1.4 - Suicidegirls.com as a Virtual Community:
Suicidegirls.com can be defined as a “virtual community”. An understanding of Chaffey’s theory on virtual communities justifies the above classification since Suicidegirls.com:
- Focuses on providing members access to photos of girls that are not mainstream models and thus appeal to member’s needs.
- Offers online forums so members can communicate virtually.
- Allows members to add content to the site in the form of discussion topics and postings.
- Provides a diverse range of resources to members
1.5 - Adding Value in a Virtual Community:
Figure 3 from Hagel & Armstrong (1997) shows how value can be added in a virtual community. Indeed the success of Suicidegirls.com can be accounted to the additional services it provides on top of the primary value proposition of providing pictures of girls.
Armstrong & Hagel suggest value can be added in four key areas. Firstly, by maintaining interesting new content, members can contribute articles and post their opinions and thoughts on discussion boards and be rewarded with points that can be used to purchase merchandise. The result is that the content is attractive and members are increasingly loyal since they can see that their postings are on the site and also receive rewards in the form of points. The points reward scheme satisfies their second hypothesis that value can be added through member loyalty. Thirdly, theory suggests it is important to improve transaction offerings. Since the content is attractive and the site is easy to navigate, offers can be clearly and quickly delivered to members. Furthermore these offers can be tailored to members’ needs since the interests and preferences of members can be easily tapped into by looking at the topics in the online forum. This satisfies Hagel & Armstrong’s fourth criteria to fully understand the needs, wants and preferences of the online community.
FIGURE 3 – Adding Value to a Virtual Community (Hagel & Armstrong, 1997)
2.1 - Industry Analysis:
The Suicide Girls brand has established itself in a number of industries, ranging from publishing to live entertainment. Suicide Girls primarily competes under the umbrella of the adult entertainment industry, yet the primary focus of the site’s founders remains the Suicidegirls.com website, with external ventures working to further promote the SG brand, which in turn drives more visitors to their pages.
As a whole, revenues of the American adult entertainment industry have been forecasted between $520 million and $10 billion dollars annually. This uncertainty involves both a confusion as to what is included as within the industry (video sales and rentals, sex toys, phone sex lines, etc.), as well as various sources reporting different sales figures (Ackman, 2001). No matter the figure, sex industry revenues have grown remarkably over the years, largely due to the many technological innovations brought about by the Internet.
In recent years, the Internet has completely transformed the adult entertainment industry. In turn, the industry has been a driver for further technological development on the Internet, from creating demand for higher speed connections, to the development of smooth streaming video. Barriers of entry have dropped significantly; an x-rated site can be broadcast to the world with little initial investment other than a site design and digital camera, and establishes a global market to the publisher. More importantly, the anonymity of being on the Internet allows consumers who might not normally purchase adult materials the opportunity to do so, without fear of being caught in a shady store by neighbours or friends.
Companies in the industry need to learn how to leverage the Internet to their advantage, as it will continue to be a key source of sales growth for the foreseeable future. In a recent interview, Bill Asher, President of Vivid Entertainment Group, outlined that the Internet’s greatest strength in achieving industry growth is as a distribution system. “Ten years ago there was virtually no adult content on television…it wasn't widely distributed, compared to now. You didn't have Internet. DVD wasn't there. What happens 10 years from now when literally, if you believe that we'll have a wired world to some extent, and the number of homes is five to 10 times what it is now that are wired with the Internet, and if you can collect and if you can sell and you can distribute adult content to all of those homes, what is the total revenue? Right now domestically in this industry it is $4 billion to $10 billion. Where would it be worldwide 10 years from now?” (PBS Frontline, 2002)
2.2 - Competitor Analysis:
While Suicide Girls must compete against all sorts of websites within the adult entertainment industry, its primary competition exists as sites attempting to capture the same subculture concept: sites such as burningangel.com, supercult.com, and thatstrangegirl.com. These sites all fall under the “alternaporn” concept, whereby non-professional models pose nude either by themselves or with partners, generally possessing physical traits or shot in a way that differs from the norm. These sites differ primarily in terms of features, community aspects, and membership fees. Many of these websites have established themselves after the success of Suicidegirls.com, and while some have achieved modest levels of success on their own, they do not offer anything vastly different than Suicide Girls provide, though some do provide more hardcore content.
Perhaps the most interesting competition to Suicidegirls.com is nerve.com, a site that has also existed for a number of years. Like Suicide Girls, nerve.com offers news, blogs, and erotica, and maintains a strong subculture identity. For Nerve, it seems the focus is less on a specific type of girl, or the photos themselves, instead choosing to focus on providing a forum for its members to talk about and discuss all things sex related. Its content seems to be much more editorialized than suicidegirls.com’s, with a broader, more professional array of contributors, creating an online experience that seems more along the lines of a professional magazine than the array of blogs and marginalized contributions that represents a large element of suicidegirls.com’s editorial content.
Perhaps Suicide Girls’ biggest competitive advantage is in utilizing the phrase “Suicide Girls” itself. While the phrase itself is nothing new, originating from a book by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, the success of the site has made “Suicide Girls” a coined term similar to Kleenex or Xerox, representing girls who “protect a fragile soul under a tough exterior, live fearlessly, unapologetically comfortable in her own skin...and [are] not afraid to bare that skin to the world” (Berry, 2003). Invariably, any site within the alternaporn realm will be compared to Suicide Girls, whose selection of girls and interactive community is unparalleled.
2.3 - Threats:
The environment for sites operating in the adult industry is fairly cloudy at the moment. Porn has gradually become more mainstream from the late 90’s onwards, yet with the recent American election hinging upon a return to “family values”, many in the industry are worried that they could be prosecuted for their work. Even before Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”, as early as George Bush’s 2001 election campaign, he promised to “insist on vigourously enforcing” anti-pornography laws, mentioning that pornography “has no place in a decent society” (Cromer, 2001). This threat has already been acted upon, with federal prosecutors raiding the offices of [porn production company] Extreme Associates, and local authorities prosecuting director Adam Glasser for one of his films. It seems that the American government is focusing primarily on more extreme fare – given the playful nature of Suicide Girls’ photoshoots and community, it stands to reason that the site should be able to evade such prosecution in the near future.
If anything, the site may benefit from the legal battles of these other publishers, as Suicide Girls provides a far more tasteful alternative to its more hardcore brethren. As Missy, a site founder pointed out, “there is a whole oversaturation of sex, and the appeal of the demure is coming back” (Gerstein, 2004).
3.1 - The Customer Perspective:
Suicidegirls.com values greatly the relationships that are built up with customers. Essentially, it is these relationships that are fundamental to the Suicidegirls.com community. The Market Space Model as shown in Figure 4 illustrates the growing importance of customer relationships, described as ‘building a connection, association or feeling with the customer’ (Barnes and Hunt, 2001). By building a personalised relationship with members, Suicidegirls.com differentiates itself from other adult entertainment sites.
FIGURE 4 – The Market Space Model (Dutta and Segev, 2001)
Suicidegirls.com builds up customer relationships in two main ways. Firstly (and most importantly) it provides an online community for its members, and secondly it provides online communications and solicitates online feedback from customers. Each of these will be explained in turn.
When someone signs up for membership with Suicidegirls.com, they are not merely signing up for access to pictures of the girls. One of the main reasons why people sign up for membership is to join a community and to build friendships with other members of Suicidegirls.com. It is through the interaction with others in the community that relationships are formed. In the ‘free tour’ of the site, Suicidegirls.com aims to attract members to the community by advertising such relationships. A quote from one of its members is one such example, ‘I met my wife on Suicidegirls.com, and it’s the best money I have ever spent.’ (Doug Madison, member since 2002). People are attracted to join the Suicidegirls.com community in order to make friends with like-minded people.
There are many ways in which the community is formed and developed. When someone signs up for membership, they create a profile of themselves with the option of including personal photos and journals. The journals give the members the ability to share their thoughts with the other members of the community. These thoughts and beliefs can further be discussed in the member chat rooms and forums. Further interaction is possible through live webcams, ‘Watch and be watched live on webcams,’ (Suicidegirls.com). It is also possible for members to meet up with their ‘virtual friends’ in real life, at live events and parties.
One of the unique points about the Suicidegirls.com, is the personal relationships that members can build up with the models themselves. Members can contact any of the Suicide Girls through their profiles and can interact with them through their personal forums. This interaction with the models is very rare on other adult entertainment sites. Furthermore, members are also invited to e-mail the founders of the site with feedback, views, etc.
Suicidegirls.com allows viewers and members to build relationships with fellow members, the models themselves and the founders of the site. It is these relationships that are fundamental to the success of the website.
4.1 - Recommendations for the Future:
Nandhakumar explains that there are four stages of member development, and it is using this model that recommendations for the future will be made. Figure 5 illustrates that a ‘community must be in place before commerce can begin’ (Nandhakumar, 2004).
FIGURE 5 – Four Stages of Member Development (Nandhakumar, 2004)
Suicidegirls.com is currently going through the first three phases. It is continuing to attract new members through marketing, a free-view section of the website and a system whereby current members can gain points for inviting friends to join. It is promoting participation of the members through the chat rooms, forums etc and as a result of this brand loyalty is being built up by member-to-member and member-host relationships. It is believed that as this community increases in size, so does the potential for the founders to make increased profit from it. This is the fourth phase of the model.
Now that a community is set up, Suicidegirls.com could open themselves up to gaining money from advertisements on the site. Companies who would look to advertise on the site include MTV, music magazines and event companies. However, the founders must be cautious in opening up to advertising, as they do not want to lose members due to the intrusiveness of pop-up screens, or the perception of “selling-out”. Also, the company could use the information it has on each of the members for targeted advertising. Individual offers for SG merchandise could be directly marketed to customers in order to recognise their loyalty to the community.
Another recommendation is to expand the SG brand to outside that of the website. The possibility of a SG digital channel or magazine would act as a marketing tool to attract more members and viewers to the site. It would also bring in its own revenue in sales etc. Initial stages have already been set in motion.
Another way to capture value would be to operate a tiered membership scheme. Extra fees for premium services could be introduced. Such premium services could include a harder-core adult section, a suicide boys section and a webcam chat room section.
To conclude, Suicidegirls.com has been successful in building up a community with many members and it is now recommended that they move onto the fourth stage of member development and capture value from the members.
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5.1 – Bibliography:
Dutta, S. and A. Segev, “Business Transformation on the Internet,” in S. J. Barnes and B. Hunt (Eds.) Electronic Commerce and Virtual Business, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, 2001
Hagel, J., & Armstrong, A., (1997). Net Gain: expanding markets through virtual communities. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass.
Tapscott, D., Ticoll, D., & Lowy, A., (2000). Digital Capital: harnessing the power of business webs. Nicholas Brealey, London. Chapter 5: Alliances.
Ackman, D. How Big is Porn? Forbes.com, 25 May 2001
<http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/25/0524porn.html>
Berry, D., Goth girls gone wild. Metro Times Online, 9 July 2003
<http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=5142>
Cromer, M., Porn’s Compassionate Conservatism. The Nation, 8 Feb. 2001
<http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010226&s=cromer>
Gerstein, J., Suicide Girls Tendancies. Philadelphia Weekly Online, 28 Jan. 2004
<http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=6756>
Kelley, B. J. Suicide Squeeze. Pheonix New Times Mobile, 8 Jan. 2004
<http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2004-01-08/music/revolver.html>.
Frontline: American Porn. PBS. 2002.