“Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.” – BeatifulPeople.com founder Robert Hintze tells the BBC. As the site touts:

• Do looks matter to you, when it comes to selecting a partner?
• Do you want to guarantee your dates will always be beautiful?
• No more filtering through unattractive people on mainstream sites
• Meet beautiful people locally and from around the world – now
• Attend exclusive events and private parties

While appalling as it may be, a site strictly catering to hotties further demonstrates the need for brands to find their niche(s). You can’t be everything to everyone…right?

Old school demographics don’t always fly in the me-centric social media space.

“24-40 year-old women” might have worked for buying ad space before, but if brands are serious about building a real following, they have to micro segment even further. Even the term “mommy blogger” has become watered down as a niche— are we talking green moms, minivan speed racers, single parents, cougars, working ladies…?

The fact remains that in the digital space, age/gender/location-based targeting isn’t the standard it once was, especially when building actual communities. People are self-selecting their info and networks based more on personal interests that may not be aligned with “traditional” assumptions.

A student last semester developed an approach to reach an “urban consumer” for a national consumer brand—without mentioning age or race. Her position: Whether you’re a 14 year-old white guy in Naperville or 25 year-old black girl in Chicago…if listen to hip-hop, follow Jay-Z and want the latest Nikes, you’re our target consumer audience and likely take cues from the same sorts of celebrity/pop culture influencers.

I haven’t looked too much into BeatifulPeople’s biz model, but with over a billion people in the US and Europe alone, if Hintze can find just a few hundred thousand loyal users, he’ll carve out niche that will be very attractive to advertisers—thereby positioning himself and his site as one hot channel to consumers. Again, this is nothing new…just look at all the brands who fill SWAG bags at fashionable events and line the gifting rooms at award shows.

As superficial and demeaning as this site may be…he’s onto something, it’s  just nothing new.