Suite101 was a collaborative publishing site based in

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, Canada. It formerly generated revenue from advertisements and shared that revenue with contributors; but effective November 1, 2013, that revenue sharing program was terminated.

History

Suite101 was started in 1996 in Vancouver, 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 Hubert Burda Media Holding is a German media group with headquarters in Offenburg. It originated as a small printing business, founded by Franz Burda Snr in Philippsburg, in 1903. In 1986, the corporate group was divided up between Franz Jnr, ...

, 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 Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Display Network, Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted advertising, targeted t ...

. In September 2008, Suite101 expanded into

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by launching Suite101.de and establishing an office in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. This was followed by launching Suite101.fr in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, and Suite101.net in

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in 2009, and establishing offices in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

. In November 2009, Suite101.com was named by comScore as one of the top 10 fastest growing websites based on US traffic growth. In 2011, the effects of Google's

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algorithm updates reduced Suite101's readership by 60%. Soon after, Suite101.com appointed Michael Kedda as CEO. Kedda relaunched the site in 2012 as a community-oriented publishing platform. In March 2013, Suite101 ceased publishing articles as the team behind the site works on a new project.

Notes

{{Reflist Internet properties established in 1996