Deal Radar 2008: Xanga Losing Steam?

Xanga is a free Web-based service that hosts weblogs, photoblogs, videoblogs, audioblogs, and social networking profiles and is popular around the globe. It is packed with features and is one of the easiest ways to get a blog up and running. It also has a real community feel to it. Xanga Setup Wizard has made creating a blog very simple. The site is targeted towards teenagers. Xanga users are referred to as “Xangans”.

Xanga has an impressive set of tools which allow users to customize their blogs. Xanga has very good personalization features and the colorful templates are appealing. The software behind Xanga is considered easier than Blogger and Typepad, although, from what I can tell, “adults” don’t use it.

The site earns revenues from advertisements. It also has a premium blogging service for which it charges $4 per month to $25 for a 12-month subscription. Lifetime subscription fee is $100.

Xanga has been losing out to WordPress, Blogger and Typepad in the blogging space and to MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Imeem, etc. in the social networking space. Xanga’s unique visitors in the US fell 49% from over 5.9 million users in October 2006 to just over 3 million uniques.

Xanga, however, is a good acquisition target for Viacom and Walt Disney as these companies have a teen focus. Both these companies can leverage the Xanga platform to integrate with their programming, as well as other online platforms.

Xanga, on its own, will not be that successful, but integrated within a strong media house, it could easily regain its momentum.

This segment is a part in the series : Deal Radar 2008