If you’re part of the ‘In Crowd’, you may have already heard of a mysterious startup named Hipster, which received 10K signups within the first two days of its launch. In the same vein as the irony often found among the hipster brethren, these registrants had NO IDEA what they were actually signing up for as Hipster CEO Doug Ludlow refuses to leak the purpose of the site.

Ludlow posted the first marketing gimmick on Hacker News offering interested people early beta access in exchange for referring three friends to join. TechCrunch claims to have uncovered what Hipster is all about: a Q&A site built around your current location. So, why name the startup “Hipster” if it goes against the subculture values the label embodies?

Says founder Doug Ludlow on the choice of name:

“I feel that the term “Hipster” has been used so frequently in recent years, that it seems to have lost virtually all meaning – its kind of like a blank slate to project whatever ‘Hipster’ image you want.  We’re now left with an easy to spell, memorable name that makes most people laugh.”

For more, go here.

Corporate workhorse by day; Chronic dater by night. Cody explores the streets of SF in search for unique experiences to share with readers of Street and contributes juicy dating stories to DateNightSF.com

• Tag: hipster, startup, viral marketing