JEFFREY S. PETERSON was the original founder of Quepasa Corporation, a Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange traded company (Nasdaq: QPSA, NYSE Euronext: QPSA) that was the first nationally branded, publicly traded online community for English and Spanish speaking Hispanics in the USA. Under Peterson’s leadership, during a period of approximately ten years commencing at the dawn of the .COM “internet boom” of the late 1990’s, Quepasa became a nationally known public company while achieving a peak stock market capitalization in excess of $450 million.
Mr. Peterson is a lifelong software engineer and data architect who has received national and international media attention for his accomplishments in the technology sector. Key investors in Quepasa included institutional investors Sony Corp., Fidelity, Telemundo, football star John Elway, Gateway Computer Company (now a subsidiary of Acer) and pop superstar Gloria Estefan. Quepasa was continually ranked as the #1 U.S. Hispanic online community, beating competitors Starmedia and Yahoo! en Español in competitive rankings. At Quepasa, Peterson was the largest single shareholder and held the positions of Founder, CEO, Chairman, President, and Chief Technology Officer.
in 2012 Quepasa changed its name to MeetMe.com and continued trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. MeetMe subsequently acquired the Skout, Tagged, and hi5 social networks.
Quepasa maintains its place in history as the first nationally-branded, well known online community for bilingual Hispanic internet users, and the first Social Network to trade publicly on a Stock Exchange in the United States.