Blogging and social networking service Xanga.com, once an Alexa traffic rank front runner, seems to be making no progress in stopping the great exodus of its users to newer and trendier social networks.

A quick glance at Xanga's Alexa traffic graph shows just how serious their problem is:

Although Xanga was one of the most popular blogging services available in years past, it seems they have failed to capitalize on the new Web 2.0 social networking boom. Despite the addition of social networking profiles, photos, videos, and audio to their core blogging service, consistent traffic growth has eluded Xanga.

Even more astonishing is the fact that major drops in Xanga traffic seem to be directly related to the meteoric growth of social networking giants MySpace and Facebook. The graph below shows just how strong the correlation appears to be:

However, Xanga's traffic woes do not seem to be shared by other major blogging services. Blogger and LiveJournal have both flat-lined in their growth, yet seem to have been able to retain their users.

A possible explanation might be that Xanga has deviated from its original purpose of providing a high quality blogging service, and has instead tried to duplicate the features of successful new startup services.

I cannot see Xanga usurping Facebook or MySpace as a major social networking force, especially because user loyalty at those networks is so high. It would probably be best for Xanga if they focused on their core blogging service and left social networking to the big boys.