Secret Cities

About

Secret Cities are webpages devoted to sharing the “best kept secrets” of cities, including restaurants, tourist spots, and concert venues.

Origin

On January 19, 2010, Tiffany Philippou created the Secret London group on Facebook for a Saatchi & Saatchi competition. In the group, people talk about the “secrets” of London (good restaurants, music, activities, art, locations, etc). As of June 30, 2010, “Secret London” has amassed more than 200,000 members.

Derivatives

According to Secretcities.com, there are 70+ Facebook groups/pages dedicated to popular cities as of June 30, 2010. However, there are definitely more than 70 pages- there are “secret” Facebook pages to practically any major (or not so major) city, and there are often duplicate pages for the same city. Sometimes, even pages for “secret” countries or “secret” states are made. A few pages, like Secret New York, have more than 100,000 members.

Some of the more popular of these groups include:

• Secret New York (100,000+ members)
• Secret Melbourne (80,000+ members)
• Secret Paris (45,000+ members)
• Secret DC (34,000+ members)
• Secret Athens (29,000+ members)
• Secret Sydney (21,000+ members)
• Secret Ibiza (20,000+ members)
• Secret Oslo (13,000+ members)
• Secret Wellington (10,000+ members)

Popularity