Xanga
Xanga is a website that hosts weblogs, photoblogs, and social networking profiles. It is operated by Xanga.com, Inc. and based in New York City.
History
Xanga began in 1999 as a site for sharing book and music reviews. It became public in 2000, following a series of e-mail recruitment methods via GeoCities. Over the next few years, Xanga underwent several formatting changes. Featured Content was divided in 2002, being replaced by Premium and Classic views. Eventually, new profile features such as friends, "nudges", and chat forums that resemble Facebook were added, and video and audio capability were added in 2006. According to Alexa Internet, an internet metrics website, Xanga's ranking peaked in 2007 and has fallen continually since that date. In 2013, Xanga was under threat of shutting down unless it raised $60k by mid-July. True to its word, Xanga became an un-navigatable page in late 2013 when the site didn't reach its goal, and to this day, Xanga 2.0 still hasn't launched.Core features
All Xanga members receive a "Xanga Site", a web site made up of a weblog, a photoblog, a videoblog, an audioblog, a "Pulse", and a social networking profile. Members also have the option of joining or making blogrings.Weblog
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.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.
Initially, Xanga allowed members to subscribe to each other's sites anonymously. Some users were troubled by anonymous subscriptions, and so during the week of July 15, 2003, support for this feature was discontinued. Since some users had been using anonymous subscriptions to try out subscriptions to other sites, on July 21, 2003, Xanga added a feature that allows members to sample a Trial Subscription to another site. This update also allowed members to hide individual subscriptions from public display.
Subscriptions were originally called "Sites I Read", so some older users sometimes refer to them as "SIR".
Photoblog
Until the spring of 2006, Xanga's photo features were focused on enabling photo uploads within weblog posts. Xanga first started offering photo uploading on May 1, 2001. Originally, photo uploading was available only to premium members, and was limited to 20 MB of storage. Then, on April 7, 2005, Xanga overhauled its photo system to increase picture quality and picture size, as well as to increase capacity for the system overall. This was followed, on August 5, 2005, with the beta release of a new Photo Manager that allowed users to more easily edit and view their photos.On August 30, 2005, Xanga announced that all premium members would now get a gigabyte of photo storage. On September 9, 2005, web-based batch uploading of photos was added; on September 26, 2005, all Xanga Classic members were given 1 gigabyte of free photo storage and Premium members were increased to two gigabytes of storage. On September 28, 2005, moblogging support was added.
Xanga released its photoblog offering on April 6, 2006; the ability to comment on photoblog posts followed soon after on April 28, 2006. On May 18, 2006, Xanga introduced new tools that streamlined batch publishing to a photoblog.
Some members have also chosen to post their entries entirely with pictures and photos. This has been made possible after the introduction to photoblogging.
Videoblog
Xanga Videoblogs were officially launched on August 9, 2007 with a video featuring Xanga employee Chris Choi's dog Gromit.Audioblog
On September 29, 2006, Xanga launched Audio Blogs after about a month of beta testing.Pulse
On February 22, 2007, Xanga introduced "Pulse", which was described as a "carefree miniblog". A Pulse message can also be uploaded by cell phone.Profile
Xanga supported limited profiles as early as its launch in 2000. Profiles were revamped on February 1, 2004, to hold more information and offer better email security and control. Each member was allowed to upload one profile picture. On April 30, 2004, Xanga upgraded its profile image uploading to offer better quality images. Then on July 27, 2004, Xanga followed up with allowing the uploading of multiple profile pictures; classic members were allowed to upload up to 3 profile pictures, while Premium members were allowed to upload up to 99 profile pictures. Xangans were allowed to set a default picture that would appear next to their username, as well as choose between their profile pictures in each entry. Then, on November 19, 2004, Xanga extended its support of multiple profile pictures to comment icons; now Xanga users could choose which profile picture they wanted to appear next to each of their comments.Then on April 6, 2006, Xanga upgraded its profiles to offer traditional social networking features—including the ability to connect with friends, to search for friends, and to fill out profile fields. On June 6, 2006, a link to each users' profile was added to the standard Xanga navigation at the top of every Xanga site.
Xanga profiles also include Memories, Nudge, and a Chatboard.
Revenue
Premium subscriptions
Xanga also offers two levels of premium subscriptions: Premium; and Premium Plus. Members who subscribe to either service receive additional features, including additional photo storage and monthly uploads.The Premium plan provides 2 GB of photo storage and 100 MB of monthly uploads while the Premium Plus plan provides unlimited photo storage and 1GB of monthly uploads. Premium members on both plans may also fully customize their site using skins, post entries to their site via electronic mail, and download archives of their entries. Pages of Premium members also do not contain web banners. Some other Premium features include a higher limit on profile pictures, a custom sidebar, and specialized page skins.
Xanga Premium was first launched on May 1, 2001, largely consisting of 20 MB of photo hosting. A downloadable archive of entries and comments was added to the premium offering on May 10, 2001, while customizable Skins were added on February 15, 2002.
Payment options for Premium have grown over time. When Premium first launched on May 1, 2001, Xangans could pay for Premium only with a credit card. Support for check payments was added on April 15, 2002, while support for PayPal was added on May 13, 2002. Support for gifting of Premium was added on December 23, 2001. The Premium Plus plan was added on November 8, 2005.
Xanga Premium now features 10 GB of storage space.