2009 at Black Expat Magazine: Progress and Prospectsa
The year of 2009 was an awesome year for us and our venture BlackExpat.com. A small idea between the two co-founders, Adrianne George and Reginald Smith, has grown into a quarterly magazine with tens of thousands of hits and visitors, a worldwide scope, and a budding network of Black Expats on almost all continents. The beginning of the year also found us welcoming our new graphic artist, Mark Derek McCullough whose excellent drive and skills have brought Black Expat to a new level we previously had not been able to achieve on our own.
With Derek on board, we have been able to transition from the old PDF format of the first issue to the new web based magazine format our readers are now familiar with. With this new format it both made updates easier, reduced formatting issues, and also made it easier on users with slow Internet connections who previously had to suffer by downloading large PDF files. In short, we improved the site’s look, features, and made the magazine more accessible, all in one blow! This has also allowed us to bring in partners for advertising that provide a modest but crucial revenue source for the project.
In content we also made new leaps as well. We are fortunate to have been able to pool all of our contacts to bring you a wide variety of engaging and interesting individuals from around the globe. Our articles in 2009 spanned five continents and included off-the-beat countries where the Black Expat population was almost unknown. We profiled the large and dynamic African-American expat population of Ghana, an illusionist in the rich playground of Dubai, expats living in Greece, Germany, and Denmark, an excellent description of life in Colombia, and a Caribbean-British expat in Canada. And we still have more to come! We also thank our readers for their excellent letters of encouragement and constructive criticism that have helped make our magazine that much better.
As 2009 was a great year, we hope 2010 will also raise the bar in both content and presentation. We are currently planning a new site layout that will give Black Expat an even sleeker, newer look. We are also planning at least two theme issues next year: one issue dedicated to Black Expats in Asia and another dedicated to those in Africa. We are also planning to increase the amount of content generated by guest bloggers and guest columnists. In short, we have another exciting year planned.
On behalf of the team, I would like to thank you for continuing to be a reader of Black Expat Magazine. As always, please keep the feedback and comments coming and we look forward to giving you another dynamic year.
The Editors
Adrianne George
Reginald Smith
Mark Derek McCullough
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