On Jan. 5, Irving will make public his new job as CEO of UrbanMagic.com, an African-American portal scheduled to launch in April. The Magic comes from basketball legend Magic Johnson, who has contributed an undisclosed amount of seed capital and says he will exercise significant creative control over the venture.

The former Los Angeles Laker and CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises has been praised for his recent efforts to bridge a brick-and-mortar divide: the lack of businesses and other amenities in minority urban neighborhoods. Among other initiatives, he has partnered with Sony (dossier) and Starbucks (SBUX) to open movie theaters and coffee houses in low-income black neighborhoods around the country.

"When I first built a Starbucks in a black community, people said black people wouldn't buy coffee," Johnson says. "Now I have the No. 1 Starbucks in Los Angeles. I know this market well and I know what the people want." (Johnson's doing well, but he's using NBA hyperbole; his Starbucks is in the top 10 percent of the Los Angeles stores.)

Johnson was impressed by Irving's Internet-world connections. For seven years, Irving was principal adviser to the president, vice president and the secretary of commerce on telecommunications and Internet issues. He worked to pass the Telecommunications Act of 1996, helped shape the administration's hands-off approach to the Internet and e-commerce, and spearheaded "Falling Through the Net," a series of Commerce Department reports that documented the widening disparity between the Net haves and have-nots. Newsweek named him one of the 50 most influential people in its Year of the Internet issue.

"We wanted someone who knows the whole Internet community, someone who would legitimize us," says Johnson of Irving. The two hope to assemble a dream management team to build a world-class destination site "by, for and about African Americans." Similar to African-American-focused destination sites like BlackPlanet.com, BlackVoices.com, NetNoir and the late-to-launch BET.com, UrbanMagic will assemble under one roof entertainment, retail, content and community. But UrbanMagic will have one big leg up on the competition: Magic's name to draw traffic. "I was heavily recruited by the other black portals, but I wanted to do my own thing," says Johnson. "Yeah, we'll make some money, but we'll also do some good."

Whether the world needs another black portal, though, is debatable. "The other black portals haven't captured the black market like they should," responds Johnson.

Irving says there's more than enough audience to go around. "If you're going to continue to see the high valuations in this sector, African Americans are an essential component," he says. "You can't sell any more computers to white males. The growth is in minority communities."

Irving wants to avoid cutting off too small a piece of the pie. In particular, he aims to avoid the approach of sites like Vibe Online, which focuses on the hip-hop community. "There's no good reason to have a niche audience of a niche audience," he says.

A significant stakeholder in the project is Guidance Solutions of Marina del Rey, Calif., a regional incubator of such sites as eNutrition, CelebritySightings.com and RightStart.com. A third strategic partner is United Talent Agency in Beverly Hills, Calif., which will recruit from its stable of name-brand celebrities to work with the fledgling site.

Says Irving: "This is the year people of color are going to arrive on the Net." Let's just hope the party doesn't go down like The Magic Hour, Johnson's ill-fated Fox talk show.