The Site Most Resembling Multiply Is...

In my hunt for a new online home I've found only one site which offers the customization features of Multiply. That site is Xanga, one I'd barely ever heard mentioned before. I'm not saying it's the only one in existence, just that it is the only one I've found. Here's why it resembles Multiply more than any other site I've found so far:

• Custom CSS: Almost unlimited ability to customize any and every part of your site. There's also a decent "point and click" editor to take care of the basics like text colors, font colors, background, etc...
• Editable Page Layouts: You can choose from a single content column or double, left or right rail orientation, and you can move content from one column to another as you see fit.
• Content Boxes: Yes, each specific type of content has it's own box, called a module instead of an itembox. You can position them anywhere on your page, in any column, in any order. You can control how the content is displayed, either list or grid (table). You can control how many of each specific type of post are displayed in each box. You can even edit the title of the box.
• Custom Modules: Much like the Tagged Content Boxes on Multiply, but without the automatic functionality of adding specific tags. You can do that yourself with regular HTML links however, or add anything you want in the box with HTML. It is as customizable as any other module.
• Chatboard: Xanga's version of a guestbook. It can be added to your main page and positioned anywhere just like the other modules. Content display is also customizable.
• Content Types: Very similar to Multiply, but with different names. Pulse (Notes) Weblog (Blog), Photos, Videos, even Audio although my experiments there are taking forever to transcode even relatively small audio files
• Inbox: Xanga has an inbox page very similar to Multiply's inbox as far as functionality goes. I'm unable to fully test it as I have no contacts there.

Xanga very much resembles Multiply in appearance if that's what you're looking for, and the customization ability is very similar as well. There are some drawbacks like low upload limits and storage, but there are Premium plans available to help compensate although they aren't as well priced as Multiply's Premium. Overall it's a pretty familiar look and feel once you learn your way around. Privacy settings are not quite up to par, but not horrible either. You basically have three choices; nobody sees the post except you, everybody sees the post, or only those Xanga members on your "Protected" list can see it. Currently you are allowed only one list but staff have alluded to the possibility of that changing in the near future.

One other note, there are no real Groups, if groups are important then don't bother. As near as I can tell there are no actual Groups to which you can post group specific content. In fact I'd go as far as saying Xanga's groups are a flat out fail.

So there you have it. My test Xanga is here if you want to see what it looks like. It may look horrible, it may not. I can't resist playing with CSS to see what changes I can effect and how varying or detailed those changes can be, so you may catch me in the middle of playing and find a hideously ugly site.