Suite101.com
Encyclopedia
Suite101 is a Canadian
online magazine
that publishes articles by freelance writers. It generates revenue from advertisements and shares the revenue with article writers. Suite101 was established in 1996 and has published in excess of 300,000 articles by more than 10,000 freelance writers.
, British Columbia
. The original founders included non-fiction and fiction writers who invited local writers to visit the site and post articles about a range of topics. The site continued for nearly a decade (1996–2005) by simply being a source for writers to share their knowledge. During this time, online courses called "Suite University" were offered in an attempt to create revenue for the company, but this effort did not survive.
By 2005, unique visitors to the site had reached four million per month. In 2006 the company was purchased by Canadian and German investors including Boris Wertz, a past founder of JustBooks.de and a previous COO at Abebooks.com. He was joined in the purchase by the digital media arm of Hubert Burda Media
, one of Germany’s leading publishing houses. Under this new leadership, Suite101 expanded its editorial team, in part by recruiting contract editors from book and magazine publishing. On the business model side, the site, under new CEO Peter Berger, added advertising to each article page through a partnership with Google Adsense.
In September 2008, Suite101 expanded into Europe by launching Suite101.de and establishing an office in Berlin. This was followed by launching Suite101.fr in France, and Suite101.net in Spain in 2009, and establishing offices in Paris and Madrid.
In November 2009, Suite101.com was named by comScore as one of the top 10 fastest growing websites based on US traffic growth.
. The site was blacklist
ed and Wikipedia changed its policies to make add the nofollow
tag to all external links.
The revenue model has since been changed; writers are compensated through a portion of the ad revenues earned by a writer's content pages. The monthly earnings for one writer reached nearly $5,000 in 2009.
From 2008 to 2010 the site doubled its readership.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
online magazine
Online magazine
An online magazine shares some features with a blog and also with online newspapers, but can usually be distinguished by its approach to editorial control...
that publishes articles by freelance writers. It generates revenue from advertisements and shares the revenue with article writers. Suite101 was established in 1996 and has published in excess of 300,000 articles by more than 10,000 freelance writers.
History
Suite101 was started in 1996 in VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. The original founders included non-fiction and fiction writers who invited local writers to visit the site and post articles about a range of topics. The site continued for nearly a decade (1996–2005) by simply being a source for writers to share their knowledge. During this time, online courses called "Suite University" were offered in an attempt to create revenue for the company, but this effort did not survive.
By 2005, unique visitors to the site had reached four million per month. In 2006 the company was purchased by Canadian and German investors including Boris Wertz, a past founder of JustBooks.de and a previous COO at Abebooks.com. He was joined in the purchase by the digital media arm of Hubert Burda Media
Hubert Burda Media
Hubert Burda Media is a German privately held, family-owned global media company with its origins in printing and magazine publishing. The company is headquartered in Offenburg and Munich, has additional main offices in Berlin and Hamburg and has more than 7400 employees...
, one of Germany’s leading publishing houses. Under this new leadership, Suite101 expanded its editorial team, in part by recruiting contract editors from book and magazine publishing. On the business model side, the site, under new CEO Peter Berger, added advertising to each article page through a partnership with Google Adsense.
In September 2008, Suite101 expanded into Europe by launching Suite101.de and establishing an office in Berlin. This was followed by launching Suite101.fr in France, and Suite101.net in Spain in 2009, and establishing offices in Paris and Madrid.
In November 2009, Suite101.com was named by comScore as one of the top 10 fastest growing websites based on US traffic growth.
Articles published
Suite101 topic areas focus on lifestyle areas such as home, design, and finance. Writers, once they are authorized to contribute to the site, may write on any topic, regardless of prior knowledge. A team of editors reviews each article after it is published.Organization
Initially, Suite101 compensated its writers based on page views of their content. One effect of this policy was that a tremendous number of links to Suite101 articles were added to WikipediaWikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
. The site was blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
ed and Wikipedia changed its policies to make add the nofollow
Nofollow
nofollow is a value that can be assigned to the rel attribute of an HTML a element to instruct some search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index...
tag to all external links.
The revenue model has since been changed; writers are compensated through a portion of the ad revenues earned by a writer's content pages. The monthly earnings for one writer reached nearly $5,000 in 2009.
From 2008 to 2010 the site doubled its readership.