The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

“Why aren’t there more positive stories about Black folks out there?”

How many times have we heard that line before?

Yet, in the end what we discover here that what really sells and what captivates our attention the most isn’t how a father is spending time with his kids, or how someone is doing their part to help sweep away crime from a community. Instead, the latest dirt on both the famous and not so famous is what garners much of our attention.

While I am always interested in success stories where unknown individuals are able to compete against the big boys, this one leaves me thinking about a lot.

Inc. Magazine’s interview with Mediatakeout.com founder, Fred Mwangaguhunga

So you didn’t start out as a specifically urban site?

No, but the idea was, if this is what people want, give them more of that. So it went from 10 percent urban, to 15, to 20, to 30 to 50. At some point we realized, this is an urban site, so about a month in we said, “we’re going to make the switch and go completely urban.” Since starting in 2006, MediaTakeOut.com has grown from virtually no readers to a site that receives more than 500,000 unique users a day and has five times the traffic of any other urban blog.

How’d you get people to come to the site?

MediaTakeOut.com has broken some of the biggest urban news stories ever – like the Chris Brown-Rihanna assault, Rapper TI’s arrest, and the Jennifer Hudson family tragedy. People know that we’re the go-to place for breaking news in the urban community. Another huge part of our success is our active and engaged audience. We have over 650,000 registered users who actively comment on our articles. Their comments, often humorous and usually insightful, give readers that “extra” that they can’t find anywhere else.

How’s MediaTakeOut.com’s traffic compare to other entertainment sites?

While MediaTakeOut.com focuses heavily on African American-oriented content, our traffic is on par with some of the largest mainstream sites on the web. According to September’s Comscore numbers, MediaTakeOut.com received 87 million page views, making it the sixth most visited entertainment website in the United States (behind only TMZ, MSN’s Wonderwall, Yahoo’s OMG, People Magazine, and TV Guide). It was ranked ahead of Perez Hilton, E! Online, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Weekly and Us Magazine. AOL BlackVoices received 75 million page views and BET.com received 38 million.