April 28, 1997
An EasyWeb target: minorities
David Strow
DURHAM
A Durham Internet firm backed by Tar Heel basketball stars Walter Davis and Phil Ford is preparing to launch an intensive marketing campaign around a web site geared toward the state's minorities.
EasyWeb Inc. later plans to expand its Community Net of North Carolina concept across the Southeast.
Community Net features about 200 minority-owned businesses from across the state, as well as news and information of interest to the minority community.
"It's more of a search engine for minority interests," said Erroll Reese, president of EasyWeb Inc. "We'll be bringing together as many businesses as possible."
The company plans to start a statewide advertising campaign on May 1 to market the site to users across the state.
For those who have worked with Reese and EasyWeb before, the latest move comes as no surprise. The Internet's demographics are heavily white and heavily male. That's something Reese and his partners want to change.
"It can further polarize our community, or it can draw us together," Reese said.
To help reach that goal, EasyWeb has served as the organizing force behind bringing two Durham housing projects on-line in the past several months, after finding donors to supply computers, wiring and Internet access. One of its big partners is GTE, and the two companies intend to select a third Durham site to bring on-line within weeks. But such projects are more than just altruism. By expanding the minority community's access to the Internet, EasyWeb will also be expanding the potential audience for its Community Net efforts. "We'll be providing demographics a lot of advertisers will be interested in," Reese said.
The information age is marked by rapid change, giving a sense of urgency to the company's expansion efforts. "This concept needs to happen, and it needs to happen right now," said Cecil J. Hollar Jr., the company's vice president of Internet product marketing.
To that end, EasyWeb is seeking a national sponsor and targeting Washington, D.C., Atlanta and South Carolina as its next markets for expansion.
EasyWeb was founded by Reese, a former IBM veteran, and partner John Wyatt two years ago. The company employs 15, and has a small branch office in Chapel Hill. It differentiates itself from the myriad of Triangle Internet firms by focusing on how businesses can use a World Wide Web presence most effectively within an overall marketing strategy. It focuses the professional sports industry, the music industry and municipal government, with projects thatinclude designing an intranet for the NBA Players Association and the City of Durham's web page. EasyWeb is now trying to land contracts for a major radio chain and the Durham Police Department.
Reese met Davis and Ford through common friends. But he has some sports history of his own. In 1979, he was a receiver at Alabama A&M, the NCAA Division II football champions. But his latest venture remains a bigger thrill. "I had this dream," Reese said. "I'm still living this dream."
© 1997, Triangle Business Journal
