"Not just African-American-owned businesses, but all the small businesses that don't really have a lot of money to advertise on the Web," Ladd said.

Denverblackpages.com debuted in November, has been averaging about 2,500 hits a week and scored the endorsement of Mayor Wellington Webb.

"There is a tremendous market on the Internet and the Denver Black Pages is an economical way for all of our smaller businesses to establish a Web presence and get a share of the billions of consumer dollars," Webb said in a March 8 letter.

"All who wish to conduct business with the African-American community will be well served in utilizing Denver Black Pages to show their support of this growing segment of the population."

The site opens on a picture postcard of downtown Denver at night, with the arch at Civic Center Park in the foreground and tall buildings lit from within behind, all of it framed by a dark blue-purple sky.

Click and you can find out what's going on in some of those buildings. The home page offers listings of the latest concerts and plays, stories of local and national interest and movie reviews and restaurant recommendations. Lists of area churches and organizations are also there, as well as a directory of local businesses.

Ladd believes that, in addition to attracting local members to the site, she can also provide a place for blacks thinking about relocating to the Denver area.

"That's how a lot of people find out what the city's like," she said. "I wanted to give the African-American perspective about Denver and Colorado. I wanted to provide some kind of Internet resource for people who wanted to visit."

Denver Black Pages caught on quickly, mostly through word-of-mouth and some direct mail advertising, Ladd said. It's free to users and members, who can register to have a newsletter of events, tips and news e-mailed to them. So far, about 700 have signed up, she said.

Ladd surveys her visitors and has determined that about 65 percent are women, most between the ages of 35 and 50. In an effort to gain younger visitors, Ladd said she plans to add a youth section.

The site offers small businesses a directory listing for $5 per month. Sponsors, four of them to date, get bigger play for up to $1,000 per month, and for $15 per month, companies can get a link to their own Web sites.

Roxie Williams has been advertising her full-service catering company, Garden Party Catering, since the site started. So far, she said, she hasn't gained any customers from the ad for her 16-year-old Denver business. But she said she enjoys the site and visits it often.

"I think it's a good thing for minority businesses," she said.

Janet Redwine-Marsh has gotten some business for her 7-year-old Aurora hair salon, Hair's What's Happening, since her listing went up on the Web site.

"Most of my patrons are black, and I carry black hair care products and do makeovers on black women," she said. "I have had a couple clients who have told me they looked me up there."

The two most popular Web sites among black Internet surfers are blackvoices.com and blackplanet.com, according to recent figures from media monitoring company Nielsen Netratings. Both of those sites are aimed at national audiences, and last year averaged between 250,000 and 440,000 visitors per month.

While Ladd's site does pull national stories of interest to blacks from wire services and other sites, it focuses mostly on local happenings.

With a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in computer science, she had all the tools she needed to set the site up and manage it herself. Aside from the $35 it cost her to buy the domain name, her biggest expense has been her time. She spends about four hours each night handling Web site business after heading home from her full-time job at Lockheed Martin.

Eventually, she hopes to turn Internet work into a full-time business, and has already incorporated as Innovative Internet Marketing Solutions.

Denver Rocky Mountain News May 7, 2001