Active Audience | 62% |
Quality Matches | 87% |
Popular Age | 23-24 |
Profiles | 1 700 000 |
Reply Rate | 88% |
Ease of Use | 9.8 |
Popularity | 9.2 |
Fraud | Very Rarely |
Rating |
9.5
|
Registration | Free |
BlackPlanet is an online dating site that exclusively focusses on African-Americans and African dating and formed in 2001 by Omar Wasow. In 2008, it was later bought by Radio One for a massive amount of 39 million dollars. The latest owners then tried to penetrate all the audiences instead of just the black people to make the site more approachable for every race, sex, and gender. However, the administration makes it a point to try and make the black community as strong as possible.
When the site was taken over by new administrators in 2008, there was an estimated 20-million-member base. The services offered are free of cost, but you shouldn’t be surprised to see ads on it. The users are given access to communicate through messaging options and public blogs. Some people even try and post some job offers, but the users are constantly reminded that such posts are not allowed and keep their profile at risk by doing it often. The site advertises to be one of the global leading community sites for African-Americans. They aim to provide an open platform where both genders can come together without discrimination in an attempt to socialize for networking, love, or even just pure friendship. Although it’s been in operation for a while, it’s still an excellent site that explicitly focuses on blacks. However, can they continue to maximize the market share in being one of the pioneer sites for blacks? The review below will let you know. To contact the website for any queries as a member or business, you can use the below details.
Address: 205, Hudson Street, 6th Floor, New York, USA.
Company name: Urban One. Inc
E-mail – [email protected]
Key points to note:
Once you sign up and ready to go, start reaching out for people who’re nearby you. This option is available because of in-house location feature tags. You can also choose to edit your preferences by zip code, age, sex, and gender.
Even if your zip code is something else, you can type in a zip code of your choice to try your luck elsewhere. Keep it in mind that only the site moderators have the authority to make chat rooms, but they’re available for anyone to enter. The chatrooms are bifurcated according to parameters such as location, age, and gender.
The people you come across are usually friendly and appear polite in their conversations. You’ll come across a wide variety of posts that contain images on the home page of the site. The photos may be either the photos or members. For the benefit of the member, the black dating site offers unique features in an attempt to make the experience memorable.
You have the option to create messages that resemble a love letter. It makes the conversation exciting and a chance at finding love or friendship that you’re here for.
There is an interesting concept that works to help you keep updated about the African-American community’s current happenings. Other members can also comment in regards to this and strike an interesting conversation.
You can check out the activities of other members on the Blackplanet. This concept works like social media websites where you can scroll through all members’ likes and comments.
Do note that only the moderators have the authority to create public chat rooms that you can enter and have fruitful conversations on this site.
Registration for BlackPlanet has been made quite easy, quick, and hassle-free for its members. It should not take more than 4-5 minutes to complete the registration and get themselves ready for the next steps towards messaging and other communication features. When you go to the home page, there’s a ‘not secure’ warning that’ll pop up on the site’s browser.
It is because it means the site is not secured when it connects to the site. But do not worry, you can still proceed ahead without any worries. Even though not secure, technically means that it’s not difficult to access whatever information you punch in. To cover up that, there’s a reCaptcha service provided to eliminate the risk of bots.
It ensures that the member who is trying to log in is not a bot. From our research, this was a security feature that we came across on the site so far. Moving on to creating the profile, the necessary information like username, e-mail, gender, DOB, and a strong password to match your creative username will be required. Do keep in mind always to use a creative username.
It will help you attract more members towards your profile and help you stand out. It’ll also mean you have a different attitude from the rest.
Creating an account with BlackPlanet is easy since they only ask for the necessary information such as the username, e-mail address, password, gender, and birth date.
The design and usability of BlackPlanet are pretty decent. However, you do end up feeling that they could be better off with an upgrade in their design to make it more modern. Since it’s been incepted, it’s come along to cater to the African-Americans. Still, maybe it’s time to look at the larger picture and adjust the display and user experience accordingly. The site’s aesthetic and layout may not stand out, but it still does its job and manages to attract a large member base. The functionalities could be a bit more detailed and outlined. It looks like a bit of a cluster. Hopefully, the site will look to their developers to remove their magic wand and help it get a makeover for their good.
The profiles that you come across on BlackPlanet are usually great and different compared to the other sites. You’ll not come across too much of personal information as you see in other dating sites. Instead, you’ll notice that the data provided are concise and sticks straight to the point instead of being massive and, at times, confusing. Sometimes, short and sweet does the trick just like in the case of this site. Below are the aspects of the profile that you’ll come across.
Username: You should not be surprised to see fake names on the member profile. It is to allow members to remain anonymous if they wish to. It helps individual members be more creative in their names to attract other members. Nothing makes a mind more curious than a lack of understanding. It can also act as an ice-breaker for conversations between two potential love interests.
Profile photo: This is more of a picture of a user than a decent profile picture. Also, you may not be able to view the complete image, so be prepared for it.
Self-written description: You’ll see that the members would have written a few lines about themselves at their creative best. It helps to get a slightly more in-depth understanding of the personality you’re dealing with.
Posts and blog entries: Since this site tilts more towards communication possibilities than image exchanging, you’ll see the fun, creative side of people with their posts and blogs that are pinned on their profiles.
The mobile app works for completely free; even it applies to the app version of it. During our research, we did notice there were complaints in regards to the technical aspects of the site concerning screen freeze, etc. But we could not find any such issues, and the app functioned smoothly of the times. We must admit that the key functions look a bit old-fashioned, and maybe the site moderators could ramp up the features a bit.
From the investigation of the site from our end, we could find that they have a reCaptcha security measure that almost eliminates bots from entering the site and disrupting a real user’s user experience. Apart from that, we did not come across any verification process during the registration of the site. The support team is always on hand to help a member deal with these issues. For your security, we recommend you use a unique e-mail address while registering for BlackPlanet.
It will ensure that your personal/career information is separate from your life and eliminates prying eyes you might encounter in a public space. Whenever you encounter any suspicious behavior, it’s always recommended to report them to the support team. They’ll then ensure necessary steps are taken to protect the real members’ interests on the site.
You’re allowed to give out messages, write comments, and likes for free of cost. No currency’s available on the site to help you boost the chances of your profile ranking higher than others. It does create a kind of unfair environment where members feel unfairly treated. However, it can be noted that those members who make an effort to make their profile more attractive and interesting have the chance of ranking high in the list of Popular Lists. The site has no provision for payments, and that’s a positive aspect of it.
Immediately after registration, you’re now a BlackPlanet member, and at any point in time, you feel you’re not cut for this site, you can cut off your membership at will. We see in dating sites where there’s pressure to take subscription payments; you’ll not see that happening over here, which leaves a positive image on the mind of the member logging in for the 1st time. That may be one reason why the site attracts millions of members from all over the world and tries to remain connected to the African-American community on a platform that enables them to do so without prejudice.
The support team has made itself available 24/7/ to help the members have a faultless experience while surfing through the site. Their main scope of duty is moderate the site and look for bots that roam around, trying to sneak into real account’s messages. They do their job efficiently. As you’d expect from a big website, it takes a lot of effort and time to maintain the site’s daily operations. So, at times, your query might take some time to get resolved.
Another good aspect of the site is that the support team understand the racial discrimination a purely African-American site could face. Hence, they come up with many solutions to avoid that and make the site a race-free platform, welcoming and allowing every kind of race to come forward and interact with fellow members.
Yes, it’s a safe site that allows the African-American community to unite on a common platform to interact, network, and find partners of their preference.
Yes, it’s an established and old dating site that’s developed a reputation over the years of being a pioneer dating platform for the black community.
Once you register, apply the filters of your preference and find dates and matches of your interest.
Yes, and it’s one of the advantages of the site. Free members can navigate almost the entirety of the site’s features without paying a dime.
Yes, it works when you know what you’re seeking on the platform. It’s a site that specifically focusses on bringing together the black community and helping them interact with each other.
Without a doubt, BlackPlanet’s idea of creating a unique site that welcomes the African-American community has worked tremendously. They have over a million members and continue to rake in numbers is a testimony to that fact. It was one of the first sites tailor-made to cater to the black community’s needs and demands. However, we felt as much justice had been done to a race. The site could technologically do so much before. Here are some of the recommendations from adapting to the modern requirements for updating the site and app’s aesthetics.
Some of these recommendations have also been put forward by the concerned members of the site. We also have to appreciate their loyalty in helping a site. Whatever good that has been done by the management to help a community find its roots and help them find an unbiased sense of belonging will otherwise go for a toss. If you’re an African-American and are looking for a platform that lets in your community without any unfair prejudice helps you find networking, friends, and also a shot at the love of your life, this is the right platform for it.