Xanga, which ranks among the world's largest social networks, launched a new section of the site today. Xanga Pulse is a mini-blog that lets users post messages of up to 140 characters - it's designed, they say, to make blog posting less daunting. More importantly, perhaps, it's designed for use with cellphones: users can send updates, musings and life commentary via a text message and have it appear on Pulse. It's a very similar idea to the Twitter service from Obvious Corp (soon to be the ex-owners of Odeo, if they can find a buyer).
You can also include an image in your posting, and receive comments back from your readers. All the Pulse entries from the network are aggregated on one page ,although presumably you can opt out of this using Xanga's extensive privacy settings.
Xanga is a real puzzle: rarely talked about, but seemingly a massive force in social networking. And yet, there are only a handful of Mashable readers we know of who are dedicated Xangans, and we rarely receive emails about it. Almost certainly, this is something to do with the Xanga culture: it just seems impenetrable to outsiders.
Xanga recently launched Xanga Videos and Xanga Audio. The site was also fined last year over child privacy (although it was really a technicality), and added more advanced privacy features.