a six-digit number on your cell phone for information about a product."

Donna Baxter said people are catching on. Founder of TheSoulPitt.com, which bills itself as "Pittsburgh's Premier Minority Community Website," she said her page views have jumped from 300,000 a few years ago to half a million today, and 7,000 people subscribe to her Internet newsletter.

These days, though, she's really getting traction with her Facebook fan page -- which counts 1,023 fans of The Soul Pitt. She's also put up a Twitter link.

The goal, she said, is to get information about events, issues and businesses of interest to minorities across different platforms.

"I can post the same thing on my blog, on Facebook, on my website and get the maximum response," she said.

She has some competition. Brotha Ash Productions (www.brothaashproductions.com) also bills itself as Pittsburgh's "No. 1 Community Website," covering news, entertainment, job and career information. Pittsburgh Urban Media (pittsburghurbanmedia.com), created by Robin Beckham, a former director of public affairs at WPXI, focuses on news.

Ms. Beckham said she decided to create the site, mostly aimed at minorities, after radio station WAMO shut down. "I thought, what's going to fill the void?"

On Saturday, the site posted links to news about Haiti, including a guest contributor's opinion piece urging readers to text their donations by dialing a specific number and then punching in the letters "YELE" -- which would charge cell phone users $5 toward a Haiti earthquake relief group headed by Wyclef Jean, the Haitian-born rapper and producer.

One website alone isn't enough for multitasking young entrepreneurs, many of whom have day jobs that supplement their Internet businesses. Ama Baltimore, executive assistant to the senior pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in the Hill District, also has an online hair weave business, Affordable Indian Hair (affordableindianhair.com).

While she has successfully advertised on TheSoulPitt.com -- she initially had 15 customers, and now sells her products to more 300 people, she said -- Ms. Baltimore found a whole new customer base when she went on Facebook about 10 months ago. She now boasts 164 "fans" of Affordable Indian Hair, who in turn have their own friends lists.

"I've gotten incredible exposure," Ms. Baltimore said, contending that she's proof that the digital divide has narrowed. Besides her cell phone, she owns a Dell laptop and carries a Gateway netbook in her purse "so I can process credit card purchases from customers on the go. Plus I hang out in coffee shops. Amani International Coffeehouse on the North Side has great Wi-Fi, and it's free," she said with a laugh.

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