[2] In April 2008, Community Connect and its constituent websites were purchased for $38 million by Radio One, a Lanham-based media company.

[4] According to Wasow, BlackPlanet's home-grown software encouraged social connection rather than passive content consumption, allowing users to move between personal pages and a variety of message boards.

[7] In October 2011, an anonymous model filed a federal lawsuit against BlackPlanet.com regarding a 2007 incident in which she was drugged and raped by two men who met the woman through the website.

The two men (40-year-old Lavont Flanders, Jr. and 45-year-old Emerson Callum) were convicted by a federal jury in Miami in December 2011 of multiple sex-related and conspiracy charges and were sentenced to life in prison.

[10][11] In 2007, BlackPlanet was featured in the press when the Pentagon banned it, as well as other sites, on the U.S. Department of Defense network in order to free up bandwidth,[12] suggesting high usage levels.

[citation needed] BlackPlanet gained considerable publicity when Senator Barack Obama began using the site on October 5, 2007, during his presidential campaign bid.

[citation needed] BlackPlanet Rising works with a charitable organization called DonorsChoose, which connects users to offer donations of critical resources, such as books, supplies, computers, field trips and guest speakers to public schools.

[16] Past events organised by BlackPlanet Rising include fundraisers for earthquake and tsunami relief projects, volunteer drives for causes such as homelessness, and the launch of TelAfric at the Houston Museum of African American Culture, March 2011.

[citation needed] BlackPlanet Rising's VolunteerMatch site matches user's locations with volunteer opportunities in their area.