Quepasa
Encyclopedia
Quepasa Corporation is a US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

-based social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...

 technology company catering to Latin Audiences worldwide. Quepasa owns and operates 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)

About

Headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida (with offices in Scottsdale, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Mexico), Quepasa Corporation owns Quepasa.com, one of the world's largest, bicultural & bilingual Latino Social Networks on-line. Quepasa.com, and sister site Corazones.com serves 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
MyYearbook
-History:myYearbook was initially created by two high school students, David and Catherine Cook, and their older brother Geoff, during Spring Break of 2005. Catherine persuaded Geoff, who founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a dorm in 1997, to invest in their project...


History

Quepasa Corporation was founded by Jeffrey Peterson
Jeffrey Peterson
Jeffrey Peterson is an American technology entrepreneur and Arizona millionaire who is considered the pioneer of Hispanic Internet in the United States...

 in 1997. The Company is headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and is the most populous city in and county seat of Palm Beach County, the third most populous county in Florida with a 2010 population of 1,320,134. The city is also the oldest incorporated municipality in South Florida...

.

In 1998 Quepasa raised US$20 million from private investors, including television broadcaster Telemundo
Telemundo
Telemundo is an American television network that broadcasts in Spanish. The network is the second-largest Spanish-language content producer in the world, and the second-largest Spanish-language network in the United States, behind Univision....

 and Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

 sports businessman Jerry Colangelo
Jerry Colangelo
Jerry Colangelo , 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 Arizona Rattlers of the Arena Football League and the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major...

. Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

n President Jose Maria Figueres
José María Figueres
José María Figueres Olsen , is a Costa Rican politician, businessman and international expert on Sustainable Development and Technology...

 and former CNBC Chief Business Commentator William Siedman joined the Board of Directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

.

Quepasa had its Initial Public Offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...

 on the Nasdaq
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 Stock Market on June 24, 1999, selling 4.6 million shares at $12 per share. By July 1999, Quepasa had raised over $100 million. Quepasa shares registered billions
1000000000 (number)
1,000,000,000 is the natural number following 999,999,999 and preceding 1,000,000,001.In scientific notation, it is written as 109....

 of dollars per month in trading volume on Nasdaq
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 during the dot-com Internet boom.

In July 2011, the company led a merger with myYearbook
MyYearbook
-History:myYearbook was initially created by two high school students, David and Catherine Cook, and their older brother Geoff, during Spring Break of 2005. Catherine persuaded Geoff, who founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a dorm in 1997, to invest in their project...

 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 Estefan
Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...

.

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
StarMedia is a leading Latin 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...

 and Terra. Shares of Quepasa rose on Nasdaq
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 to a market value of $400 million at their peak.

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 of 2011 Quepasa launched its first social gaming title after the acquisition, Wonderful City - Rio, on Quepasa.com and Orkut. Quepasa launched the game in partnership with Mentez
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...

, a Latin American-focused social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...

 game publisher based in Miami.

Management controversy

Shortly after Quepasa went public in late 1999, Quepasa founder Jeffrey Peterson
Jeffrey Peterson
Jeffrey Peterson is an American technology entrepreneur and Arizona millionaire who is considered the pioneer of Hispanic Internet in the United States...

 was ousted by a new CEO.

During the .com
.com
The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations...

 bust of 2001, Quepasa shares lost practically all of their value on Nasdaq
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

. When existing management attempted to liquidate company assets, Peterson gained control of Quepasa through a successful hostile takeover
Takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company by another . In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to the acquisition of a private company.- Friendly takeovers :Before a bidder makes an offer for another...

 and proxy fight
Proxy fight
A proxy fight or proxy battle is an event that may occur when a corporation's stockholders develop opposition to some aspect of the corporate governance, often focusing on directorial and management positions. Corporate activists may attempt to persuade shareholders to use their proxy votes A proxy...

. He was reinstated in 2002 as Chairman and CEO.

Events


Developments

  • August, 2005: Quepasa launches its social network
    Social network
    A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...

    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).
  • February 2, 2008: Quepasa gets rid of the news portal side of the site and positions the site as a Latino social network.
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