1stFriday.com, Inc.

“We believe that African Americans have unique social and professional information needs – our issues and problems are very area-specific. Connections is the only social and professional networking platform that serves the needs of African Americans at the local level,” said 1stFriday.com CEO Jay Ward.

Connections boasts Geo Social networking tools

Connections is open to everyone, regardless of whether their city hosts an active 1st Friday chapter. According to 1st Friday.com there are now 29 U.S. cities with First Fridays chapters, where African Americans gather to connect. A Connections profile will allow visitors to search for other African Americans with similar personal or professional goals, join groups, or send and receive messages from other Connections members.

“The more people who join and use the Connections network, the more useful it will become for the Black community. That’s our goal,” said Ward.

Hustletown readers: Is Connections poised to become the new Blackplanet.com? If you use this site or plan to, tell us about your experience below!

(Does anyone remember BlackPlanet?)

Today’s entrepreneur must often spend time making sure they are using the best channels to effectively reach customers. It is quite possible that all of our future email, instant updates, social networking, blogging, and searching will be connected into one seamless interface.

Or is the future here already?

Still in its preview stages, Google Wave promises to be all of those things, but has yet to be fully embraced by web savvy circles. According to Hitwise, traffic to the site faltered after a brief period of interest:

Other add-ons such as Google Docs have proven to be invaluable innovations, but for the moment, Wave is either impractical, or simply before its time.

Did you catch the Google Wave? Tell Hustletown Chronicle readers if you use this tool!