Quepasa Corporation was a US-based

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...

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 and later revived by its founder as a

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods fo ...

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

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

/ Spanish language U.S.

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties for ...

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

About

Founded in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) 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 1 ...

, and later with headquarters in West Palm Beach,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

(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 ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

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, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lagoon. The populati ...

. In 1998 Quepasa raised US$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 owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...

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 Arizo ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

n president

Jose Maria Figueres Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ''Yose'', which is etymologically linked to ''Yosef'' or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods. * Jose ben Abin * Jose ben Akabya *Jose the Galil ...

and former CNBC chief business commentator William Siedman joined the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit orga ...

. 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 investme ...

on the

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

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. 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. During the dot.com b ...

and Terra. Shares of Quepasa rose on

to a market value of $400 million at their peak. In 2010, an article published by

Adweek ''Adweek'' is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. ''Adweek'' covers creativity, client–agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has cover ...

noted "record setting numbers for Quepasa" in a "fierce latin social networking climate" with

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

, 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 Mentez is a Latin American-focused social network game publisher based in Miami. Mentez is significant because the company is the leading social game publisher in Latin America, a rapidly growing social network and gaming area of the world. Paym ...

, a

Latin American Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-e ...

-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 The domain name .com is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Added at the beginning of 1985, its name is derived from the word ''commercial'', indicating its original intended purpose for domains registere ...

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 listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...

and

proxy fight A proxy fight, proxy contest or proxy battle (sometimes even called a proxy war) is an unfriendly contest for the control over an organization. The event usually occurs when a corporation's stockholders develop opposition to some aspect of the cor ...

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

on May 4, 2011, Renren 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 stock exchange 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