Zorpia is a social networking website to connect people around the world. Zorpia was started in 2003 with a goal of bringing people together and allowing to share their ideas and interests. The headquarters of Zorpia is based at Hong Kong, China.
Zorpia was launched by Jeffrey Ng on December, 2003. Jeffrey started Zorpia on his own from 2002 and eventually it becomes a global influence and was called Photopointz initially but later renamed. There where about 5 lakh registered users and growing fast. It receives 2 million page views per day.
Development:
Zorpia started in 2003 has evolved since then. This website was named Photopointz initially during 2002 year. Photopointz based on point system. The main feature of point system is to rate suggest keywords for improving photo search.
In 2003 summer, Photopointz was renamed as Zorpia and new features are added to turn it into a social networking website.
The final version of Zorpia was released on December, 2003 to the public. An updated version was released name "Zorpia 2.0". The latest version of this website includes features such as drag and drop content, customizable profile pages.
Jeffrey Ng took of the point system after several usability tests. With the help of usability tests, he added features such as skin feature and "Rate a zorpian". The members of this website reached 3,127, 033 on July, 2006 and the user base is mainly concentrated in USA, UK, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia and Mexico.
Current usage:
Zorpia is currently used to connect with other users and is currently ranked 4,188 by Alexa.com (as of 22 September 2009). Membership can be paid or free, the paid membership is called royal membership, which allows ad-free profile, extra profile options and unlimited messaging. The royal membership costs are $ 8.85 per 3 months, $ 13.95 for 6 months and $ 17.95 for one year.
The privacy options allow you to set to whom your profile should be accessible. Privacy option can also be applied for your photo album and video collections.
Future benefits:
Zorpia recently released its re designed user interface "Zorpia 2.0". The latest version includes features such as dragging and drop content and more customizable profiles.
The future releases of this website can include:
1. New Profile section
2. More powerful Zorpian search engine.
3. Premium membership.
4. Group feature.
Benefits to user:
The main goal of Zorpia is to bring together users from all over the world. The main features offered to Zorpians are:
1. Photo album.
2. An Online journal or blog.
3. Social networking.
4. Discussion forums.
5. User groups.
Zorpia offers users unlimited storage for photos. The popular photo album categories include:
1. Personnel.
2. Art.
3. Celebrities.
4. Comics.
5. Entertainment.
Through this website, companies can market their product / service by using advertisements to reach the target audience. Another interesting feature offered by this website is the "Rate a Zorpian", which encourages Zorpians to cast vote to randomly selected photos from other Zorpians. Rate a Zorpian has become so famous to become a most active feature.
Zorpians can receive email notifications through subscription. Zorpia provides free email notifications about their profile, photo album and comments from other Zorpians.
Technical explanation:
To access Zorpia you need to register. Registration needs to provide user name, first name, last name, password and email. With the "Express Sign Up" feature, you can directly sign up with your Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL account.
You need to confirm your account by clicking on the verification link sent. After your account is confirmed you are taken to profile home.
You can do all tasks from your profile. You can upload photos, videos, edit your account settings. Groups can be searched or browsed from the Groups button.
Your friends are listed under the "My Friends" section on the profile page you can click on your friend profile image to navigate to his page.
"Guestbook" allows you to post a comment to your friend. You need to provide a subject and body for this. This website allows you to send a private message to a friend through "Send Private Message" button on your friends home page.
Worldwide usage:
The members reached 3,127,033 on July, 2006. The user base of this website is mainly concentrated in USA, UK, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia and Mexico.
Zorpia receives more than 2.5 million page views per day. As this website does not limit on the amount of photos you upload, it has 9.5 million stored and 20,000 are added daily.
Majority of Zorpians are in the age group of 15 years to 25 years.