Vancouver's Suite101 Media soft-launched a German-language equivalent to its English-language site last week and it already boasts over 2,000 new articles from 140 professional writers and journalists. The Suite101 model has been an under-the-radar success story from Vancouver where it operates Suite101.com (ranked #2 on our Vancouver Start-Up Index). Suite101.com receives seven million visitors each month, most of whom find the site while searching the Internet for information on a specific topic. The model enables writers to publish original articles on topics based on their interest and expertise and get paid a monthly dividend or royalty that continues to pay out over time. Writers work one-on-one with a professional editorial team and retain all copyright to their work. Suite101.com holds exclusive online rights to all content for one year and earns revenue through contextual advertising programs such as Google AdSense which displays small text ads alongside articles. Sounds like a win-win situation. The German-language site is their first foray into multiple languages but is a natural evolution considering Suite101's President, Peter Berger, is a German living in Vancouver and German entrepreneur Dr. Boris Wertz of Nexopia.com and Abebooks.com co-owns the company with Burda Digital Ventures of Munich. When asked if they plan on continuing a multi-language strategy, Berger answered "Si". Disclosure: Dr. Boris Wertz is a Director of Techvibes Media Inc.
