Greek9, an online social network for members of the nine NPHC black Greek-letter organizations, was officially launched on June 25, 2007. The site was designed to be a place for black greeks to communicate and interact with each other. By offering discussion forums, picture uploading, private messaging, personal profiles, videos, games, and news feeds, the website has the potential to be a central hub for the black greek community.

The idea for Greek9 was created in the winter of 2006. After noticing the lack of a strong online community for BGLOs Nick Staples decided to explore the possibility of building one himself. He came up with an outline for a generic website that allowed people to post profiles—more of a personals site than a social network. Nick scrapped his idea and started over from scratch; this time focusing more on user interaction and networking. He used ideas from other popular social networks, including Facebook, MySpace, and even the now-defunct MegaGreek website.

The result was a design that offered users the flexibility to post and share their own content and connect with each other through an intelligent "friend" system. The friend system automatically identifies connections between users—for example, if two fraternity brothers were in the same chapter, the system would recognize them as "chapter brothers" and this connection would be immediately apparent to all other users.

Working on Greek9 on and off for the last several months, Nick was able to integrate a discussion forum, photo galleries, video support, and custom layouts for each organization. Greek9 allows signups from undergraduate and graduate/alumni members, as well as non-greeks and other greek organizations. Nick believes Greek9 could be a breath of fresh air for black greeks who are looking for a website built with them in mind—something different from the glorified forums or generic social networks to which they've grown accustomed.

Mr. Staples is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated. He pledged at the University of Virginia, Spring 2003, Eta Sigma chapter.

For more information visit: http://greek9.com