NEW YORK, N.Y. — Metrofunk, the first online social network devoted to nightlife, fashion, film, and music announced today that www.Metrofunk.com has officially launched into public beta. All the content of the site will now be freely available for public viewing when non-members go to the site.
Now non-members can check out exclusive events that are happening in the area as well as browse through premium videos, articles, galleries, and music from the creative worlds of fashion, music, and film. However, to preserve the exclusivity of the site and maintain the integrity of its users, membership to the Metrofunk.com community will remain invite-only. This move will allow Metrofunk.com to continue to operate as an invite-only site but also give its trendsetters a focused channel to expose their creative works and events.
The site operates quite differently from other niche social networking sites on the internet in the sense that Metrofunk.com is not so much a social network, but more a network of independent social networks. Each individual network is run by a trendsetter with a specific creative mission. Trendsetters on Metrofunk.com all have their own branded social networks with ownership and influence over members within their network.
A user becomes part of Metrofunk.com’s community only when they are invited by an existing trendsetter on the site. Trendsetters are greatly incentivized to build a strong network as that will help increase the popularity and support of their creative works. Additionally, if a non-member is viewing the site and sees content that they like, they can immediately submit an “invite request” to the specific trendsetter and request to be part of their network.
When asked how opening up will affect the site, Co-Founder and CTO Adam Helfgott responds, “With all the attention we’ve been getting, we’re expecting quite a significant surge in traffic. However, Elastra, the infrastructure scaling solution that we have in place will allow us to effectively leverage Amazon’s EC2 and S3 technology to scale quickly and cost effectively without having an impact on our web services.”
Metrofunk.com has also begun partnership discussions with established organizations within the nightlife, fashion, film, and music industries. The company has recently secured a partnership with IMG’s FashionWeekDaily.com. Metrofunk.com will provide IMG’s online fashion publication with a community and content distribution platform for their users and subscribers.
Metrofunk.com’s red carpet launch party back in November, which was hosted and attended by such celebrity figures as John Mayer, Ashlee Simpson, Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, Gym Class Heroes Travis McCoy, and dozens of other prominent industry figures, received quite an overwhelming response from both the press and the public. So overwhelming that the online company decided to expand the network offline and launch Club Metrofunk. The celebration of the Metrofunk.com’s public launch will be held tonight at Club Metrofunk (532 W 27th Street, New York, New York). Club Metrofunk will be open every Wednesday thereafter to provide an offline place for its members to network and expose their creative works.
About Metrofunk
Metrofunk.com is an invite-only social and mobile network specifically designed to attract and empower trendsetters around the world in the lifestyle industries of nightlife events, fashion, film, and music. Metrofunk.com’s primary focus is to help facilitate creativity, foster openness, and become a useful marketing tool. This allows the mundane process of getting a message into public awareness to be simple and easy, thus allowing more energy and focus on the work itself. That’s the overall idea.
No celebrity endorsement claimed or implied. All trademarks acknowledged.
Send2Press(R) is the originating wire service for this story.
NEWS SOURCE: Metrofunk