Xanga
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Type of site
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Blog |
|---|---|
| Owner | Xanga.com, Inc. |
| Created by | John Hiler, Marc Ginsburg, Dan Huddle |
| Website | www |
| Alexa rank |
 21,593 (April 2014[update]) |
| Commercial | Free/Subscription |
| Registration | Required to blog |
| Launched | April 4, 1999 |
Xanga /ˈzæŋɡə/ is a website that hosts weblogs, photoblogs, and social networking profiles. It is operated by Xanga.com, Inc. and based in New York City.
Xanga began in 1999 as a site for sharing book and music reviews. According to Alexa Internet, an internet metrics website, Xanga's ranking has continually declined since 2007.
Xanga was introduced in October 1999, in a format dissimilar to its current strain. The following year, Xanga became public as a result of a series of e-mail recruitment methods via GeoCities sent by Bianca Broussard, a fictional PR personality of Xanga. In 2001, Biz Stone, the former Creative Director left Xanga. He eventually went on to become part of the Blogger team at Google, and then to work at a new internet startup, Odeo.
Over the next few years, Xanga underwent several formatting changes. Featured Content was divided in 2002 into Premium and Classic views with Premium as the default. In 2005, Lifetime Premium was withdrawn as Xanga introduced Premium Plus. Eventually, new profile features such as friends, "nudges", and chatboards that resemble Facebook were added. In 2006, Xanga launched Xanga Video and Audio.
All Xanga members receive a "Xanga Site", a web site made up of a weblog, a photoblog, a videoblog, an audioblog, a "Pulse" (mini-blog), and a social networking profile. Members also have the option of joining or making blogrings (groups).
Xanga first added weblogs to all Xanga Sites on November 5, 2000. Comments were added soon after, on December 8, 2000, along with the concept of "eProps", which a user can give to another user's entry as a sign of how much he or she has enjoyed the entry. Two "eProps" is the maximum amount that can be given. (By default, "2 eProps" is selected on the comment page.)
A core part of Xanga is the ability to subscribe to other Xangas. Subscriptions allow Xangans to stay up-to-date on other Xangas to whom they are "subscribed", without needing to manually visit each site. Xanga first added an email subscriptions feature on November 30, 2000. In January 2001, this was followed by the ability to subscribe to a site using a web-based reader using RSS (and the ability to display subscriptions on one's site).
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