Zorpia

Zorpia (Chinese: 若比鄰) is a social networking service with customers in China. Zorpia is one of the few international social networks with a Chinese Internet Content Provider license.[1][2] The social networking site reports 2 million unique users per month and a total worldwide user base of 26 million.[1][3] Jeffrey Ng is the company's founder and CEO of Zorpia. The privately funded company is based in Hong Kong and has 30 employees.[4]

Zorpia
Screenshot
Screenshot of Zorpia's homepage.
Type of site
Social networking service
Available inMultilingual (2)
OwnerZorpia Co. Ltd.
Created byJeffrey Ng, CEO of Zorpia Co. Ltd.
URLwww.zorpia.com
LaunchedDecember 7, 2003 (2003-12-07)
Current statusActive

Zorpia has been accused of spamming misleading messages on behalf of people to their address books without their consent or knowledge as a way of acquiring email addresses.[5] In 2012, PandoDaily wrote that Zorpia "has a dreadful spamming problem that it needs to fix fast."[6]

History

In December 2003, Jeffrey Ng founded Zorpia as a social networking service.[1] Ng wanted it to be an online nation for people looking for new relationships.[7] While sites such as Facebook and Twitter are still banned in China, the ban has allowed Zorpia to use its ICP license in China to grow its user base.[1][8] In 2009, the company partnered with Viximo, a distributor of software for virtual goods and currency.[9]

Leadership

Jeffrey Ng began his entrepreneurial career at the age of 13. He started his own Japanese music website and music search engine.[10][11][12] He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with a degree in computer engineering.[11] Before building Zorpia, he worked for Expedia Inc. and at his university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications.[3][13]

Services

Zorpia's features include photo-sharing, social networking, messaging and profiles.[1][14] Zorpia has developed technology to analyze and predict compatibility between strangers, and has developed false identity prevention systems and user attractiveness discovery algorithms to help people make friends.[15]

Zorpia is one of the few social networking sites permitted for use in China.[16]

Recognition

Alexa Internet ranks Zorpia among the 6,000 most-visited websites worldwide, with a global rank of about 4000 and with 40% users from India and 10% users from China.[17][18] Alexa also ranks Zorpia among the top 1000 most popular websites in India, with a rank of 933.[17]

Business Today India named Zorpia as the growth leader in the India market from 2009 to 2010.[13] Zorpia has been recognized by CNN, China Daily, the biggest English-language newspaper in China, and it has been featured in Phoenix Television's A Date with Luyu.[14][19][20]

Privacy issues

In September 2013, Zorpia was accused of cookie theft, mining and spam. The company responded that the ratio of complaints to users is very small.

Zorpia typically asks for permission to connect to Facebook or Google account, then sends automatic emails on the user's behalf to his contacts inviting them to join to read the messages. Even after deleting their Zorpia accounts, users see their contacts flooded with such emails on their behalf. One reporter testing how the email collection occurs found one of his test email accounts had a Zorpia account created without his acknowledgement; Zorpia claimed the user had signed up and claimed many of the undesirable behaviors are bugs.[5] Opinions on the best response to Zorpia emails are mixed with some users suggesting trying to unsubscribe and some suggesting using an email feature to block emails from Zorpia.[21] One user reported even more spam activity after trying to unsubscribe.[22] A suggestion is to review Google account settings.[23]

References
  1. Lana Bandoim (February 14, 2013). "Investors Turn to Alternatives to Facebook". Technorati. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  2. Dave Klawinski (February 10, 2013). "Content Curation Mixed With LinkedIn And Zorpia". Business 2 Community. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  3. "Zorpia - About Us". Zorpia. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  4. "Zorpia". VB Profiles. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  5. C. Custer (Apr 21, 2013). "Zorpia: Is This a Real Social Network or Just a Spammer?". TechInAsia. Retrieved 2015-06-21.
  6. Dao, Francisco (2012-08-07). "Friend-Finding Social Network Zorpia Is No Facebook, But At Least It Has Friends In China". PandoDaily. Retrieved 2013-07-11.
  7. Andrew Moran (February 21, 2013). "Reinvigorating the social networking experience with Zorpia". Digital Journal. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  8. "Zorpia Launches Social Network Site for China; Company Plans to Launch More Than 22 Social Networking Portals Worldwide". The Free Library. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  9. Kirsner, Scott (2009-11-08). "To build up real business selling virtual goods, firms change tactics". Boston.com. Retrieved 2023-01-03.
  10. darlynd (September 2012). "Interview with Zorpia Ceo, Jeffrey Ng". Studymode. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  11. "To face it or not - that is the question". Times of Malta. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
  12. "Jak dnes fungují sociální sítě?". Lupa. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
  13. "Zorpia India: Fastest Growing Social Network 2009-2010". altnews.asia. February 25, 2011. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  14. Andrew Moran (February 21, 2013). "Reinvigorating the social networking experience with Zorpia". Digital Journal. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  15. "Websites struggle to attract local users". The Myanmar Times. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
  16. "Can u speak teenager?". The Telegraph. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
  17. "Zorpia.com". Alexa. Archived from the original on January 3, 2021. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  18. Hamish McKenzie (August 7, 2012). "Friend-Finding Social Network Zorpia Is No Facebook, But At Least It Has Friends In China". PandoDaily. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  19. "Blumberg Capital on CNN Money: SXSW Through a VC's Eyes". YouTube. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  20. "《鲁豫有约》2008年02月19日". YouTube. Retrieved April 8, 2013.
  21. "Is it relevant to hit the unsusbscribe button in an email which looks like spam?". superuser / StackExchange. Jan 23, 2013. Retrieved July 19, 2017.
  22. "Zorpia.com and granting Google Account Permissions without being notified". GMail help forum. May 2, 2015. Retrieved July 19, 2017.
  23. "How do I cancel a zorpia account?". GMail help forum. September 20, 2012. Retrieved July 19, 2017.
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