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Type of business | Joint venture, corporation |
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Type of site | Social networking, online forums |
Available in | English |
Founded | February 2003 Edmonton, Alberta |
Headquarters | Edmonton, Alberta Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Area served | Western Canada [1] Main (2003-2012) Worldwide (2012-present) [2] |
Owner | Ideon Media |
Founder(s) | Timo Ewalds |
CEO | Kevin Bartus [3] |
Key people | Dave Stevens, Boris Wertz |
Employees | 10 As of 14 November 2008[ [4] [ref]] |
Parent | Ideon Media [2] |
URL | Official website |
Registration | Required |
Users | 1.4 million users [5] 200,000 active As of 9 November 2012[ [6] [ref]] |
Launched | February 2003 [2] |
Current status | Closed |
Nexopia was a Canadian social networking website created in 2003, by Timo Ewalds. [7] It was designed for ages 14 and up, but was later lowered to 13. [8] Users are able to create and design profiles, a friends list, blogs, galleries, and compose articles and forums. Interaction is accomplished through an internal personal messaging system, public user comments on profiles, blogs or through threads and posts on the forums. In November 2012, Nexopia was acquired by digital ad network Ideon Media. [9]
Nexopia was founded in 2003, and became Canada's first online social network. [2] It evolved from the community site called Enternexus.com, another website built by Ewalds. The initial beta site was limited to 70 members and eventually led to Nexopia.com. When Enternexus.com relaunched as Nexopia.com, initial growth was said to be 100 users in four days, and 225,000 users within 22 months. [10] [ unreliable source? ] For a brief period during that time, Nexopia.com maintained growth of 10% or 3500 average new members per day. [11] [ unreliable source? ] In 2008, Nexopia announced 1.2 million active registered users and 1 billion page views per month as well as the investment of an undisclosed amount of the venture capital fund Burda Digital Ventures (now Acton Capital Partners). [12]
In October 2010, the site had just under 1.5 million users and nearly 35 billion hits. In January 2012, the site reported 1,636,990 users and 35,517,895,992 hits.
The website uses Interac Online, a service that allows account holders at participating banks to make payments through online banking.
In 2008 Nexopia updated its user profile pages, the largest revision since the site's launch in 2003. The redesign included a streamlined layout, Ajax controls for messages, galleries and profile editing, new profile skinning options and image resizing. [13] The update caused controversy among users due to issues such as slow load times, disappearing profile pictures, undelivered private messages, forms not working correctly, and people upset because the site design was different. Nexopia staff polled users, and found that the majority disliked the new profile picture slider the most. Nexopia staff then provided the option to switch between the classic and new profile picture viewers. [14]
The forums are the main social aspect of the website. Nexopia 'Plus' subscribers can create their own forums, which can be open or available only to only invited members.[ citation needed ] In early 2016, the website changed to online forums. [15] The forum uses software from XenForo, [16] replacing WordPress. [17]
After 20 years Nexopia was permanently shut down without warning. The final day was November 6, 2023.
Over 95% of users are Canadian, with over 1.4 million member accounts and over 200,000 active users and a hit count of over 33 billion.[ citation needed ]
No nudity, racism, violence, or gore are allowed on forums or profiles, although photos of a small amount of marijuana and the use of pipes and bongs are allowed; alcohol is also acceptable. All profile pictures are checked by photo moderators before appearing on a user page. Photos on a user's profile are not checked, but a "report abuse" button allows another user to report abuses. Nexopia prohibits copyright infringement.
In March 2007, four students from the Elk Island school district in Sherwood Park, Alberta were expelled from school and twenty were given suspensions in a case of cyberbullying. [18] Students used Nexopia to create teacher profiles in which classmates posted defamatory, silly, derogatory and libellous information on the teachers' pages. [18]
Nexopia was criticized [19] by parent groups, who blamed their children's problems on the website and tried to have it shut down. This forced the site to become more strict about user posts.
Nexopia became a target for online predators. [1] [20] [21] Since a user's profile can be completely open to the public, profile images and information are viewable. Users may post personal information such as their address, telephone number, family members, relationship status and school.
Online spam increased such as through "dummy" accounts that spam users, linking them to websites containing porn or malicious information.[ citation needed ] Users who do not follow the rules may get a simple ban from the website or have their account "frozen".[ citation needed ]
In March 2012, the website was found to be in violation of federal privacy laws by keeping personal information indefinitely. [22] As of November 2012, Nexopia was working with the Privacy Commissioner to ensure regulatory compliance. [9]
The site was used by convicted serial killer Cody Legebokoff, who met one victim, fifteen year old Loren Leslie, there. [23]
Users with free accounts have access to standard features, such as forum posting, private messaging, user profiles with comments, photo uploading, a user blog and an image gallery. Monthly paid subscriptions are offered at $5 to fee gain access to extra features such as advanced user search, forum creation, increased media gallery capacity and online file storage, and the removal of ads.
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may feel like home, consisting of a "family of invisible friends". Additionally, these "friends" can be connected through gaming communities and gaming companies. Those who wish to be a part of an online community usually have to become a member via a specific site and thereby gain access to specific content or links.
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance.
Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising, and mobile advertising. Advertisements are increasingly being delivered via automated software systems operating across multiple websites, media services and platforms, known as programmatic advertising.
A social networking service or SNS is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. Social media refers to new forms of media that involve interactive participation. While challenges to the definition of social media arise due to the variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available, there are some common features:
Internet safety, also known as online safety, cyber safety and electronic safety (e-safety), refers to the policies, practices and processes that reduce the harms to people that are enabled by the (mis)use of information technology.
The Renren Network, formerly known as the Xiaonei Network, is a Chinese social networking service similar to Facebook. It was popular among college students. Renren Inc. has its headquarters in Chaoyang District, Beijing, with additional offices in Shanghai and Guangzhou. Renren had an $740m initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2011.
Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting.
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.
Men and women use social network services (SNSs) differently and with different frequencies. In general, several researchers have found that women tend to use SNSs more than men and for different and more social purposes.
ScuttlePad was a social network launched in August 2010 for children aged 6–11 years old. Users can add friends, upload photos and update statuses through pre-defined word lists. It is a self-funded venture established in Utah.
Since the arrival of early social networking sites in the early 2000s, online social networking platforms have expanded exponentially, with the biggest names in social media in the mid-2010s being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. The massive influx of personal information that has become available online and stored in the cloud has put user privacy at the forefront of discussion regarding the database's ability to safely store such personal information. The extent to which users and social media platform administrators can access user profiles has become a new topic of ethical consideration, and the legality, awareness, and boundaries of subsequent privacy violations are critical concerns in advance of the technological age.
Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and cyberharassment are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers and adolescents, due to the communication technology advancements and young people's increased use of such technologies. Cyberbullying is when someone, typically a teenager, bullies or harasses others on the internet and other digital spaces, particularly on social media sites.
A user profile is a collection of settings and information associated with a user. It contains critical information that is used to identify an individual, such as their name, age, portrait photograph and individual characteristics such as knowledge or expertise. User profiles are most commonly present on social media websites such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn; and serve as voluntary digital identity of an individual, highlighting their key features and traits. In personal computing and operating systems, user profiles serve to categorise files, settings, and documents by individual user environments, known as ‘accounts’, allowing the operating system to be more friendly and catered to the user. Physical user profiles serve as identity documents such as passports, driving licenses and legal documents that are used to identify an individual under the legal system.
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ASKfm is a Latvian question and answer network launched in June 2010 as a competitor to Formspring. After registration, the user fills out their profile and can ask questions, reply on their profile, create photo polls. Also from 2021, app users can communicate anonymously or openly in public chats or tête-à-tête in private chats. The platform had 300 million registered users as of November 2021.
Anonymous social media is a subcategory of social media wherein the main social function is to share and interact around content and information anonymously on mobile and web-based platforms. Another key aspect of anonymous social media is that content or information posted is not connected with particular online identities or profiles.
Cody Alan Legebokoff is a Canadian serial killer convicted in 2014 by the British Columbia Supreme Court of murdering three women and one teenage girl, between 2009 and 2010, in or near the city of Prince George, British Columbia. He is one of Canada's youngest convicted serial killers, and his trial drew national attention. One of his victims, the 23-year-old Natasha Lynn Montgomery, has been included in the list of missing women and girls suspected as victims in the Highway of Tears murders.
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It's late Tuesday night and two teenage boys are comparing bongs in Nexopia's drugs forum.
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