This week I previewed episode 13 of “Run’s House” — a portion of the show dealt with Rev. Run investing in his brother (Russell Simmons) new online venture GlobalGrind.com.
Global Grind is essentially a news aggregator that is Hip-Hop centric (read: Digg for Hip-Hop). Subscribers are able to discover popular Hip-Hop related news based on their grind-up, trash-down voting model. It also aggregates news from a number of well known Hip-Hop sites, such as XXL.
In the past two days, I have taken part in very candid discussions about Global Grind’s implementation and simplification of the original business model (and have discovered that I am not alone in my assertion that the site is missing the mark).
With 4.5 million dollars in funding, I am curious how much of the financial distribution of those assets were directed towards development? I applaud Russell Simmons and Navarrow Wright for embracing Web 2.0 by looking to build more community around Hip-Hop — the message, however, is lost in the design and implementation of Global Grind.
Wow. Isn’t Web 2.0 all about design and implementation? Or at least a big part of it?
It’s easy to deride GlobalGrind’s design and UI (and oh my, I will one day) but as a content developer, what bothers me most is the fact that the content on the page doesn’t add any real value to the experience.
Instead of creating a Digg clone, it may have made sense to provide a rich-content experience that provides insight and exploration opportunities, while still including the Digg-like functionality.
interesting. i’m absolutely familiar with Digg and its UI, and yet I have no idea how this site works. Amazing.
It’s a fake attempt at being 2.0, because of its design and poor UI. Plus, it just doesn’t work. So many links are broken, it’s sloppy. Russell’s pitch in the TV segment sounds awesome in theory, but when you pull up this site, it’s like WTF.
That website is owned by him?! They reached out to me on myspace. I was not impressed in the beginning but I will have to check it out again. Thanks for sharing.
I agree, the mark was more than missed on this one. Looks like someone needs to go back to drawing room to determine the identity and purpose for this web site. Then organize, design, and promote this project.
I don’t think This site is as bad as people are saying plus is a young site and needs time. It does have some bugs but so did myspace and youtube in the first year. I have hope for Globalgrind and russell is very smart but only time can tell.