Can Russell Simmons Unite the Hip-Hop Community on The Web?

Recent Web 2.0 technology has enabled surfers to choose from all the news feeds, multimedia, and applications the Internet has to offer to create their own start pages. Web surfers in the urban community, however, might need help finding more specialized content -- at least, that's what Global Grind, the recently launched startpage aggregator, is betting on.

Visitors to Global Grind, which launched in beta on September 26, can choose RSS feeds, widgets, and other content -- confined within windows called "grinds" -- from categories such as entertainment, gossip, and "politricks" that are organized into tabs on their homepage. The layout is similar to other Ajax-based aggregators such as NetVibes, Pageflakes, and Google's iGoogle. But Global Grind has the advantage of a $4.5 million investment from hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam Records, and venture capitalist Jim Breyer, whose company Accel Partners also funded Facebook.

According to last year's study by MarketResearch.com, this investment, too, holds great promise. The study estimated that the urban community has 24 million members and a purchasing power of $500 billion. Navarrow Wright, Global Grind's CEO, says he can attract more users than popular hip-hop sites such as SOHH.com, which, according to him, have not yet broken through a ceiling of four to six million users. If Global Grind can reach the untapped portion of the urban market, it can also attract advertisers trying to reach that market.

For Breyer, Global Grind's specific scope presents a compelling opportunity that recalls some of Accel's past investments. "Initially, the best investments meet narrow and very defined parameters: for example, Facebook, RealNetworks, and countless other investments," he explains. "In every case, the initial team had a clear focus and did everything possible to serve the customer around this focus. Navarrow and the team have a clear focus. The upside we’re looking for will come from that."

Simmons' previous foray onto the Web in 2000, however, never found the upside. He sold his site, 360hiphop.com, to BET only three months after its launch. Soon after, it folded. Now, Global Grind stands to benefit from that experience, says CEO Wright, formerly the VP of technology for 360hiphop.com. "What I learned at 360 played a huge role in how I went about planning and executing Global Grind," says Wright. "I think that like a lot of people who were involved in startups during that period, we got a few arrows shot at us, but I’m happy the experience prepared me for this go-around."

"Back then there were not enough eyeballs or advertising dollars to support the vision," adds Simmons. "I've wanted to reenter the space for a long time." Soon after the period of his non-competition agreement with BET ended, he invested $1 million to help build Global Grind.

Simmons' and Accel's investments, though significant enough, are considerably scaled down from the $14 million to $17 million reportedly put into 360hiphop.com. The Global Grind team seems to be exercising more caution financially, which is promising, according to Omar Wasow, co-founder of Black Planet, one of the first social networks for the African American community. "It's smart that they have less money going into it. For niche-content efforts, there needs to be a lower-cost model," says Wasow, who questioned 360hiphop's chances of longevity after its hasty sale to BET.

Not only does Global Grind take a more conservative financial approach than its predecessor, it also offers a different method of gathering content from other urban sites. "There are other sites that do one thing very well," explains Theda Sandiford, Global Grind's chief marketing officer. "Some sites tend to be a bit tabloid, other segments have more politics, more poetry. We bring all these disparate points of view together." Because of its niche focus, Global Grind can highlight urban-focused news and media that might be obscured on NetVibes or Digg. The site includes an internal Web browser that allows users to rate and comment on items. Alongside the browser, a "relevance engine" automatically brings up other news stories, blogs, images, and video related to the item being viewed.

These features, plus Global Grind's position as a "curator" for urban content, offer extra incentive for visitors to stay on the site. "To those of us who grew up with the culture and are frustrated with conventional news outlets, it's a potential godsend," says Michael Miraflor, a blogger on hip-hop marketing and media supervisor for Deep Focus, an entertainment marketing company whose clients include HBO.