Quepasa Corporation was a US-based

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

technology company catering to Latino Audiences worldwide. Quepasa owned and operated Quepasa.com, a social network, Quepasa Games (formerly Techfront), a social game development studio, and Quepasa Contests, a social media advertising solution (formerly Quepasa DSM). Initially founded as a Hispanic

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

and later revived by its founder as a

social network A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

that grew to over 30 million users, Quepasa was the first publicly traded company focused on the

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

English/

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

language U.S.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

internet

demographic Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

. In 2012, Quepasa suspended operations after a $100 million acquisition, name change and sale to MeetMe.

About

Founded in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...

, and later with headquarters in

West Palm Beach West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is located immediately to the west of the adjacent Palm Beach, Florida, Palm Beach, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lag ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

(with offices in Scottsdale, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Mexico), Quepasa Corporation owned Quepasa.com, one of the world's largest, bicultural and bilingual Latino Social Networks on-line. Quepasa.com, and sister site Corazones.com served users in the U.S., Mexico, Latin America and the world in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. In July, 2011, the company merged with teen social network myYearbook

History

Quepasa Corporation was founded by Jeffrey Peterson and co-founded by Michael Silberman in 1997. The company was headquartered in

, with offices in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and

West Palm Beach, Florida West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is located immediately to the west of the adjacent Palm Beach, Florida, Palm Beach, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lag ...

. In 1998 Quepasa raised

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

20 million from private investors, including television broadcaster

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It provides content ...

and Phoenix sports businessman

Jerry Colangelo Jerry Colangelo (born November 20, 1939) is an American businessman and sports executive. He formerly owned the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, the Arizona Sandsharks of the Continental Indoor Soccer League, the A ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

n president Jose Maria Figueres and former CNBC chief business commentator William Siedman joined the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

. Quepasa had its

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

on the

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

Stock Market on June 24, 1999, selling 4.6 million shares at $12 per share. During the first two weeks the value increased to $26 per share. By July 1999, Quepasa had raised over $100 million. Quepasa shares registered billions of dollars per month in trading volume on

during the dot-com Internet boom. In July 2011, the company led a merger with myYearbook a teen focused social network.

Growth

In 1999 Quepasa invested tens of millions of dollars in thousands of outdoor Spanish-language billboard advertisements, network radio promotions and various national television brand-building campaigns featuring the music of its corporate spokesperson and investor,

Gloria Estefan Gloria María Milagrosa Estefan (; ; born September 1, 1957) is an American singer, actress, and businesswoman. Estefan is an eight-time Grammy Awards, Grammy Award winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and has been named one of t ...

. At the peak of the Internet boom in the year 2000, market research firm Cheskin Research ranked Quepasa as the most popular destination for U.S. Hispanics, despite costly marketing campaigns by

Starmedia StarMedia (stylized as starMedia) is a Latin American Internet brand, co-founded in August 1996 by Fernando Espuelas and Jack Chen as the first pan-regional Internet portal for Spanish and Portuguese speaking audiences. History During the do ...

and

Terra Terra may often refer to: * Terra (mythology), primeval Roman goddess * An alternate name for planet Earth, as well as the Latin name for the planet Terra may also refer to: Geography Astronomy * Terra (satellite), a multi-national NASA scient ...

. Shares of Quepasa rose on

to a market value of $400 million at their peak. In 2010, an article published by Adweek noted "record setting numbers for Quepasa" in a "fierce latin social networking climate" with

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, Hi5, Tagged.com, Sonico and others. In 2011 Quepasa announced a partnership with PRISA Digital, a Spanish media conglomerate. The agreement designates PRISA as a reseller of Quepasa advertising products. In 2011, Quepasa also acquired XtFt Games, owner of Brazil-based social game development studio TechFront. In May 2011 Quepasa launched its first social gaming title after the acquisition, Wonderful City - Rio, on Quepasa.com and Orkut.com. Quepasa launched the game in partnership with Mentez, a

Latin American Latin Americans (; ) are the citizenship, citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their Latin American diaspora, diasporas are Metroethnicity, ...

-focused

game publisher based in Miami.

Management controversy

Shortly after Quepasa went public in late 1999, Quepasa founder Jeffrey Peterson was ousted by a new CEO while co-founder Michael Silberman remained during a short transition period. During the .com bust of 2001, Quepasa shares lost practically all of their value on

. When existing management attempted to liquidate company assets, Peterson with Silberman gained control of Quepasa through a successful hostile

takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast to the acquisi ...

and

proxy fight A proxy fight, proxy contest or proxy battle is an unfriendly contest for control over an organization. The event usually occurs when a corporation's stockholders develop opposition to some aspect of the corporate governance, often focusing on dir ...

subsequent to a lawsuit filed against the company and the current board of directors by Silberman. Peterson was reinstated in 2002 as chairman and CEO and Silberman as the executive vice president, chief financial officer and secretary of the company. The company was rebuilt and the share value during the following two-year period increased to $12 per share.

Events

*June, 1997: Quepasa is incorporated as Internet Century Inc. The business is initially operated as a high end web applications developer, with offices in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Los Angeles, California. *December 18, 1998: Changes name to Quepasa.com, Inc. *June 24, 1999: Quepasa goes public on

, selling 4 million shares at $12. *August 2, 1999: New Quepasa CEO Gary Trujillo fires founder Peterson, accusing him of starting a competing venture. *September, 1999: Quepasa signs

as its spokesperson, partner, and investor *March, 2000: Gateway Computer invests $10 million in Quepasa *April 17, 2000: Cheskin Research ranks Quepasa as #1 for U.S. Hispanics online *June, 2002: Founder Jeffrey Peterson and co-founder Michael Silberman again gain control of Quepasa through a takeover, reorganizing the business *December, 2002: co-founder Michael Silberman resigns as executive vice president, chief financial officer, and secretary and is appointed as the chairman of the audit committee by the board of directors. *August, 2005: Quepasa launches its

site, allowing users to switch between its news portal and the social site, formerly named ''w1'' because it used to reside in subdomain (www1.quepasa.com). *March, 2006: Billionaire investor Richard Scott acquires stake in Quepasa

First publicly traded social network

In 2010 and 2011, several media publications reported that Quepasa was the "only publicly traded social network" meaning Quepasa was the only social network trading on a

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for ...

at that time. Later in 2011, an article claimed that following its

on May 4, 2011,

Renren The Renren Network ( zh, s=人人网, hp=Rénrénwǎng, l=Everyone's Network), formerly known as the Xiaonei Network ( zh, c=校内网, hp=Xiàonèiwǎng, l=on-campus network, links=no), was a Chinese social networking service similar to Facebo ...

became the first publicly traded social network. Yet at the time of RenRen's IPO, Quepasa was already a well-known publicly traded company with over 30 million users on its social network that had been operating since at least 2006. This is especially noteworthy as the

for the best-known social network in history,

, was Friday, May 18, 2012, a year after RenRen's IPO. If these historical dates prove correct, Quepasa may have been the first

to go public and trade on a

in history.

References

{{Reflist

External links

QuepasaMeetMe
Social media companies of the United States Internet search engines Web portals Internet properties established in 1997 1997 establishments in Arizona Chicano Companies based in Palm Beach County, Florida 1999 initial public offerings 2011 mergers and acquisitions West Palm Beach, Florida