Profile of a Successful Niche SN - It’s Not Who You Think

One of the most successful niche social networks on the web is one that you would probably never guess. It’s not about sports, stocks, or business, but rather the subject of goth. VampireFreaks.com looks like a website you probably built in the 3rd grade, but before you knock it, check out the numbers.

Vampirefreaks.com boasts over 710,000 members, with around 400,000 considered to be active users. Around 100,000 new users have signed up since mid September. The site receives around 150,000 unique visitors per day with 3 million page views. At the time I checked the site, there were 4200 members currently logged in.

Those numbers are pretty damn good especially when you consider that the site is being by one full time person (the founder) and a freelance system administrator to handle all of the servers. The site has also established multiple revenue streams through advertising, a premium membership with loads of features, and an online clothing store named Fuckthemainstream.com.

The next Yahoo acquisition target? I’m thinking no…but this site goes into the bucket with free dating site, PlentyofFish.com, that if you have one of two things:

a. Something in need, that you can’t get anywhere else

or

b. A critical amount of users

design and aesthetics just does not matter. Pretty amazing in my opinion.

[tags]Social Networking, Social Network, Social Media, VampireFreaks.com, VampireFreaks, Goth, Niche Social Network, Brian Balfour[/tags]