Think Multicultural

Sorry about the lack of posting here lately. Admixture’s office move to Washington, D.C. is almost complete and things will get back to less-hectic-than-this.

Inspired by the backlash against Andy Rooney’s recent baseball-related comments that “today’s baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me,” Stephen Dubner at the Freakonomics blog today is examining the cost of discriminating against Latinos.

What Dubner’s entry seems to imply is that the unacceptability (or “cost” as he puts it) of discriminating against certain groups is a function of two things: 1) a history of discrimination against a group, and 2) rising economic and/or political power of that group to fight such discrimination.

Dubner’s a smart guy who deals with tricky subjects, so I’m going to have to think on this one a while before forming my own opinion, but in the meantime, discrimination against Latinos would seem to fit his thesis very well. It is pretty undisputable that there has been a long history of discrimination against Latinos in the United States, and it is also undisputable that the economic and political power of Latinos is growing.

Los Angles, CA, Friday, Aug 24, 2007 11:08 PM ET

FIRST THERE WAS FRIENDSTER. THEN there was MySpace and Facebook. Now a new company is launching “Viva Juan!,” a new online social community where people can discuss TV, music, movies, Internet sites and celebrities about or involving people named Juan. “Part opinion engine, part social network, and part buzz tracker, Viva Juan! is the place to share opinions on your favorite name,” reads the description on the beta version of the site, which is currently open only to people named Juan, but which will go public by the end of the day.

The site, which Viva Juan! executives describe as just coming out of “stealth mode,” was more than a week in the making, and was conceived by Viva Juan! CEO Juan Diaz following an internal “self-importance” workshop. The site also is the first new product created by Viva Juan! Inc., which hopes to expand into Facebook widgets and mobile advertising, as soon as they figure out what they are.

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Sorry. The new Nielsen social network announcement pushed me over the edge. No matter how small a niche there is out there, someone, somewhere, is planning to make millions by creating a social network around it.