Xanga

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. 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.

(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.

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. 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.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 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).

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".

Profiles were revamped on February 1, 2004 to hold more information and offer better email security and control. 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 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.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), Chinese (Simplified), Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese, and Korean.

Other languages might be added in the future.
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. 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.

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).Xanga SafeBrowse, also known as Xanga Ratings, allows people to set their Xanga sites to one of five levels. 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.
Skins
Xanga Premium allows for complete customization of a user's page using its Xanga Skins feature.
A Skin is a CSS stylesheet paired with HTML and Xanga's own language.

This is differentiated from the templates used by Classic users, often referred to as "layouts" (but often confused with Premium skins). Others have created layout sites for others to access.
Layouts
In recent years, a cottage industry of layout design community sites has emerged.

These collaborations involve small-scale message boards where they can receive feedback and a server host to host accessories such as banners and music.
Aside from layouts, Xanga users have access to almost unlimited design capabilities. Some other Premium features include a higher limit on profile pictures, a custom sidebar, and specialized page skins.

Support for check payments was added on April 15, 2002, while support for PayPal was added on May 13, 2002. These features include rich text editing of weblog entries, photo uploading, user blocking, and search.

(For example: "I'm going to xanga later tonight." or: "Oh, I haven't had time to xanga today.") In addition, the term "Xangaholics" will sometimes be used to refer to Xanga addicts. * 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.
November 5, 2000, First Xanga post with a link in it.