It’s Thursday, which means a new Vegas Seven is available at news racks throughout Southern Nevada and online. In this week’s Green Felt Journal, I take a look at Vegastripping.com, trying to figure out what makes the site tick:
VegasTripping.com isn’t a marketing mouthpiece. It’s not trying to sell you anything. And that might be why it’s become an Internet sensation.
The site has scooped multiple mainstream media outlets on several stories in the past few years, including the Aria Legionella outbreak. Insiders and “Internet ferrets” send photos and documents that pull back the veil of secrecy from construction projects and new developments. On discussion boards, members share stories of their stays in Vegas and seek advice on the best place to have breakfast or find 3:2 blackjack. It’s almost like TripAdvisor meets Wikileaks, only populated by people with whom you’d like to drink single-malt scotch.
It’s nice to be able to do a profile of a site that I’ve been reading and occasionally commenting on for several years. I’ve had interesting exchanges there, to say the least.
I’d be curious to learn if other markets attract this kind of web attention. Are there similar independent sites that pull back the curtain on Orlando or Hawaii?