Xanga

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{{Infobox_Website |websitename = Xanga |screenshot = Image:Xanga.gif
Image:Xangascreenshot.png |commercial = Mixed |type = Blog |reg = |owner = |author = }}

Xanga (IPA: [ˈzəŋgə]) is both a blog hosting service and a social networking service. It is operated by Xanga.com, Inc., and is based in New York City, USA. Users of Xanga are referred to as "Xangans". With an estimated 45 million worldwide users, it is one of the most popular online blogging/networking sites. As of 21 January, 2006, Alexa Internet rated Xanga the 23rd most popular English-language website, and the 48th most popular website in the world.

Contents

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Overview

Xanga is a free Web-based journal-hosting and social networking service. The journals are themselves usually called "Xangas", and each entry posted on one's Xanga is called a weblog. It is largely used by teenagers, but is open to anyone at least 13 years old (though this rule is very often broken), mostly due to the COPPA. Users are allowed to post any number of messages per day, and they may post comments on other people's journals. Users may customize how their Xanga looks, using pre-made templates or custom HTML (sometimes known as Xanga skins). Subscription lists, blog rings, profiles and other features implement a social network. Xanga journals are used for a wide variety of purposes, from personal journals to publicly insulting people the user is not fond of. Primarily monitored by the community, Xanga has a few administrators who handle violations.

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Features

Xanga offers both a free service (Classic) and a paid service (Premium and Premium Plus). All Xanga accounts are accessible via the username feature. One popular aspect of Xanga is the ability to customize the appearance of one's journal. Included with their free service is a basic layout formatter that allows non-HTML literate users to change their journal's layout and style, including colors and border styles. Those who do know HTML are able to include their own code within the page, allowing customization beyond what the basic layout system supports. Many other websites supply premade HTML "layouts" for Xangans to copy and paste into their "custom headers". In addition, Xanga offers a paid premium service offering many extra features.

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Pictures

Classic users can have a maximum of three profile pictures, which are displayed next to their posts and comments, and mantained in their photoblogs. If a user decides to pay for the Premium service, the amount of user profile pictures are upped to ninety-nine. Xanga also offers over 200 MB of free space to upload pictures, with additional picture storage space available to Premium users.

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eProps

In addition to comments, Xanga allows users to add eProps to encourage some users to post more. Usually, those who write what is considered interesting content build a large fan base behind them and thus accumulate more eProps. See also Xanga's explanation of an eProp.

By default, you automatically give out 2 eProps with the first comment you make on a new weblog entry unless you specify otherwise. Because of this, most users of Xanga don't bother to worry about eProps and instead just focus on the comments. Commenting again on the same post does not produce more eProps, and neither does commenting on one's own post. For this reason eProps are usually used as a gauge of how many different unique users have commented on a post.

The most commented and ePropped post ever, as of April 16, 2006, appears to be John's Comment Update post of June 18, 2005 with a total of 18,624 comments and 28,090 eProps.

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Subscriptions

Subscriptions allow Xangans to stay up-to-date on other Xangas to whom they're "subscribed," and bring the latest blogs from selected Xangas to the user without having the user manually visit each site.

Subscriptions were originally called "Sites I Read," so some older users sometimes refer to them as "SIR."

Subscriptions also send your friends' posts to your e-mail. Some people have more than one site and have used a different e-mail address for each one, so if you have subscribed to the friend on one of your other sites with an e-mail address you do not check, you will not be able to get the subscriptions.


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Privacy Options

Any Xangan can utilize a blocking feature to block other specifically-designated Xanga members from posting comments on his/her blog. This feature is often invoked as a response to offensive commenting behavior. There is also a feature called "Protected Posting" which makes it so that entries designated as "Protected" can only be viewed by Xanga members that are added by the blogger to his/her own protected list. (The Xanga Classic protected list can hold only up to 10 members; you must obtain Xanga Premium in order to get an unlimited list.) ==

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Blogrings

A Blogring connects a circle of Weblogs with a common focus or theme. All Xanga users are given the ability to create a new blogring or join an existing one. Blogrings are searchable by topic. A list of blogrings that the user is associated with appears in a module typically on the left side of the website.

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Metros

A metro is a social networking feature that provides an indication of the geographic area where Xanga members live. Xanga limit metros to large metropolitan areas. If you visit a metro, you can see a list of metro members who have updated recently. If you click of their names (or pictures), you will be sent to their site. Some Xangans leave comments on the sites of other Xangans in their metro whom they would like to get to know better.

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Xanga Premium

Xanga also offers pay services called Xanga 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 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. [1]

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Innappropriate Usage

Even though Xanga provides positive interaction between millions of users, inappropriate use of user blogs remains a large problem for the Xanga administration.

Many of the users of the site use their blogs to post inappropriate pictures. These pictures could range from child pornography to pictures of the deceased.

In additon, there have been many sites created for the sole purpose of expressing dislike or animosity towards others. These types of sites tend to attract and retaliation in the form of negative or offensive comments, promoting hate-speak within Xanga. The Xanga Team has attempted to close such "hate sites" down, along with restricting other users who they feel misuse the Xanga environment.

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Recent developments

  • February 26, 2006 - A Michigan high school student faces three felony charges for allegedly taking photographs of two juveniles having sex, posting them from the Internet and linking to them from the popular Xanga web site, allegedly prompting a student in the photos to attempt suicide. [2] [3]
  • February 8, 2006 - Fifteen to 20 students at Michigan high school face possible disciplinary action by the school after parents reported seeing Internet photos of them drinking alcohol at parties. [4] [5]
  • January 2006 - Twin sisters got probation for making death threats on their Xanga blog against some of their Newark High School (Ohio) classmates[6].
  • December 2005 - Police in Dublin, OH arrested a 14 year old boy for posting death threats on his Xanga site, threatening to kill classmates and teachers.
  • December 8, 2005 - Students of Taft High School of Chicago, IL have been suspended for posting threats about teachers and students.
  • September 2005 - Our Lady Of Peace Middle School in Columbus, OH expelled a student for insulting both teachers and students on her Xanga. Similar cases happened in Taipei American School in 2004.
  • July 2005 - In Lincoln, Nebraska, several students at Lincoln Southeast High School were suspended from basketball after a teacher had stumbled upon Xanga photos of the athletes drinking.
  • March 2005 - Two students at Grand Ledge High School used Xanga (and Myspace) to post entries which included death threats against a teacher.
  • March 2005 - "In a posting on the online journal site Xanga.com, a pupil at Trailridge Middle School allegedly threatened to kill a teacher over a grade." [9]
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History of Xanga

  • Oct 1998, Xanga starts up in a form that would be barely identifiable today. Jewel is the first initially identifiable user (Member since Oct. 1., 1998).
  • May 2000, Beta Xanga (still not public) defines itself as a site for small online entrepreneurs to become affiliates (think: Amazon.com) and to write/share views.
  • Oct 2000, The Xanga testbed gets hotter, but still not public.
  • November 29 2000, The infamous ‘Bianca’ (“Bianca Broussard”) is conceived and created, allegedly developed for PR purposes; there are "bloggers", in addition to "Bianca", but they are now speculated as merely insiders/invited guests from the Xanga Enterprise or fictional personalities created by the corporation to shake out the testbed and to falsify a pre-public sense of community.
  • May 2001, Many structural changes to popularity and ranking metrics; Premium ($$) appears.
  • Oct 22 2001, "nfp, i think we have close to 40k members now... that alphabetical list started to be too much of a strain on our servers."
    Posted 10/22/2001 at 1:50 PM by john.
  • Oct 30 2001, Genius, aka Biz Stone, the former Creative Director (and alleged creator of Bianca) leaves Xanga. He eventually goes on to become part of the Blogger team at Google, and then to work at a new internet startup, Odeo.com
  • Winter 2002, “Xangalympics” is aggressively marketed by Xanga to its members, with the winner to get Lifetime membership, and the winning ‘Team’ to get other prizes. Winners are never announced. This is again viewed as a demonstration of the various contemptible techniques in which Xanga attempts to recruit new users, as well as a direct result of the resignation of Biz Stone, alleged creator of "Bianca", from the Xanga Enterprise.
  • Feb 2 2002, The first mobile blog webcam in the world is featured on Xanga. Xanga streams live video into a user's blog post while he's driving down the highway and toreibjo, a blogger from Norway, comments live: "I can see the road from the inside of a car. You the movie! This is way way cool!"
  • March 5 2002, The prolific Xanga coder, seanmeister (since defunct, now just sean) creates a code that allows the insertion of graphical comments (i.e., pictures, avatars, animated gifs, backgrounds, etc. along with words - see associated 'code' link for examples of what it looked like) on posts. Thus begins the short-lived “Komment Revolution”. Xanga would later "tighten up" the code to prevent such comments.
  • July 2002, Xanga Store announced (never launches, now defunct). Xanga Personals (date and mate-matching) started (defunct as of Feb. 26, 2004).
  • Aug 20 2002, Blocked Users feature is introduced for Premium users. CEO John toys with advertising Xanga's 10 Most Wanted (most often blocked) list, but the list never surfaces. Free Blocking (for non-Premium users) is made available on Oct. 17, 2002.
  • Sep 7 2002, Featured Content is divided into Premium and Classic views with Premium as the default. John believes this will guarantee "No more social propping - just stories, musings, pictures, fiction...."
  • Oct 15 2002, "International Xanga Meetup Day" is sniffed out and scoopedbefore an official Xanga announcement is made. Monsur, a Xangan admin, concedes that the scoop forces their hand and so Xanga Meetups finally birth:
    "Heh, John set that up a while ago, but the original date wasn't convenient, so we held off on announcing it until it was all set... I was never aware that they rescheduled it... A weekend might be better, what with all the school kids on Xanga; and a lot of the venues (at least the NYC venues) seem like over-21 places. But now that you've scooped it, it looks like we'll have to go through with it!"
    Posted 10/15/2002 at 1:13 PM by monsur.
  • Various dates, 2005, Xanga bloggers start appearing in news stories with references to their blogging activities. See Notable News section above.
  • Aug 23 2005, Xanga finally develops a powerful Search that works. Out of a privacy concern, it lets Xangans opt out of its spidering.
  • Dec 22 2005, Xanga introduces 'Xanga Dash', a new user interface that provides real-time feedback and permits statistical comparisons (for eProps, comments, subscribers, and guestbook) between one's own and Xanga's daily and weekly 'bests'.
  • March 2006, Xanga adds new profile features such as friends, "nudges", and chatboards which resemble Facebook.
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Other

The word "Xanga" has also become a sort of vernacular for people who use it.

People will refer to their weblog as a "Xanga". The word "Xanga" is also used as a verb. (For example: "I'm going to xanga later tonight." or "Oh, I haven't had time to xanga today.") "Xangarelics" is the term used by Xangans who have been around since the startup (Dec. 2000) to refer to themselves. In addition, the term "Xangaholics" will sometimes be used to refer to Xanga addicts. Xangaholics will often check their Xanga incessantly throughout the day. Others will sit on Xanga and wait for friends to update, so that they can comment on the latest post as well as learn what their friends might be up to. Much procrastination is done through Xanga.

Some users attempt to fight off Xanga addiction by leaving a message that they've gone on "hiatus". Others will post without allowing eProps or Comments - or simply have a Xanga site, while refusing to post or activate their guestbook.

Also, there is a degree of disagreement of how to pronounce xanga. Though the FAQ section of the official site states that Xanga staff pronounce it "Zan-Ga," other common pronunciations include...

  • eggs-ayng-uh
  • zahn-guh
  • zayn-guh
  • zan-guh
  • ex-ahn-guh
  • ex-ahn-juh
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Criticisms

It is alleged that in December 2000 Xanga sent thousands of spam messages from a Bianca Broussard to boost its membership numbers. This speculation eventually lead to the termination of "Bianca Broussard"'s xanga account, in response to the immense amount of discussion on the techniques in which Xanga attempted to recruit members.

Some users find the default Xanga interface rather regimented, and something of a sandbox environment. The interface does not parse some HTML code, and default site customization is essentially limited to editing content in pre-defined areas. Xanga users frustrated by this lack of options may decide their needs are better addressed by a site that uses software such as Movable Type or WordPress. Other Xanga users, however, overcome many of the default limitations by employing custom skins and through creative use of numerous available scripts.

In late 2005, Xanga's decisions to give to classic (non-paying) users features that were once only available for Premium users and to introduce "Premium Plus"—that offers unlimited storage space and 1 gigabyte of monthly photo uploads—infuriated some Premium users. Many such users responded in comments to such announcements by saying that they felt cheated and that they had little reason to continue to subscribe to Premium. [10] [11]

Another criticism is that, while Xanga does support RSS feeds via http://www.xanga.com/rss.aspx?user=username, its invalid code has caused problems including poor language support. (Example: failure to convert Chinese Big5/GBK to unicode, leading ordinary RSS readers to display meaningless symbols instead of Chinese characters). Many users are also unaware of the RSS feature because of a lack of publicity by Xanga.

People who do not have a Xanga account cannot leave comments to a Xanga blog. Currently, Xanga does not have a plan to enable anonymous comments. However, some users have solved this problem using a Flooble Chatterbox. It should be noted that while some Xangans consider this an undesirable restriction (lock out of nonmembers), others consider it a benefit (exclusiveness and obstacles to spam bots).

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External links

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Xanga"