Ok....Let's see if you're Hip....Have you Checked out the Suicide Girls Web Site...????...If NOT Click HERE .....

The Genius of Suicide Girls

When we talk about Web 2.0, it is not very often we get to see a site that started before this phase of the web and has gone on to take the best parts of it and continue to thrive. Suicide Girls (NSFW) is a great example of a site that started with basic community functionality and has latched on to the positives of this era of the web and has shown no sign of slowing down.

Started in September 2001, SG is based around the images of alternative women posing semi-nude, which in itself should make it popular. Instead of simply leaving it as a gallery site that people would view and walk away from they began to add community functionality to the site to make it more sticky. You have message boards and groups which help people feel as though they are part of something. That along with looking at pictures of naked women would make almost any person happy to be part of the community, but they didn’t stop there.

With typical features like news and interviews, SG also gave each girl a blog so they could keep their fans updated. Now we have podcasts, radio shows, albums, videos and a traveling show. Yes part of their revenue scheme revolves around ads, but those are few and far between. The basics start with a simple $4/month membership which many people are happy to fork over.

The term "suicide girl" is credited to a usage by Fight Club author, and Portland resident, Chuck Palahniuk, in his novel Survivor. Mooney confirms this novel as the source for the name in the Suicide Girls FAQ where she adds,

"Suicide girls is a term my friends and I had been using to describe the girls we saw in Portland's Pioneer Square with skateboards in one hand, wearing a Minor Threat hoodie, listening to Ice Cube on their iPods while reading a book of Nick Cave's poetry. They are girls who didn't fit into any conventional sub-culture and didnt [sic] define themselves based on musical taste like punk, metal, goth, etc. I think the only classifications right now people identify with are mainstream and outside of mainstream. That is why the site is called SuicideGirls."

Although started as a two person operation out of a loft in downtown Portland, OR in 2001, in five short years SuicideGirls has grown its audience to over 5 million unique visitors a month. With hundreds of thousands of subscribers, over a thousand models, a succesful book and DVD in stores and a new clothing line, there's no telling what diabolical plan SG will next come up with to seperate you from your hard earned money.