improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . learn how and when to remove these template messages this article does not cite any sources . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . july 2008 learn how and when to remove this template message this article may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with wikipedia s quality standards . you can help . the discussion page may contain suggestions . january 2014 learn how and when to remove this template message communities.com headquarters cupertino california united states website www.communities.com communities.com is a non commercial advertisement free internet social networking website that started in 1996 and is considered the first social network website in the world . citation needed also it is one of the oldest social network websites still operating . contents 1 history 2 website outages 3 references 4 external links history edit communities.com was originally funded by softbank the japanese investment bank with an initial 120 million investment . by 2000 a total of approximately 200 million was invested and the company had over 200 employees . it is widely acknowledged as the first social network in the world . the site grew to over 5 million registered users and it is estimated communities.com was the largest social network until myspace exceeded its size some years later . communities.com was originally located across from apple headquarters in cupertino california . at the time communities purchased a number of high profile internet companies including microcosm onlive and the palace . in late 2000 communities.com pulled their ipo with an initial 2.1 billion valuation . six months later open text corporation made a 1.5 million investment citation needed before the company filed chapter 7 in 2001 . a communities.com junior employee who made less than 50 000 a year purchased the social network for approximately 30 000 out of bankruptcy . citation needed patrick and ingemar who are said to have bought the domain . as per patrick the domain was first registered in 1995 by electric communities inc. who had over 100 million in venture capital . when electric communities filed chapter 11 and ceased all business operations including running the web sites communities.com and thepalace.com . the palace was and still is a popular chat client developed by electric communities . both domains communities.com and thepalace.com were dropped anyone who wants can register them again and the domains will be theirs . both domains were immediately picked up by someone or some company and sold at two different auctions vague . he who continued running the site and it is now run by a group of volunteers . timeframe the site communities.com was sold at a separate auction which patrick and ingemar started with an offer of 5 . they later purchased communities.com at a much higher price vague but still cheap why . in 2001 they had almost finished their studies they felt that they could and should do something good with communities.com according to whom ; making an international community site where people from the whole world could come together and chat and have fun . so they developed an advanced community site instead . since then the site is highly moderated by volunteer administrators . all pictures uploaded need to be manually authorized . the site has users from 185 countries with the highest number of users from sweden followed by usa uk and canada . website outages edit communities.com experienced server problems in september through october 2011 . as per one declaration by site admins there has been a major breakdown of servers of this site due to which users are unable to log in to communities.com . citation needed by the end of october 2011 new servers had been installed and the site was working efficiently once again . communities.com was also down for a period of time vague when the storm hurricane sandy hit the new york area . the site was down for quite some time as it was being shifted to a new server according to the site s admins . it is again up online as on date 03 feb 2016 . however many old users are not aware about its status and may never return . references edit this section is empty . you can help by adding to it . february 2014 external links edit official website the true history a chronology of communities.com posted on 14 november 2000 by handle the ace of nines originally at fuckedcompany.com s message boards after electric communities filed chapter 11 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title communities.com & oldid 718114862 categories social networking serviceshidden categories articles lacking sources from july 2008all articles lacking sourceswikipedia articles needing rewrite from january 2014all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from october 2011articles with unsourced statements from january 2013all articles with specifically marked weasel worded phrasesarticles with specifically marked weasel worded phrases from october 2011all wikipedia articles needing clarificationwikipedia articles needing clarification from january 2014articles with specifically marked weasel worded phrases from january 2014articles with unsourced statements from january 2014articles to be expanded from february 2014all articles to be expandedarticles with empty sections from february 2014all articles with empty sectionsarticles using small message boxes navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 1 may 2016 at 16 34 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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