<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"A profile of Faceparty, written by Sid Yadav.\nFaceparty is one of the oldest social networking sites still in operation, with its launch dating back to August 2000. Currently serving 6 million users with approximately 5,000 new registrations daily, Faceparty was once a leader in its space.  However, the arrival of stronger players like MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, hi5, Piczo and Bebo has sidelined Faceparty over recent years.  The company is headquartered in Essex, UK, and although Faceparty has a global user base, its marketing is focused on the London area, where it's responsible for organizing events such as the Hamsters of Rock festivals. The service has also been a part of many discussions and controversies around the topic of teens and their use of the site. It has since changed its minimum age to 16 to accommodate this.\nFaceparty Profiles\nA typical Faceparty profile consists of 5\u00A0possible sections, visible depending on what the user has chosen to fill in. These include: About Me, Vital Statistics, My Favorites, My Friends' Profiles, and Final Thoughts. Unlike other social networks, namely Facebook and MySpace, Faceparty doesn't provide a comments section in the profiles (known as 'The Wall' in Facebook and 'scraps' in several others) - something that has turned out to be quite a popular and useful feature amongst the users. There is a blogging feature, but this is limited to paid accounts.  Although profiles provide some basic customization, like choosing between a number of background patterns, they lack the ability to edit the css (ala MySpace layouts) or insert so-called MySpace codes like YouTube videos, MySpace slideshows, MySpace music players or images from Photobucket and ImageShack. \nFaceparty Pictures\nOne of the handy features Faceparty gives users is the ability to upload, manage and share photos. Users can upload them through the web interface or using the phone Photo Txt service. All image formats are accepted, including Photoshop documents, and the service is completely free. For $22/year, users can also purchase the I-Protect service which defends image-theft in all possible ways, including rescanning, screen-captures, and system cache-retrievals. The service works by adding a digital watermark to the image and is useful for ensuring complete privacy of all your images.\nFaceparty Groups\nAllowing users who share similar interests to meet and discuss, Faceparty Groups has been a popular feature within the community. Users can create their own groups as well as join existing ones. Typical groups focus around colleges, universities, bands and celebrities.  What's more, companies and organizations can also create official groups with a custom design and an additional blog to keep members updated. This is very similar to MySpace marketing.\nFaceparty Party Chat\nA noteworthy feature on Faceparty is Party Chat, a chatroom system where users meet, discuss and participate. There are two types of chat-rooms in Party Chat: Text Rooms and 3D Rooms. A Text Room is a normal chat room which users can join. The interaction is of a conventional chat room, i.e. text-based. 3D rooms on the other hand are interactive and Flash-based where users are given a prop and join 'realms,' with the ability to initiate actions such as dancing, waving, smiling, and winking - it's like a mini version of Habbo Hotel, Cyworld or Gaia Online. Users can also maintain a buddy list and find other users based on their gender, sexuality, age, country and region.\nFaceparty Cool Tools\nFor $30/year, users can choose to enable 'Cool Tools' which are a set of premium tools that extend the feature-set Faceparty provides. Included in the package are:\n\nUndercover Agent - Lets you find out who has been on your profile recently and who has added you to their buddy list in Party Chat.  \nTheme Builder (and additional 3D logos) - A tool to customize your profile, create 3D logos, add animated-text and make duo-tone web backgrounds.  \nKeyword Search - Extended version of their search tool to give you much more precise searching options and results.  \nPowerful Picture Tools - A web-based picture editor which lets you crop, rotate, resize, and add special effects to your images.  \nMessaging Mischief - A tool that lets you find out when your messages are read and also add personal and animated greetings to them.  \nCharactershop and Identity Kit - Lets you build your own character from over 100 million combinations and more photos with templates.  \nInteractive Filter - Lets you control who can or can't interact with you based on age or gender.  \nChat Room Controls - Lets you make your own chat rooms and add themes and chat icons.\n\nSummary\nFaceparty is an interesting social network with a broad range of features and tools.  It retains a fairly substantial user base, but its market share has been largely eroded by newer players. Although, it isn't hard to see why Faceparty lost out: while MySpace and Facebook offer all their features for free, Faceparty's business model and revenue stream seem outdated. Nonetheless, the company is getting with the times - it plans to launch music and video uploads later this year.\n\nAttention Faceparty Users!\nMashable's Faceparty account is at faceparty.com/mashable - feel free to add Mashable to your friends list!\n\n\nA Faceparty Profile\n\nA Faceparty Group"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2006/09/03/faceparty-profile/>