Xanga (pronounced /ˈzæŋə/ ) is a website that hosts weblogs, photoblogs, and social networking profiles. It is operated by Xanga.com, Inc. , based in New York City.
Origins
Xanga's origins can be traced back to 1999, when it began as a site for sharing book and music reviews. It now has an estimated 40 million users worldwide. As of May 24, 2008, Alexa Internet ranked Xanga as the 231st most visited site on the Internet.
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" (mini-blog), and a social networking profile. Members also have the option of joining or making blogrings (groups).
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. (By default, "2 eProps" is selected on the comment page.) Comment Tracking followed on January 18, 2001.
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).
Initially, Xanga allowed members to subscribe to each others' 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 allow members to sample a Trial Subscription to another site. This update also allowed member 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
That said, 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 (although this was not enforced). 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 200 MB 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, 2006 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 multiple profile pics; classic members were allowed to upload up to 3 profile pics, while Premium members were allowed to upload up to 99 profile pics. Xangans were allowed to set a default pic that would appear next to their username, as well as choose between their profile pics in each entry. Then, on November 19, 2004, Xanga extended its support of multiple profile pics to comment icons; now Xangans could choose which profile pic 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 (along with Photos).
Xanga profiles also include Memories, Nudge, and a Chatboard.
Other features
Private Messaging
Since August 17, 2006, Xanga users can send each other messages.
Tags
Users are now able to tag a post with keywords, making it searchable by subject matter.
Languages
Xanga's pages can be displayed in some languages other than English. Currently, there are Chinese (Traditional), French, Malay, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese, and Korean. Other languages are being added via the Xanga Translation Site.
Privacy and safety
Privacy
Xanga supports several privacy features that allow users to restrict or control access to their sites.
- Protected Posting allow users to restrict access of each post to a list of specified friends. Xanga Classic protected lists can hold only up to 10 members; you must obtain Xanga Premium in order to get a protected list of unlimited size.
- User Blocking allows users to block certain people from commenting or subscribing to their sites.
On April 26, 2006, Xanga launched Xanga Lock, a feature that restricts access to a given site to only other Xanga members. If a casual web browser who is not logged in to a Xanga wished to view someone's Xanga, he or she would first have to log in to a registered account, or else he or she would see only a page indicating that that user has chosen to "lock" their Xanga. Xanga Lock also prevents the site from being indexed by Search Engines. Members can combine Xanga Lock with the Footprints feature to create a means of controlling and monitoring access to a given site.
On October 20, 2006, Xanga launched Friends Lock. This feature is similar to Xanga lock, but it provides even more privacy by allowing a user to lock out everyone who is not on the user's friends list. This feature is very similar to protected posting in many ways. However, unlike protected posting, a user can have as many friends as wanted without having to purchase Xanga Premium. Furthermore, a user can have friends who do not need to be on the user's Protected Post list.
Tracking
With Xanga Footprints, participating Xanga users can see the usernames of signed-in visitors to their site. If visitors are not signed in, then the Country or State is shown instead. Xanga supports an opt-out for this feature.
Flags
Xanga developed a flagging system that allow users to easily report sites that violate Xanga’s terms of use (such as sites that contain Threats of Physical Harm or Underage Nudity). Flagged sites are reviewed by Xanga’s employees and shut down as appropriate.
The flagging system was first proposed on April 19, 2006, and subsequently launched on May 1, 2006.
Ratings
To address the issue of clean content, Xanga has created a rating system that, among other things, limits access to age-inappropriate material. Xanga SafeBrowse, also known as Xanga Ratings, allows people to set their Xanga sites to one of five levels. A Xanga site set at the highest level (Explicit Content) can be viewed only after credit card verification. The system is modeled after the movie ratings system.
Safety
On June 8, 2006, Xanga launched safety.xanga.com, a site with links to tips for parents, youth, and law enforcement. Links to these safety tips were added to the bottom of every page on Xanga.
Reporting Inappropriate Content
A "Report Inappropriate Content" link is also found at the bottom of every page.
Design
Xanga has two primary ways that users can control the design of their Xanga Sites: Skins; and Layouts.
Layouts
Aside from layouts, Xanga users have access to almost unlimited design capabilities. Xanga Classic users can use all HTML properties, excepting only the <META> tag (which Xanga banned in 2004 for being associ
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